You should really wash your hands and disinfect them between handling any two snakes, especially if they are in quarantine away from each other.

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.