Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is the I B D virus capable of getting balls also???Im aware of this in boas, but are balls open to this also??? If you have mites in your collection i understand you have a greater risk...what if mites are not involved?

Yes,ball pythons can catch IBD.

From what i hear about it,bp's die very quicky once they are infected(within three months?).Whereas a Boa can be infected and still not show any signs of it for quite sometime.
I myself compare this to the human viris HIV,versus that of a full blown aids case.

As far as mites go...i assume they would transfer ibd around a collection much in the same way that mosquitoes spread Malaria among humans and animals.By blood transferance.
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Charles Glaspie

doh...

I am not sure about the possibility of ibd being transferred from cage to cage without the presence of mites.
Anyone?
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Charles Glaspie

I remember reading that IBD can also be transmitted through body fluids & excrement. So there is a possibility to pass IBD from one snake to another from careless handling. Some suspect it to be airborne but no solid proof of that as far as I know.

Eric

One possibility with boas that live longer with it is that it can be passed via breeding and to babies. In a way we are lucky that balls don't appear to live long with it. After a few months you know your collection is clean. With boas they would need to do liver biopsies since they can even be born with it.

yes, ball pythons can get IBD, but usually can only catch it from a boa.

ball pythons, all pythons really, will all show signs and die from IBD within a matter of a few months.... boa's can have it and carry it for up to 3 years before showing symptoms.

I know it sounds awful, but some boa keepers sometimes have 1 ball python.... if it starts star gazing and dies, they can test it for IBD to see if it's in the rest of the collection.

IBD is spread through fluid transfer of any kind, usually by mites.

We don't know as much as we should about IBD, even though it's rare, it has happened in captive collections I think. The only way to test for it is after death, so until there is a live test, we will be in the dark.

Hope this helped,

Jessy
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1.0 gorgeous spider ball python
2.2 het for axanthic
5.9 normals
www.blazingreptiles.com coming soon!

"We don't know as much as we should about IBD, even though it's rare, it has happened in captive collections I think. The only way to test for it is after death, so until there is a live test, we will be in the dark."

They way I heard it, we don't know where it comes from in the wild, it's only known in captive collections and unfortunately is far from rare in boas.

There is a liver biopsy test that my vet worked on but I saw where some boa breeders don't think it is always accurate.