Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi guys1
Just thought that I'd write a few lines and tell you what's been going on over here.

I'm sorry to tell you that I have put my entire collection of agalma down. I tried hard for a long time to save them, but a few got so bad so I couldn't let them suffer anymore, and when only 4 of my gruop of 9 remained, I gave up and put them all down.

Two of them are still kept in the freezer. I'm trying to convince the two largest societies over here to sponsor me so that I can send them in for an autopsy. It's very expensive, about the equivalent of USD 300 each.

Edited on August 27, 2009 at 16:34:50 by PHGinger.

Wow. I am sorry to hear about that. I had heard about your story through the grape vine but did not read your threads from a while back. I cannot imagine how you must feel. I hope you can get a necropsy done on them though so you can know exactly what caused the illness. ( sometimes they don't even find out then ) If I remember correctly you thought you had zonata desease in your collection.

Hey thanks. Yes I think I had the desease in my zonata collection, it eventually spread to all 9. Some went downhill rapidly, while a few seemed to be able to withstand the desease for quite some time.
The last two were put down late last fall before I put all my other snakes in hibernation.

I have been able to get help to go thru with the necropsy from two of the largest herp associations here, and it will be done in the near future.

Keep your head up brother. Throw away all cages and take a breath. If you love snakes like me you will start up again when you are ready. I would not even try to sterilize anything they were in contact with, I would just throw it out. Let us know the results and again I am sorry for your loss.

I am sorry to hear of this happening to anyone. The worst part is losing your entire collection without knowing the what caused it. Wish you all the best in finding out what it is that affected your animals and good luck in getting your zonata collection again.

Best Regards,
Kenny

Peter,
Though I have not gotten the full details of what happened to your collection I'm going to assume you had what some call zonata disease and what Bob Applegate calls SCUD (Septicemiccutaneous ulcerative disease).

I once had an agalma king for about 2 years and then wham out of nowhere the snake started getting what looked like blisters and stopped eating. Like you I put the snake in the freezer. Sorry to hear about your loss. It is a very strange illness and for the life of me I can't figure out why mine got it. I run a pretty tight ship in my snake room.

Russ

Well, I don't know from where I got the desease. I had a total of 9 specimen, collected from various sources.

I can tell you that I will never ever go into zonatas again, It's just so heavy to bare a loss like this and I will not risk it one more time.

I'll just stick with my other Lampropeltis, pyros, getulas, triangulums, alternas and mexicanas. No zonata will ever enter this collection again.

I just got clearence from the people who's gonna perform the necropsy on my two frozen agalmas. It will be done late this month.

Another thing: I recently got a mail from someone here concerning this desease, that was accidently erased before I even had a chance to read it. Please send the message again.