How common is IBD?

[Jophis82]

I got my snakes 4 days ago and I have been doing a lot of research on them. I was just curious how common IBD was and how can my snake get it? I am going to the vet soon to have them checked out just for peace of mind and to make sure they are healthy. They are my first snakes and I want to treat them right. I am not worried that they have IBD but was just curious about the sad virus.

Thanks Joe

[ladywhipple02]

Here's some info I posted on a previous thread:
Testing isn't conclusive. The only way to test for it is by doing a liver biopsy, which is very expensive... and hasn't been proven. It's possible a snake can test positive for inclusion bodies and not actually have IBD.

I like to explain IBD like this: it is the AIDS for snakes, though much faster acting in BPs. It breaks down the immune system so that the snake actually dies from an RI or neurological disorder rather than from IBD. Nasty stuff...

Boas are carriers of the disease. It can take long periods of time for them to begin showing symptoms of it---stargazing, chronic RIs, mouth rot, eventually degrading into neurological problems such as striking at random and being unable to roll over when placed on their backs. BPs, however, will begin showing symptoms almost immediately... there have been cases where someone will bring a boa into their collection and it will show no signs of being sick. Once introduced directly into the collection, however, their other boids start getting sick and dying.

No one's really sure how it's passed. Possibly through the air, but definitely through touching, sharing cages, water bowls, etc.

Fact is, we really don't know that much about it. The only way to get rid of it, once it's in a collection, is to immediately dispose of the infected animals... and personally, I wouldn't ever trust a cage or anything that an infected animal has used. I would get rid of everything like that too.

So that's the break-down. The way it was introduced sounded as if boas were the culprit of the disease, which isn't true. All boids can have and/or spread IBD... it is NOT boa exclusive. They simply catch a lot of flak for being carriers.

It's a pretty rare disease... though I did read a scary article on another forum yesterday---posted by someone that had actually gone through IBD spread himself---stating that more cases of IBD are found during necropsies than are actually shared with the public. People keep it hidden when one of their snake's dies from IBD because they don't want the stigma of the disease to be associated with their business. I can pull up the numbers... it was a scary percentage and made me think.

[littleindiangirl]

Do you have a link to that thread? I am very curious, and would like to read it...

[Jophis82]

Thanks for your insight. So as long as my snake never is introduced to other snakes then he should be more than fine. Thats good to know. Thanks again.


Joe

[ladywhipple02]

Do you have a link to that thread? I am very curious, and would like to read it...

A link to the article, or a link to the thread I copied from?

Here's the thread I copied from: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...612#post665612

[littleindiangirl]

Here's a little bit of reading on IBD as well. A story and an article about IBD.
http://www.anapsid.org/deanne.html

http://www.anapsid.org/ibd.html

[littleindiangirl]

Sorry, a link to the article on IBD.

[ladywhipple02]

I don't think I can post the link because it is on a competing forum. However, here is what was posted:

I believe that this disease is much more prevalent in collections than people realize. This is mainly due to the fact that very few people get necropsies done and even fewer send organs off for pathology. So it may just be chalked up to an unexplained death or a secondary illness such as an RI. Also, most people who get afflicted by IBD tell noone. Once your collection has IBD, you carry that stigma for years to come. And that would be devastating financially if one depends on selling boas for profit. So even if one of the big breeders got hit by it, they would likely not admit it. I know of a couple major boa breeders that have got hit by it. I, on the other hand, am not concerned about breeding boas for profit so I will just live with the label of IBD so that more people can learn about the disease.

To give you an example of how prevalent it is, my pathology lab sees hundreds of cases of IBD death each year. But how many people admit to it? And this is just one lab. So it is logical to assume that thousands of cases of IBD are diagnosed each year but there are only a handful of people that have EVER gone public with it. Scary huh?

This was posted by B.W. Smith, a well known collector and researcher in the industry. Here is his website: http://www.reptileeducation.com/

Here is his BOI complaint about the snake that started it all: http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...p?t=72726&page)

It makes for some very interesting reading.

[littleindiangirl]

I don't think I can post the link because it is on a competing forum. However, here is what was posted:

Thank you, googled it!