Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First off let me say I've had Boas for most of the last 30 yrs. I currently have 10 in my collection. The snake that died today, I had raised up from a neonate and she was just over 4 yrs old. She was around 8 feet long, above average girth, and puppy dog tame.
She ate 2 large rats on Saturday. Sunday I had her out for a hour or two showing her to some people. Monday I didn't mess with her. Today (tues) I woke up around noon (I work nights)and as I passed the snake room I smelt that dead rodent smell. I checked cages of course just assuming that I had forgotten a mouse or rat in a cage. When I looked in (Ashleys) cage I saw that she had regured (she had never done this before) her meal from Saturday. After preparing to clean up the mess I opend her cage and realized she was dead. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcomed.
thanks

Im sorry to hear of your loss and im also sorry to say i have no idea what has happened to your little boa, I just wanted to tell you that i was sorry for you loss.

Sincerely,
Rose& Steve

Possibly handled her too soon after eating? Sorry to hear she died.

Possibly handled her too soon after eating? Sorry to hear she died.

I think the first place to look for your answer would be with the most recent event - the feeding. Did you raise these rats yourself, or did you purchase them?

I remember a situation a few years ago in my area, where a local pet shop was using sevin dust on their rodents to fight fleas and mites. Several snakes in the areas died before anyone made the connection to the food and questioned the pet shop.

I realize that this is just one possibility, but it's worth checking.

Sorry to hear about your boa. It's always very disturbing when you lose an animal.

regards,

Mike Greathouse
Reptilian Dreams

I'm very sorry for your loss but may be able to shed some light. I've had many large snakes over the years and recently got a baby BCI. He was a good eater so I rapidly progressed him from fuzzies to small mice and then to two mice at a sitting. All was going well and then began to have regurg. This went on for about three weeks even when allowing time to go by and going back down to pinkies. Because of my concern I went to the vet and we decided to run a barium series to assess blockage. Something was visible in the colon that was later palpable but would not move. While we are still in the process of resolving this problem (keeping fingers crossed) I've come to the conclusion that the problem was caused by feeding too much at once. Examination of the regurged mice and using the barium series led me to believe that after eating one mouse it is easily digested. But when adding another only a few minutes later cause one undirected mouse to be pushed through the stomach too fast meaning it was left with a large and hard to digest blockage in the colon. Best I can conclude, the blockage was a portion of skull that seems to have been broken down but only very very very slowly. This was fortunate because a significant and unyielding blockage can cause all kinds of health problems for snakes, humans, etc. There is a risk of tearing of the colon during the initial peristalsis or during the regurg process-- thus death by hemorrhage. There is also apparently a risk of effect on blood pressure. It may be too late but a necropsy of the snake to determine cause might be a useful learning experience for you and may be helpful to intern vets in their training if you are near to such program. Much less likely but also possible is the rat awakening syndrome. Had a friend with good sized boa that was an aggressive eater but seemed impatient for lack of a better word in terms of the kill. The snake was observed to attack and attempt to kill the prey. However, my observation there was concern that the rat was more in shock or stunned than really dead. Shortly thereafter the snake was found dead and the rat alive on the outside. From everything that can be figured the rat woke up, began to struggle and the snake died in the process of the regurg-- though unclear of due to internal bleeding or respiratory failure.

Well, this may give you a place to start your thinking. It's my impression that these things occur as unpredictable fluke occurences and not due to poor husbandry, etc techniques. Best wishes to you in your loss. I've been there and it takes a few days to work through.

Just wanted to say that I'm sorry to hear about your boa dieing. However, It was too wierd reading your post. If you do a search for VERY SICK BOA, you might find my post about the same situation with my snake (also named Ashley). I had her since she was a baby. She was turning 10 years the same month she died. She never had a problem with eating. Never regurgitated anything and was always a great pet. However, i had fed her 2 rabbits one day and 3-4 days later she reguritated them both. The next day, she was very weak. So weak that i thought she was dead. Well, i took her to the emergency clinic and they gave her some medicine until i could take her to a reptile specialist. The reptile specialist did some blood work on her. After all the test, the vet told me she had a bacterial infection. One day i noticed she had lost weight. She was dehydrated so the vet told me to give her 300cc of water twice a day. a day later she died. She was the best snake i have ever had.