Ibd?

So last month I purchased a small, cute, and presumably healthy little baby blood python, and this weekend she passed away. Her care was perfectly fine besides the occasional humidity dip but that should be expected as I'm at school and don't mist 24/7, but to the point, she developed a mild barely apparent case of mouth rot and I had been treating it with betadine with good results. After the first week of treating I took a break as needed and went to bed, but to wake up to dogs barking so I let the dogs out and as soon as I came into the room, it happened. She had struck at her back, twisted up and rolled a few times before laying still with mild movement, I took her out to make sure she was okay and within minutes she had died. There's no way my care, or the mouth rot could've taken her than fast and that hard. It was my fault for not taking her to a proper vet, but I can't afford it and I did the best I could. The strike at her back, mouth rot, and quick death for a python, are all signs of IBD and I'm just wondering if it truly is IBD. RIP, my non-named blood python.

That does not sound like IBD to me and without a full necropsy with tissue testing it cannot be determined if it was IBD or not. In fact a necropsy is really the only way to try to determine what happened regardless (and even then sometimes they are inconclusive). No one can say if it was something resulting from husbandry or some underlying issue over the net. Necrosy may be expensive depending on the tests that will be needed, it sounds like you cannot afford it however. Please be sure to fully disinfect and review all husbandry before bringing in any new reptile. Snakes will flip around and bite themselves before passing sometimes, I've seen it before.

I'm very sorry for your loss.

I doubt that it was IBD.

Snakes often seem to flop about at death. They are usually found twisted up in odd poses.

The mouth rot may have been a symptom of a more widespread infection instead of being the only thing wrong. Unfortunately reptiles hide illness so well that we often do not see anything wrong before things are severe.

Disinfect everything. I know that an exotics vet is extremely pricy, but it can also be a needed expense, the same as a standard vet if your dog got hit by a car accidentally. You may want to think about saving up an emergency fund before you purchase a new animal, to give yourself peace of mind. That way if something did happen, you would be prepared instead of having to second guess about things.

Without a full necropsy, there's no way to tell what actually killed the snake though. And unless the body was refrigerated and sent off in a timely manner, you can't get a necropsy after the fact very easily.

Thanks so much. I had contacted the breeder moments after and he seemed quite rude and angry towards me making me feel awful as though I had murdered her or threw her off a cliff. It put me in a pretty bad mental state and I seriously considered leaving the hobby, but thanks to you guys I feel a lot better about what had happened and that it could've been caused by anything and it wasn't necessarily my fault. I'll look into a necropsy and see the pricing, and also disinfect and dispose of any items that could harbor bacteria.

If the breeder was rude like that and implied you caused it, that would be a red flag to me that he sold you a sick or less than stellar animal. Every breeder i;ve bought from have wanted to see pics of the snake after a few months to see how its doing. Stuff happens. Do like mentioned and clean everything with a bleach water combo and personally, i would just throw any porous stuff out and probably would toss the water bowl too but thats just me. I'm kind of OCD about cleaning for my snakes haha.

It's been a month, so accusing the breeder of doing something to cause the snake's death is enough to make any seller rude. Especially if you bring up IBD considering just the rumor of a breeder having IBD can destroy them.

If you accused the breeder of selling you a sick snake, it would explain any rude behavior, but if you just brought up the animal's illness/death and the breeder became defensive without asking about necropsy or pictures or husbandry etc, then it's a red flag about the breeder...

Either way, I'd also save up an emergency vet fund and totally disinfect everything before you get another animal. There's no way to guess what caused the death without a necropsy.