Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey,
This is Tank! I'm gonna miss this little guy. He was and will always be my favorite dude. Rest in peace! He was a Tim Meade male, that I received X-mas eve. I was lucky to have him even for a while.

-Angel


-----
"Until we lose our self, there is no way of finding our self."
-Henry Miller.

I feel bad for your lose. Any pets death is always a sad event be it a cold blooded or warm blooded animal, they warm our hearts alike.

Ive never seen a blood like that one. He sure was something special.

Please keep us updated on the post mortem.

-Dan

Angel. I also lost my Sumatran Blood this year. Tough loss..
That tank was some BLACK looker! What happened?
ax.

Hey Ax,
I wish that I knew, as the whole thing is still an enigma to me. All of the animals were fed on the day of a rodent shipment that I received, from Rodent Pro. About 4 days later, Tank regurged, so I separated him and placed him into a large Rubbermaid container and isolated him from the rest of the breeding-group of females. I noticed that he was behaving a little funny on that day, but was not looking that unusual to really have me worried.

At any rate, as the days went on, he seemed to have picked up what I thought was a repiratory problem as a result of the regurge, so I thought to make an appointment with a vet just in case and take him for a check up, and possible treatment. In that small amount of time, over the weekend, he started to show signs of lose of bowl control -- defecating constantly with loose stools, about every few minutes it seemed. Things didn't seem right, and thought that this is not indicative or symptomatic of a respiratory; there is something else lurking here or underlying that is beyond the scope of what I can treat without a proper diagnosis.

On Sunday, he seemed extremely lethargic and in bad shape. At this point even if I got him to a vet, I didn't think that there would be anything that they could do for him; what ever was plagueing him, was more serious and more virulent than aspirated vomitus into the lungs from the regurge. It just didn't make sense that this totally healthy animal would go from the epitome of health to being inextremis.

Come Monday morning, I had made contact with a very reputable vet out on Long Island, with experience treating herps. However, by 11am, "Tank" had already expired, so now it was no longer a matter of rescuing him, but one of figuring out what the cause of such an acute and complete comprimise of his health is.

None of the other short-tails including the females that he had shared a cage with for that matter, have shown any signs of illness and for all intents continue to appear healthy and are breeding the other male. I am hoping, that there was nothing in the food item fed, that could've caused him to react so violently and with such rapid deterioration.

Tank was taken to the vet, for a post mortem, and samples were sent to a pathologist for testing. One could only hope that there is something that they can give me as far as a report, rather than be left hanging and with no answers as to the mysterious death of such a vibrant and healthy animal as he was. I am still in shock over it. There will never be another short-tail like this guy. Sorry if I sound biased!

Anyhow, that is pretty much all I have at this time. As soon as I get more information about him and possible cause, I'll post it here. Thanks for asking Ax.

-Angel
-----
"Until we lose our self, there is no way of finding our self."
-Henry Miller.

That really was a beautiful snake. Sorry you had to lose him.

n/p