Well, my first snake passed away about a month ago. I haven't been on the site much since then as I wasn't sure if I was going to get another ball python after him. He was a young little guy still, hatched the end of November '11.

What happened is we had a really big city wide flood in May, and we live in a basement apartment, so we got a lot of water. Our landlord was pretty slow to do anything about it, and we were stuck in a wet, molding apartment for a week before we could find another place to stay. We couldn't bring Lazy with us right away, so a friend in the city who also keeps bps offered to take care of Lazy for us until we could figure out a way to bring him to Atikokan with us. He was with her for about three weeks, during which he did not eat. We assumed it was just due to the stress of being in a new place, but we were happy to bring him home. We left him alone the day we got home, and offered food the next day. He pounded the feeder, and so he was left alone for the next two days as well. We didn't really realize that anything was wrong until about four days later when he refused his next meal. After leaving it in with him overnight, I took him out to see if maybe his stomach was pink and he was going into a shed, because he really never refused meals very often. It was pretty evident that he wasn't doing well. He had congealed saliva on the sides of his mouth, and he was struggling to fully open his mouth.

I made an appointment with the nearest vet - no herp specific vets in my area, but there is a place with an exotics vet in the nearest city, 2.5 hours away. The appointment was made for half a week later - they were closed for the weekend, and Tuesday was the earliest I had access to a car. We kept a close eye on him, and kept cleaning off his mouth. Other than looking thin, he didn't seem to be getting worse. However, when I checked on him the day before his appointment, he had passed away.

It hit me really hard, and it wasn't until after he'd passed away that I slapped myself in the head and realized that he had probably gotten sick from the flood - primitive lungs and mold can't exactly be a good combination. I really, really wish I had thought of it sooner, and gotten him in to a vet before we'd lugged him all the way to Atikokan with us - maybe they would have been able to help him. I'm fairly convinced that this is what the problem was, since none of my friend's snakes have shown any sign of illness, and it was last month that he passed away.

I'm going to miss him a lot, and call me overly sentimental, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get another mojave after him.