Ball Python just dies?

One of my friends owns a ball python that I hatched last year from a WC female. He had her for a few months (6+) and she ate, drank, deficated, urinated, shedded, etc. regularly. Today I talk to him and he tells me that she dies about a day ago. He said he was in the process of moving and didn't see her for two days. He fed her before he left and he said he found her bloated and dead in her water bowl. First thing I thought of was associating water bowl with mites. I asked him if that was the problem and he says not that he was aware of. So I am pretty much at a loss. Anyone have any ideas?

did she maybe choke when she was taking a drink

im very sry to hear this happened to your friend and am very interested to see the feedback of some of the experts here :)

Did the water bowl have a lid on it? Or was the lip of the water bowl really close to the top of the tank?

what did he feed her? perhaps the food was bad?

Hard to tell why, but it does happen. Back in Nov. 2004 I bought a male albino from a very well known breeder. Things were going great eating, pooping, shedding etc... Then around March of 2005 I went down to the snake room and found him dead one morning. No warnings, no signs of illness. It sucks, it happens. He had already started to bloat so I didn't take him for a necropsy.

I did contact the breeder for advice, and let him know that I wasn't looking for anything other than some ideas about what may have caused it to happen. He didn't have any definitive answers but he did offer to partially compensate me for the loss. I never took him up on the offer as I had the snake long enough that I didn't feel it was his responsibility any longer. But, I sure did have a whole new level of respect for him as a breeder and a person after that incident!

One of the things you have to remember about reptiles, but especially snakes (so I’m told), is that they are not social/pack animals. They are solitary and fend for themselves. When you are fending for yourself, you can't show any sign of weakness because it is like painting a red bullseye on your back for predators.

When a snake is ill (even injured) they will hide it as best they can, and you won’t typically notice anything until it gets to the point of being extremely serious. I've even heard of BPs with broken ribs that act totally normal, and you'd not notice unless you felt them. It is entirely possible that the snake in question was suffering with some illness but just kept on a ‘business as usual’ act until it overcame her.

Either way, I’m sorry to hear about the loss. :(

maybe it was a fluke like an embollism or anyurysm or any number of unpredictable ailments

Like others said, there is really no way you'll know for sure but
one thing that comes to my mind when I hear it was in the water bowl is that maybe it was trying to cool down?

There are few things that will kill a snake faster then overheating. Is the heating equipment faulty causing it to spike? Was the cage near a window where the sun could have shone on it during part of the day? Min/Max Digital thermometers are nice to have because they record the highest and lowest temperatures during the day and can catch problems you may not see because you can't watch the cage all day long.

I hope your friend isn't put off by this experience, figures it out and tries again.

Mark

Ok, now what really gets me at a loss for words is that I was just checking on snakes and the sibling to the snake that died is now dead! She was perfectly fine no less than 3 hours ago, last time I checked on her. I'm thinking it might be something genetic passed from the mother. But this seriously just irks me. Both snakes were tremendous eaters did everything regularly, mine ate no less than a week ago. I'm just out of ideas.