Ok, I am going to start from the begining. On June 12, 2010, I bought 5 BP's from a breeder in town that seemed pretty reputable. I researched him on the internet and the few reviews I found on him were good. He sells on Kingsnake and has hundreds of Boa's and BP's. I liked being able to go to his facility and he showed me everything. I had a good feeling about this breeder so he cut me a package deal on a 1750 gram pastel female (07), a 1000g pastel female (08), 700g bumble bee (08), and two large normal girls (2200 and 3500g) (06's). He advised me he is concentrating more on his Boa's and less on BP's, so he is keeping mainly Mojave's and Albino BP's. I did not handle or mess with these guys at all when I got them home. I put them into their tubs and left them.....checking on them once a day to make sure husbandry was good. Oh yeah, ALL 5 of them were live eaters.

My tubs are 41q sterlite, melamine racks with 3" flexwatt belly heat. Warm end of the tub is 90-91 under the newspaper controlled by a Helix thermostat, cool end is 81-82, humidity is usually 50-65%. The rack is fully enclosed and only open end is the 18" in the front, so it stays dark in the tub and especially the back all the time. My set up is the same as the breeder except for fact his snake room is set at 86* with back heat and not belly heat.

From day one, my 1750g female pastel was pretty nippy. She would hiss when I opened her tub and strike at me when I changed substrate. I just thought it was because she was not settled in, even though all my other BP's settled in fairly quick. After two weeks, I attempted to feed one F/T small rat. The bee and the 1750g female would not eat......EVERYONE else ate and have been eating every single week for the last 9 weeks. I tried again the next week and the bee and her would not take. After that, I decided to put shoe box hides in each tub. After two weeks, I put a LIVE small rat and neither one of them took. The next week, I offered her an adult mouse and she didn't want it either (the breeder advised me he forgot to tell me one of the pastel girls was a mouse eater).

Anyways, 11 days ago, she (1750g female) hissed at me and it sounded horrible. I saw bubbles in her mouth and figured it was an RI. Her weight was down to 1620g too. I took her to the vet the next day and he gave me Baytril to inject into her every other day. He said it looked like the infection had been in her for a bit (not sure how he could tell that) and he believes the RI along with stress of a new home contributed to her getting such an extreme RI. I did exactly what he said....... I quarentined her in my bedroom closet at the other end of the house. I put an UTH hooked to a Herpstat thermostat and kept half the tank at 90-93 and the other half at 78-81. Humidity was around 65%. Her hiss was sounding better after a week of shots, just a little bit of congestion, but I was feeling great and that the infection was going away. I just checked on her and she was belly up! I pulled her out and she was dead, cold as could be and coiled up on the cool side of the tub. I just put her in a plastic bag and put her in the freezer (hopefully the right thing to do).

What the hell happend? Do you think her RI was beyond saving her? Do you think I should contact the breeder and tell him everything? I did tell him she had an RI and he said he does not believe she could have got it at his place. Was I correct to freeze her and should I try to find what the cause was? My 9 other BP's seem fine. I check them every few days and everyone seems comfortable, everyone is eating (except the bee) but he is the same weight as the day I got him.......I haven't even tried to feed him in 2-3 weeks......oh yeah, he pooped for me for the first time and shed last week too, so hopefully he comes around.

Even though my girl was a bit nippy (obviously because she was sick), I feel horrible. I know she was in such discomfort, having to pin her down and give her shots every other day combined with being sick and in a new environment........I can't imagine the stress. The vet said, "if she makes it through this" last week and I thought he was being dramatic. Damn.