Yes, there are a lot of accounts and opinions about this subject. I have heard extreme thoughts from both ends of the spectrum, from, "They won't ever get that if they are not exposed to an already infected snake." to, "All burmese morphs and most normals are born with it in their systems and they will get sick and die by age three." Personally,... I think it's unwise to discount ANYTHING on the subject and so I keep my eyes and ears open and soak it all in. I doubt that it's either scenario, though, and I would imagine that the reality is somewhere in the middle and a combination of the two. Honestly,. I think there is something going on that a lot of the big breeders are not talking about that burmese are more susceptible to. I have to admit, I don't see a lot of older, larger burmese morphs. Sure, one or two here and there, but not the thousands I know have been produced each year for the last decade. I do have a lot of big burms and all of them are 100% healthy, but they are all young and most are under 3. The youngest is 14 months. But then again,.. I happen to know personally that burmese as a species are prone to contract RI and are highly susceptible to eventual death. I think it has little to do with morphs, though I CAN see why they might be even less resilient to it due to possibly weaker imunity systems. But honestly,.. all of this is speculation and there is little or no evidence to support it yet. But in the late 80's I got in a single sick female burmese. I didn't detect it right off and I was not quarantining then. I added her to my colony. She began coughing and wheezing that night and within a week other breeders in my colony were showing symptoms. These were severe upper respitory symptoms, violent exhalations of breath, and spewing thick yellow or beige mucus, often as thick as silicone. As I had too many snakes to transport to a vet, I called in a mobile vet. He did cultures, diagnosed it as common "Psuedomonis" (sp?), prescribed Amikacin and also large quantities of electrolytes to counter the subsequent dehydration that accompanies the use of powerful antibiotics. While I treated the sick other pythons came down with this illness. If the sick did show marked improvement it was short lived and they would relapse much worse than before. Breeding was brought to a halt as temps were set for medicating, all clutches in treated females were lost, and the snakes began to die. We tried other antibiotics, Genomicin was one of them. I can't remember the others, but I know there were at least two more. Nothing worked. At the time A.I.D.S. was relatively new in the world so I called this disorder "snake aids". Because once they got it it seemed the only eventual outcome was death. it was only well over a decade later that I read of "Burmese Disease" and in retrospect I seriously wondered if that was part of what was happening. I battled the disease for over 2 years. I sold the unaffected retics and some other species so as to pay for meds for the rest. I was fighting a losing battle. All in all I lost well over 30 burmese alone in the 2 years plus before I gave up. But it killed other species too. Indians, ceylonese, some rocks, and boas were also very susceptible to it. I lost well over 20 adult boas to it. I stopped counting after a while. I eventually sold what remained (maybe 30 or 40 snakes??) and all my cages and equipment, to a guy that was going to try to treat them. He failed soon thereafter. Now,... I could sit here and blame it all on the contagions or diseases,. but that would be too convenient. A lot of what happened was 100% preventable or avoidable. Upon serious reflection I realize just how flawed and unprofessional my setup was then. And this is why this "event" was the extent that it was. Back then I never quarantined. I always do now, regardless of any factors. Back then I often allowed numerous pythons to share each cage, water bowls, etc. Now every snake has their own cage, water bowl and soak tub. Back then I would often allow messes (feces, etc) to remain for days at a time. Now I always clean daily, sometimes numerous times a day. No exception! I never used to sterilyze my reptiles' water bowls, but would clean them only every once in a while. Now I wash them all weekly in an antibacterial/bleach water solution. I never provided suplimental humidity. Now I maintain it at 80 to 90% at all times. And there are many many other things that I did so foolishly back then that I would NEVER do now, but I think that is enough examples. So yes,.. everything that happened to me and my colony then was mostly due to my poor husbandry and lack of a professional system. So, like Hades said,. it isn't very likely that something will happen to your burm. (though I fail to see where she gets her statistics of 99.9% chance) Anything else, like whether or not there may be a disease they are born with in their blood that affects them later in life at age 3,.. I have yet to see evidence of it,.. but my eyes are wide open. And unlike other breeders that may want only to protect their own business/sales, I will tell the world if I discover this to be true. I just think that more of a concerted effort needs to go into serious research. Notes and data need to be analyzed and compared, tallied and logged. I am all for working on a joint project if there is anyone else interested in getting to just the facts.
Sorry for the long post. This just didn't seem like something that could be summed up in a few words.
>>A question for all burm owners...
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>>I just picked up a 5' male ablino burm, but after doing much reading, I'm getting freaked out with all this burmese disease stuff. How common is it, how many of you have older albinos, etc? The hype makes me thing that regardless of what you do, the animal will get sick and die by the time it is 3 years old? I am getting worried, as I would be heartbroken of I put all the time, effort and money into such a snake to have this happen (which I have heard so many stories of from others). Is this worthy of concern, or is it more like IBD and not all that common. Please help to put me at ease here!
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>>Brian
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The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.
