Wondering what went wrong, need some opinions

Where to start...


I added this beautiful male proven breeder Piebald to my collection back in early October. Had him in "quarantine" for 3 weeks. It ate for me twice during this period. Now, I put quarantine in quotation marks because best I can do at the moment is across the room. So yeah, I started pairing some of my other ball pythons & was getting locks in every pairing. I got excited and decided to put the Pied to my het Pied female and what do you know, a got a lock.

The Pied looked healthy as could be, even had a perfect shed in mid November. A day after he shed I offered food and he refused. The day after that I placed him back again with the het Pied hoping for another lock. Instead of a lock, I found both snakes covered in this white porridge like substance that smelled awful, a similar smell to a regurge. I didn't know what snake it had came from, so I cleaned them up, separated them and then a few days later it happened again. It was the Pied. I didn't think much of it at the time, I thought it was just something minor that would take care of itself.

A couple weeks go by, nothing major happened. The Pied would just hang out on the warm side of the tub, hiding under the newspaper. I would just leave him a alone for him to recover. Then just last week, the same white porridge like substance happened...3 days in a row. While cleaning the tub that last time I noticed the Pied's belly was "sucked in" near the cloaca. I decided it was time to see a vet.

So I call in the morning and set up an appointment for later that day. I go into the animal hospital without having done much research about the whole situation. I tell the vet I believe the snake has diarrhea or something along those lines. I explain everything the best I could. From the beginning though, I had my doubts about the vet. He didn't seem familiar with ball pythons, I would even say he seemed a little on the scared side. Now that I think about it, he never actually pulled the entire snake out of the snake bag. I just went along with whatever he said because, well, because he's the Vet and he must know what hes talking about. I should have gone with my gut feeling.

The picture down below shows what they did to the ball python. When I got home I started googling Doxycycline to read up a little bit on it. I could not even find anything regarding Doxycycline & ball pythons. Then just a couple hours after getting home from the vet, the Pied either vomited or peed all the fluids they had injected & then 2 days later the Pied is dead. :(


So yeah, I'm at a loss. Dont even know what happened. Any opinions? Anything I could have done to have prevented this?

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...P/Photo3-1.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...P/Photo4-1.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...P/Photo7-1.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...P/Photo6-1.jpg

Sorry to hear of your loss. Lets prey that the lock took for you.

I'm sorry for your lose, copy and past this, it may help you figure this out:

http://books.google.com/books?id=wuk...arrhea&f=false

I would also bookmark this too, has a ton of useful info.

Odd. I didn't think you could give a snake subq fluids, but the vets I work for don't do exotics, so I really don't know. But I am very sorry you had to go through that.


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Originally Posted by Jackie

Odd. I didn't think you could give a snake subq fluids, but the vets I work for don't do exotics, so I really don't know. But I am very sorry you had to go through that.


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Subq tends to be the quickest, most simple way to get antibiotics into a snake.

I am so sorry for your loss, I don't know what could have gone wrong with your boy, but best of luck working on an answer. If you want a necropsy done (preferably by another more reliable vet), make sure you put the snake in the fridge, not the freezer.

so sad and strange. I'd like to know what went wrong with him. I would get a necropsy done if possible..

Get a necropsy done ASAP.
Your QT period was too short even if you isolated him properly.

And since you exposed your female to him, I would definitely try to find out what happened to the male.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

Get a necropsy done ASAP.
Your QT period was too short even if you isolated him properly.

And since you exposed your female to him, I would definitely try to find out what happened to the male.

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^ This. Anything else you are told on this thread is either sympathy (which is kind, but doesn't answer the question), or guesses. Pay for a necropsy, and then do some more research to find a vet that actually knows snakes before you need one again.

Please, please get a necro. Too few people here lose snakes and just write it off as a freak accident. To better the industry and health of our animals, it's important to know whats out there with good descriptions of symptoms and time frames so we can all be a little more aware of what to look out for and what is potentially fatal for one snake or an entire collection. Keep a close eye on your female and let us know how it goes.

What went wrong...
- Not having a good reptile vet available before starting to breed your snakes. If one of your females becomes egg-bound your current vet will have a very difficult time treating her if he's unwilling to remove her from the snake bag.
- Your QT practices are essentially non-existent. Even if you decide not to get a necro on the pied, you have to fix that before getting another snake.
- Not taking the pied to a decent reptile vet after the second regurge, especially since it didn't look like typical partially-digested rodent regurge.

Speaking of QT, you need to lock down your collection - nothing in or out - for at least a year unless a necro shows the pied died due to a disease that isn't contagious. If you don't get the necro you need to assume the rest of your collection is contaminated.

Also, have you contacted the prior owner about what happened?

Maybe it was some type of internal parasite, you can try Merck Manual. Com that might help but keep us posted when you find out what it is.

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Originally Posted by ROACH

Sorry to hear of your loss. Lets prey that the lock took for you.

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But more importantly, let's hope it's not a sinister disease that could be passed to the rest of the collection.

Get a necropsy FOR CERTAIN!

OP, sorry for your loss. But it is definitely in your best interest to find out what went wrong, no matter the cost.

Thanks you all for the replies/suggestions.

Going to call around first thing in the morning to try and find me a good vet for the necropsy.

I'm going to keep a really close eye on the rest of the collection, especially the het Pied female.

Ill keep you guys updated. Thanks again.

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Originally Posted by francisco_24

Thanks you all for the replies/suggestions.

Going to call around first thing in the morning to try and find me a good vet for the necropsy.

I'm going to keep a really close eye on the rest of the collection, especially the het Pied female.

Ill keep you guys updated. Thanks again.

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It wouldn't be a bad plan to QT that female as best you can from the rest of your collection, too.

This is a wild stab with absolutely no factual basis but curious if it ends up lining up with the necropsy:

I'm going with an infection or abcess somewhere in the digestive tract

Sorry for your loss and definitely don't have any snakes in or out of the collection till you find out what it was.