Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Since this topic has flooded this subforum I'll post my history with this horrible cursed condition.

I had a wild caught sierra go through this a few months after she was collected, here are some pictures of her at her worst:

Horrible shed and paralysis of the lower half of her body.

Under some advice, I was under the impression it was stress-induced and to put her in a box with cold moss and I did for a month. When I set her back up into her normal home she would eat a pinky about once a month. I brumated her for four months at 45 degrees hoping when she came out of it her feeding response would return. When she came out she had the same response, eating pinkies infrequently and at this point I'm happy she survived and regained use of her bottom half (a little) and thought she was on her way to full recovery.

This is how she looked at that time:

My friend had a ltc male from the same locale and wanted his to breed to mine. I don't care about legality bull[bleep] so spare me the legality responses please, I've done allot worse than breed snakes in my time.

Anyways his male bred to my female and ended up with this disease and he euthanized it.
After all that time, mock-recovery, brumation, waking, eating, breeding, she still was diseased and contagious. My friend still holds a grudge against me and probably always will. To me it was a cool animal and a the king of kings, to him it was a family pet and with his family for 7 years so be careful when dealing with zonata.

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Pituophis c. annectans
Senticolis t. intermedia
Rhinechis scalaris
Elaphe bairdi
Lampropeltis zonata
Lampropeltis t. campbelli
Lampropeltis m. thayeri

That is a sad story.
I am thinking, has anyone tried feeding their ill zonatas strictly a lizard diet? I have a theory that something in the lizards may help the immune system of the zonatas ward off the disease. I would try this if I had any zonatas, but I only have pyros, for whom I keep a captive breeding colony of fence lizards to start babies.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Bob, your theory could very well hold water. I doubt anyone has tried that and it makes perfect sense. I would love to know if that makes a difference.

Joe

I have read about zonata in the wild being already diseased, and nobody is keeping those on a strictly rodent diet, instead they have access to lizards. So my theory may have a hole in it. But Maybe the wild zonata survive the disease and go on living anyway, whereas captive zonata die because they can't get any lizards.

I am willing to experiment if any one would like to give me some zonata! LOL!
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

I think z's probably eat more lizards than anything else in the wild so a diet of lizards, or at least including lizards in their diet, probably improves overall health and immune system function. If z disease is something that alot of z's carry naturally(and I'm leaning towards that conclusion) then having a healthy immune system probably does go a long way towards preventing z disease. What's wierd about z disease is that once it blooms in one animal it seems so highly contagious. Opposed to something like mouthrot where you certainly have to be careful and practice normal hygiene but mouthrot doesn't just miraculously hop from cage to cage the way z disease seems to.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

I have a friend in bear valley that feeds his Z's a diet of CB anoles and house geckos he breeds himself. He hasn't had any z disease in his small collection. I know western fence lizards neutralize Lyme's disease via their blood, maybe something to go on there...
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Pituophis c. annectans
Senticolis t. intermedia
Rhinechis scalaris
Elaphe bairdi
Lampropeltis zonata
Lampropeltis t. campbelli
Lampropeltis m. thayeri

Very interesting Ryan. I did not know that about lizards Lyme disease.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

I am surprised you would hibernate at 45 degrees. I would consider this at least 10 degrees too cold and potentially critical to the snake's health. I doubt they ever reach that low of a temp for any sustained period of time.
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Rick Staub