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I have a male captive bred BCC (who has been quarantined at another facility) showing the classic signs of IBD--loss of motor control, trouble inverting when placed on his back, etc. Anyway, I'm curious as to possible vectors. This is a long term captive so I'm curious as to how he possibly could have come down with this. I have not added any snakes to my collection in the past eight months. Anyway, a question, I know this is a very contagious disease, but if I haven't seen the symptoms manifest themselves in any other parts of my collection since first noticing this in the male (2 month ago or there abouts) am I in the clear? I have cleaned and disinfected all the cages in my collection as well. Any comments, suggestions etc., are welcomed as I am obviously very concerned and am trying to deal with this as best as possible.

Thanks,
Gabriel...

The snake needs to see a vet. There are many possibilities.If the snake is acting in this manner, he obviously has some manner of central nervous system disorder. He may have gotten too hot. He may have sustained spinal or head trauma. He may have a parasite. Or worst case scenario, he may have IBD or paramyxovirus. The best advice I can give you is to have your vet perform a necropsy and have the samples tested if the animal has progressed to such a state. IBD and paramyxovirus can lie dormant in healthy animals. A stressor (i.e. breeding, low temp., a move, etc...) can cause them to become active. A vet can hopefully find the cause of the problem. Your main concern now is the rest of your collection. Was he caged with other animals? Were any water bowls, food items, or even feeding tongs used between him and others? My belief is that these disease are no as contagious as some professional believe. Many vets believe paramyxo can devastate a collection by air. I don't believe this to be true. There has to be a common thread as I mentioned before. Fluids must be transferred somewhere along the way. You should have taken action when signs first appeared. If noone else is showing signs, obviously this is good. But keep an eye on wveryone. Keep everyone in the same cages they are presently and do not give the possible virus a chance to spread. For example, do not offer a food item to multiple animals. Sterilize tongs especially if a snake's mouth comes in contact with them. Treat your collection as though IBD is a possibility until you get answers. Hope this helps and good luck.

Phil Goss

Mr. Gross gave a very complete answer. Most importantly, he didn't jump to the conclusion that this is IBD, as the signs are far from conclusive.

To specifically answer your quarantine question, there is no measureable time that puts you in the clear. Boa constrictors have long been suspected to be carriers of IBD, and while this is unproven, data does suggest that this can be years in length, to the animal's entire lifespan.

It is unknown how this disease is spread, but close contact, fluid transfer, (fomites too) and aerosolized viral particles are all possibilities.

Thanks for the response guys, pretty useful. I did remove the snake to another facility the day I noticed symptoms, so he was out of there as quickly as I could get him out. The snake progressed very quickly and I euthanized the snake myself a couple days ago as well as took biopsies of the liver which I'm storing in my -80 in lab. I'll give the samples to the university vet to section and stain and we'll see what it turns out to be.

thanks again,

gabriel gartner

Is it possible to submit more than the liver? That leaves kind of a narrow viewpoint for the vet doesn't it? As far as IBD is concerned, the best tissue to sample is the pancreas, then outer brain tissue, (the cause of the encephalitis, thus the symptoms), the liver and kidneys, intestinal and oral mucusa, and on, and on in pretty much that order of importance.

The key is that not all IBD snakes will show inclusions, or definetely not in all tissues. It is also important to realize that if not IBD, you really want to know what else caused the symptoms. A negative inclusion search doesn't mean anything. For example, if no inclusions are found in your liver samples, then what? What killed this snake, and what do you need to watch out for? Is this still IBD or was it toxicity? Or another virus... Pretty much the only thing that can relieve you of the threat of IBD is finding something else that caused these symptoms. In the future, fresh blood samples would also be helpfull prior to euthanasia as they may hint if this is infectious or organ failure or what not.

Hope this proves interesting