Reptile & Amphibian Forums

you seem to be the most knowledgeable person about most areas pertaining to bp's on the forum ,so im asking you. IBD is the only thing about my bp's that i fear them getting from a new snake,im not worried about mouthrot or an RI because i dont put them in a situation to get those illnesses, but i always quarantine my new bp's for a minimum of 3 months but mainly because of IBD. so what other health issues should i be looking for besides IBD,RI's,and external parasites that can be passed along from bp-bp what other potential problems would/should require a 3-6 month quarantine procedure and what should i keep a lookout for all my snakes are housed seperatly in sterilite containers i use cardboard inserts for a ground medium and they each have a small cat litter pan for water. all my newbies are on a different level of the house i have NEVER had a mite on any animal i own, just the occasional tick which i pluck immediatly and then spray mite off on the snake and in the housing

Sorry, I'm really not that knowledgeable about IBD or anything.

I did hear my vet saying something about half the boas he tested having IBD but I get the idea it kills pythons much quicker (and hence is much rarer in pythons). The curse of boas is actually that they can live long enough to pass it to breeding partners and even babies I think. Three month quarantine for pythons sounds good to me but hopefully a real expert on the subject can chime in.

Thanks anyway Randy

I don't know if this will help but check this link

http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/PDFs/hygiene_protocol_snakes.pdf

It says it's unknown but I can tell you from experience that several years ago I had it run through my facility and it took out everything from 20ft to hatchling in a matter of a couple weeks (I was mainly breeding burms at the time and it came in with a rescue case as near as we could figure). I fully admit it was my fault and a very devastating lesson to learn. Everything gets a 90 day quarentine now, minimum. It is probably one of the scariest things out there.

Sean
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Heart Mountain Herps

did you notice anything like mites or ticks on the animal. now you said it was your fault how so, where did you keep the animal in reference to the other animals in the facility i think there is not enough emphasis put on this subject and i think it can be very beneficial to every1 to learn all they can about this subject

Yes, I would also be very interested in how you think it was spread around your colony so quickly. I realize this is a touchy subject and appreciate your candor to come forward and let others benefit from your loss. I think my vet compared it to AIDS so I got the idea they are thinking it takes blood transfer like with mites or breeding or live bearing mother to baby but early on there was speculation it might even be airborne. Does anyone know if we can rule out airborne yet?

I know that controlling mites can be a big problem from my days with Burmese so I'm not pointing fingers. With my wooden cages for the big guys I practically had to nuke the place just to finally get my small collection clean and then next time I ordered a new snake I had it all over again. Fortunately I've now been mite free for about 10 years but I know how it can happen and can't imagine how hard it would be to clean out of a large collection of wooden caged snakes.

I just built a rack made of wood i will probably give it a good 2x over with polyurethane to seal the woods pores,is it possible for mites to already be in the wood that you get from say lowes or home depot or do they have to already in the house then lay eggs in the wood like i said i have never had a mite so am i in the clear or should i invest in some provent a mite and spray the enclosures and the wood rack

No, I don't mind talking about it. Like I said it was years ago so I'm over it now. Basically I had a very poor quarentine procedure. I would put new animals in their own enclosure but that was about it. I would go play with one for a while and then move on to another. I used the same mop bucket and mops/sponges to clean all the cages. I let them freeroam out of the cages for hours in the livingroom. Like I said, really bad quarentine procedures. I had more of a 'pet owner' attitude towards it than a serious breeder attitude. I knew proper quarenting procedures, I just didn't follow them believing it would never happen to me. After it happened I got rid of everything, the animals were all dead (I lost about 30 large burms of various morphs and bloods) and I sent all the cages to the dump. I basically got out of reptiles totally for a few years, partly because of the financial devastation, mostly because of the emotional devastation at the loss and knowing it was my fault. I never saw any mites on them, although I have had to treat large burms for them before and yes it's a pain in the butt. Even when I was ready to get back into reptiles I went with lizards (bearded dragons) and am just now getting to the point where I want to get back into snakes (balls this time though).

Sean
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Heart Mountain Herps

Im sorry to open up an old wound but how long would you say that from the time you brought that sick burm into your facility did your FIRST FEW snakes start showing symptoms of the disease or did they die almost immediatly b4 they showed heavy signs. im trying to develop a timeline from infected animal to signs of disease in other boids to death not just for yours but for anyone. that can be a very powerful tool in containing and preventing and learning about the spread of the disease and the developing a plan of action

It affected the smaller ones and babies first, I'd say about a week or so on them. The medium ones (6-12 ft) held out a little longer and showed a little more symptoms, this is where I sent one off for a necroscopy but I was pretty sure what it was at this point. The big ones (20 ft) held out the longest and showed the most symptoms (signs of RI, mouth rot, total lack of coordination, rolling upside down, tying in knots, striking at thin air, striking at themselves, regurging water, etc. it wasn't pretty). When I got the necroscopy back I only had 2 left, a labrynth albino 21 ft. and my first snake a normal 22 ft. that I had raised from a hatchling and lived in my bedroom, I put them both down at that point (about 3-4 weeks into it). The worst thing about this is that it is 100% fatal, we pumped those two last ones up with just about every drug we could get our hands on and nothing helped.

Sean
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Heart Mountain Herps

So a timeline of approx 2 months to wipe out your collection babies/juveniles showing signs after a few weeks after exposure
so what would u say the incubation time line was for your situation i really appreciate your information on this topic noone really talks about it and i think that is bad, people need to be informed of IBD

No, about a month total to wipe it all out. The rescue came in about a week before I started seeing problems. I think they were all probably exposed to it within the first week, it just took longer as size and weight went up for them to show it or for it to affect them as bad. I can partly see why people don't want to talk about it much but I agree it's something that should be discussed because it could easily affect us all (it could easily be avoided by us all also). I don't know if there has ever been a test developed for it (besides the post mortem one) but if there is one I would definitely put it on the top of my list to get done, especially if you're working with some of the new morphs out there. BTW, I love what you guys have done with ball pythons. It seems like I always had 1 or 2 around but never really thought much of them, well except for when Bob got his albino's, those were just cool lol. I can't wait to get into these now, they're amazing.

Sean
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Heart Mountain Herps

I think my vet was involved in developing a biopsy test for live snakes. Liver I think. It’s basically a surgery. I would think it would be more applicable for boas though if pythons die within a few weeks anyway. Maybe if someone is just starting a boa collection they could use it to clear a small number of founder animals and have a certifiably clean collection.

I forgot to say NEVER take food from a quarantined snakes tank and give it to one of your healthy animals just because you dont want the mouse or rat to go 2 waste

From what i've read symptoms don't appear in some snakes for up to 6 months. The good news (if you can call it that) is that the disease works it's way through pythons faster than boas so a recommended quarantine time is 3-6 months for a python. It's pretty scary when you think about it a trip to the wrong pet store or a reptile show and you may end up killing your snake.
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Tosha

1.1.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy)
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