R.I.P. WOODY ;o(

So last night my wife comes upstairs in tears, our baby boy Woody was laying in his box belly up. She had just changed his water and checked to see if anyone was in shed since today is a feeding day and he had seemed fine.

He isnt even a year old yet. The breeder said that he had eaten 3 times and had gone thru 2 sheds before we picked him up and as far as we could tell, everything was good to go. After we picked him up we gave a week before we tried to feed him. Nothing. For almost a month, nothing. We didn't handle him. We left him alone in case it was due to stress and gave him more time to settle down. We offered once a week. Still nothing. It's been 2 months. We tried frozen thawed. We tried live mice and rats.

Sadly, the only thing that I can think of was that he starved. Without food, being that young, he had nothing to live off of, unlike our 2 and 3 year olds that are obviously big enough to sustain for a while, but the part that disturbs me the most that I would like some feedback on was this: he was all mangled up? I mean, it looked like he had a broken back and he was all kind of lumpy and misfigured. I can't even begin to describe that. Has anyone heard of anything like this happening? If so, please share. Thanks for your help.

:(

awe, I am sorry for your loss.

Sounds to me like a malnourished snake. Just imagine what it does to humans, snakes are living also. Lack of food can do some horrible things. I would contact the breeder and see what he says. He should replace the animal in my eyes due to the fact that you did all things correct and the animal never ate for you. Sorry to hear about your loss and hope you get things figured out.

I'm very sorry for your loss :(

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Originally Posted by twistedtails

Sounds to me like a malnourished snake. Just imagine what it does to humans, snakes are living also. Lack of food can do some horrible things. I would contact the breeder and see what he says. He should replace the animal in my eyes due to the fact that you did all things correct and the animal never ate for you. Sorry to hear about your loss and hope you get things figured out.

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Ok, well my wife contacted the breeder and all he could do was appologize. He did not want to replace the snake, but did say that "he would take care of us" if we wanted to get another one. I'm not sure what that means as I did not get the whole conversation, but not only are we out what was a BEAUTIFUL snake and one of my sons favorites, but also out the money we spent on him.

I don't even know what to do or say right now. We have some pretty good attatchments to our snakes. I mean, I know we want to breed them later on down the road, but they are our pets too. We've never had a snake die on us. I'm at a loss for words...

Im sure the breeder is referring to giving you a good deal on a next snake you purchase from him

when he was not eating for you did you try contacting the breeder at all to see what he had been feeding him? maybe there was something that he did just a little bit differently. I find it odd that he ate 3 times for the breeder but never did for you.

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

when he was not eating for you did you try contacting the breeder at all to see what he had been feeding him? maybe there was something that he did just a little bit differently. I find it odd that he ate 3 times for the breeder but never did for you.

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He had only eaten for us once. We did contact him and just told us that they can get stuborn (which we were well aware of) and told us to just give him more time. We tried offering him everything we could think of. Frozen thawed mice and rats. Live mice and rats. He had feed him live mice. When we tried that, nothing. We tried frozen thawed, nothing. The one time we got him to eat was a frozen thawed rat, but never again after that one time.

Well it sounds to me like you did everything right, i find it rather unreasonable that the breeder refuses to replace your snake. Since you have other bps that are healthy and doing fine i highly doubt it was a husbandry error on your part. If i were the breeder i would have offered to replace your snake or give you a credit towards another one of the amount you paid for the PYB. When i start to breed and sell my snakes im gunna make it a point to try and offer the best customer service to buyers that i can.

I'm curious of who the breeder was. PM me if possible on him, I think I have an idea. Also, what kind of morph was it?