Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok.. Here's the story... One of my boas is acting really messed up all of a sudden.. I recently bought some new Boaphile tub racks, and was going through putting animals into them.. I have 2 juvie boas which I have been housing together.. Thew're both under 2ft, one was produced by my boyfriend last year, another is one I picked up from my work(I work in a petstore) about 4 months ago.. The snake I bought from my store is the one acting very IBD like very suddenly. After putting both of them into their new tub, I went back and opened their tub again a few minutes later to pick up and look at my favorite one(the one acting very messed up).. Immediately after picking it up, it began spazzing out(best I can describe it).. Flailing head around, rolling it upside down, acting like it didnt know which way was up.. Not in the manner that snakes sometimes do when they freak out about being picked up, but in a more rolling motion. I immediately put it back down, and it continued doing this, just with its head, not its whole body rolling or anything... This snake has been fine the entire time I have had it.. It fed last weekend, and is in perfect weight and health.. It showed no signs of this last time I checked on it.. The snake it is with isn't showing any of this either.. I noticed they had spilled their water bowl recently, and some black mold was growing on that section of the paper towel. Maybe this is a sign of mold poisoning? God I hope so and not IBD picked up from wherever this boa came from originally. But like I said, the other boa it is housed with currently is showing no signs of anything, given I know IBD can remain dormant for however long. As soon as I saw this snake doing this, I grabbed their tub, and ran down to my basement where it is residing on a heating pad until further notice. Any ideas here? Nothing in my collection is acting out of the ordinary, just this boa..
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"Land of the Free, because of the Brave"

DarkWave Exotics

Currently keeping:
1.1 southern scrub pythons
1 green tree python
1.1 reticulated pythons
1.0 albino burmese python
1.0 irian jaya carpet python
0.1 sumatran blood python
1.0 green anaconda
1.0 emerald tree boas
2.2 colombian redtail boas
1.0 sonoran boa
1.0 cancun boa
1.2 normal and albino whitewater rosy boas
1.1 albino and het chinese beauty snakes
2.2 taiwan beauties
1.0 cave beauty snake
2.1 western hognose
1.1 eastern blackneck gartersnakes
0.1 anery plains garter
1.0 christmas albino plains garter
1.0 sonoran gopher snake
1 tiger leg monkey frog
2 colorado river toads
1 bearded dragons
9 leopard geckos
1.1 central american banded geckos
1.0.3 tucson banded geckos
0.1 nile monitor
1.0 savannah monitor
0.1 russian tortoise

And various Fish, Exotic Mammals, and Birds..

But I hope you the best , Did you maybe have them in a vary hot location? may cook the brains on the one? Sounds like something bad, the only way to test for IBD is puting him down and have the test done by someone with experience.

Good idea to quarentine him , I would quarentine the other as well, that stuff spreads even by contact, hand to hand or even mites, I have been fortunate to not have that and I continue to pray that I don't.

Good luck

Nick

I agree that excessive heat can cause similar symptoms. I exposed a few boas to way too much heat once when I was adjusting a new rack - just forgot to monitor it close enough and ended up having a high spot temp of 127 F for maybe a couple of hours.. (now I know to do all the adjusting BEFORE exposing any boas to the new environment..) needless to say, both (only two were affected) had neurological problems and I was so freaked out that I almost immediately euthanised (SP?) one because it looked so bad. the other seemed less affected and I kept her for another couple of months to see if she would clear up and during that time she went through three separate sheds back to back - as soon as the first shed was complete she clouded up again for another shed - three times!.. and her neurological symptoms remained as well. I eventually let her go too. anyway, just wanted to throw that out. I was really puzzled by the three sheds.. has anyone else heard of that?

Patrick

First of all, " I am not a vet. " I am a breeder and a reptile keeper that tries to self eduacate as much as possible. Alot of things that I have learned in the last 17yrs has been the hard way and I have experianced this; supposed I.B.D. or Inclusion Body Disease, first hand. I have had conversations in the past with Doctor Elliot Jacobson and some of his colleagues and after witnessing this tragedy in my own collection years ago, I have came to some of my own conclusions. I do not believe that the presence of Inclusion Bodies in a supposed snake being autopsied is necessarily meaning that the animal died of I.B.D. Inclusion Bodies naturally occur anyway, even in humans and other species. I do not put alot of faith in I.B.D. and the research on I.B.D. has been VERY POORLY funded and to me it is to inconclusive. I do, TOTALLY believe that there is serious viruses, retro and otherwise that can run through a collection and destroy it.In 1994, I had an extraordinary collection of Suriname boas. Most of them were captive born and raised. I kept my snakes IMMACULANT.The water bowls were and still are changed every: Mon-Wed and Fri and they were cleaned IMMEDIATELY after any urate or defecation. My husbandry, has always been wonderful. I purchased a adult captive Suriname boa from a very " reputable " person and quarantined her for 6 months. She did fine and then totally did a 180 turn. I watched her flop and flip and lay on her back and two weeks later, she was dead! Two months later, everything in my boa collection was DEAD!! Inclusion Bodies were found in all of them, but it was a Retro Virus that killed them. I will tell you my " OPINION " on something. We use to think in the old days that; " Wild caught animals were causing all these problems. " I am sure that everyone has different experiances, but mine is that; " Every animal that has ever died in my collection has been a captive born and raised animal. " In short; " Give your animals the best choices you can give them and keep a CLEAN enviroment ALWAYS! Remember also how important quarantine is, anymore I give a new animal AT LEAST a year before I even dream of putting it in general population! These small little practices can definately increase your chances of keeping disease out of your collection. Nothing, can stop it completely.........Johnson Herp

thier immune systems are weaker and cannot fight off these invisable viruses? I used to get a lot of wild caught snakes to breed into my c.b's just to strengthen the gene pool. So many breeders , even big timers do not support other breeders in the act of buyer thier snakes to out cross blood lines, the only snakes baught from breeders are those high end stuff and they have been inbred probably several times.
So maybe it does have something to do with inbreeding and not outcrossing as much as poss.

JMO,
Nick

It is probably a mixture of alot of things and with captives it can usually be traced back to husbandry errors " maybe as far back as the breeder that started the particular bloodline in the first place! " With imports, it usually starts with the hunter. It seems that the importers are getting more responsible than they use to " sometimes. " Hunters have been known to put several snakes in a bag and tie them to a tree for weeks while they go out in search for more. Meanwhile, the ones in the bag have been defecateing and urateing on each other all of that time and that just breeds disaster before the exporters ever even get them in! Alot, of these " Killer Viruses " could have very well been started by the import animals that were treated in this matter, " who knows?? " I do believe that; wild animals are able to deal with viruses and pathogens much more than captives. Instead of worrying about thin saddles and no speckling and all that crap, we should be worried about crossing stronger genes into these captive populations to keep them strong for many generations to come........Johnson Herp