Not all blockages are the same (pics and necropsy)

Sorry for your loss. Informative pics like that are always great to see and imo help to ensure that a death, while sad, can have some good as we can learn from it. Poor little guy, it sucks that he's gone.


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Very sorry for your loss. And thank you very much for making this a leaning experience for other herpers. So was it just undigested rat that caused the blockage?

While it sucks that the animal had to die, you did the whole community a service with this post.

Too many times, people make ASSumptions as to why their animals passed, and these assumptions ultimately result in a more ignorant community. Most people would have written it off to substrate impaction or some other mysterious issue.

By taking the time and expense to perform a necropsy and by taking the time to post the results here and share them with your peers, you are educating anyone who takes the time to read your post.

Sorry for your loss :(

Thank you for sharing the necropsy results. It's educational and helpful I believe. Doesn't bother me much (I'm a Vet Tech).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skiploder

While it sucks that the animal had to die, you did the whole community a service with this post.

Too many times, people make ASSumptions as to why their animals passed, and these assumptions ultimately result in a more ignorant community. Most people would have written it off to substrate impaction or some other mysterious issue.

By taking the time and expense to perform a necropsy and by taking the time to post the results here and share them with your peers, you are educating anyone who takes the time to read your post.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheSnakeGuy

Very sorry for your loss. And thank you very much for making this a leaning experience for other herpers. So was it just undigested rat that caused the blockage?

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I was thinking the same thing Skip. I had no idea what caused this issue nor the swelling. I wanted pictures to show others and hung around the vets office so we could talk about what he found. I did know it wasn't from bedding, at least from here. All ours are kept on either newspaper or paper towels and he hadn't ate the entire time he was here. I did forget to mention that the spot had became necrotic but from the outside you couldn't tell.

Wow. I'm so sorry you lost him. :( I found the pictures helpful and fascinating. Thank you for sharing.

I'm so sorry, he was really gorgeous. A tumor! You'd never think of a young ball python having colon cancer or whatever it was.

Thanks for posting the pics.

EDIT: You called it a tumor or a "growth" earlier, but somebody else said it was an undigested rat?

There was no rat or hair in it that I saw. It was some sort of tissue that was tumor or growth from some other unknown cause.

Terribly fascinating, thank you so much for this post.