Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all, looking at getting another snake after my dearly departed Lola, I have been looking into a mexican night snake. I am looking up some care sheets on them, but i'm looking to see if anybody has any personal experience they could share.

Also, I had lola housed in a 4'L x 2'W x 2'T enclosure, I suspect she died of OPV. If I change out all the substrate and like wash everything down with a bleach sanitizing solution will it be safe to put another snake in this cage?

>>Hey all, looking at getting another snake after my dearly departed Lola, I have been looking into a mexican night snake. I am looking up some care sheets on them, but i'm looking to see if anybody has any personal experience they could share.
>>
>>Also, I had lola housed in a 4'L x 2'W x 2'T enclosure, I suspect she died of OPV. If I change out all the substrate and like wash everything down with a bleach sanitizing solution will it be safe to put another snake in this cage?

What's OPV?

TC

think about this a little while. If you had a snake that died of OPV, then this is not the time to get another snake. If I were you I'd wait six months or so and make sure none of the others get it, especially that chondro of yours. That virus had to come from somewhere. . .

OPV is the Ophidian Paramyxovirus. Very nasty stuff. Very painful death, however there are few symptoms that are the same from one snake to another. Essentially, it's a reptile verson of AIDS... as to a snake doens't actually die from the OPV, but a post-secondary infection. I believe mine died from a bacterial infection.

I never got a necropsoy done, didn't have the $550 that it would have cost. I'm going to take my chondro down and get bloodwork done to see if he has OPV, but I still think that i'm gonna wait a while before getting another snake.. it was really more of a spur of the moment type want... but now that I think about it, it's not something i'm going to potentially subject another snake to.

The Ophidian paramyxovirus is not at all like AIDS.

AIDS is a syndrome that has as its root cause HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). You might say that AIDS is what you see at the later stages of an HIV infection. HIV infects an immune cell called the T-cell, or more specifically a CD4 helper cell. When HIV compromises your immune system, you come down with diseases that most people with a well functioning immune system don’t get. At that point, a person with HIV is said to have AIDS.

Ophidian paramyxovirus does not attack the snake’s immune system. It does not require exchange of body fluids for its transmission. The disease is thought to be transmitted through the air, and it mostly infects vipers. Sorry, but that doesn’t sound like aids. It sounds more like some kind of flu.

If Chonubrid thinks that one of his snakes had OPV, then he needs to take some action. The current recommendations to prevent ophidian paramyxovirus infection are a prolonged and strict quarantine of all new animals, and euthanisation of all suspected carriers or chronically ill snakes. If Chonubrid suspects that he had an OPV infected snake, he needs to take some actions, and getting another snake is not one of them. The chances are very slim that his snake died of OPV, but if he has real reasons to suspect something that serious, he needs to step up to the plate and do the right thing.

Below is a link from one of Duke’s web sites with detailed information about OPV. Since it was not intended for laypersons, it is not an easy read, but with a little effort, one can gain much knowledge on the subject.
Ophidian Paramyxovirus

Dude..elephan... read the post I made that you replied to. I said I wasn't getting one, it was kind of one of those spur of the moment thoughts but then responsibility took over and I know its not a good idea to get another snake at this point in time.

What I have done is sanatized her cage, and i'ts gonna stay out of use for months, probably even a year. I may even turn it into a storage cabinent, lol.

And what I was referring to when I said it was SIMILAR to that of AIDS was only the fact that it leaves the reptile more prone to getting other infections. Thats what I was told by the head of the lab at the university of florida, which is where I am getting some blood work of my chondro sent to for testing. Maybe I misunderstood him.

I am 99% sure that she died of a bacterial infection, but do they normally get convulsions when they die from that?

If you read the link, then you know that cleaning the cage is not the issue. A snake can be a carrier for more then a year and show no signs of having OPV. The carrier can then infect other snakes.

I still doubt that your snake died of OPV since it was not a viper. But if it did, then your other snakes could all be carriers. At the very least, you should not expose them to other snakes for the next two years, and you should not even think of breeding any of them.

Again, read the link. OPV is nothing to play with. If you have snakes that were exposed to OPV, then there is a good chance that they are carriers.

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Hey... there is a lot of fluff on this thread over on RF... but scroll down and look for the posts by "hotman". He apparently had some colubrids that died from OPV years ago.

http://www.reptileforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24113

A quote from him:

All that I know of this disease of virus, and i have had it 2 times of long years ago in my venomous collection and my Trans-Pecos Rat Snake collection, the synopsis is not good once the snake has gotten it. I wish you all the luck in the world............