My baby ball python died.... anybody know why?

Hey guys my 4month old ball python died two days ago suddenly. I am a first time owner and I’m curious as to what might have happened to him.


Before he passed when everything seemed normal to me I had got back from an errand with him and he pooped and peed while we were out the first time he did it was Fine but as I took him to wipe him I noticed he had watery brown poop all over himself. When we got back home I put it in It’s terrarium on his favorite rock humidity 60-70ish and temperature between 80-85. It just rolls over on its backside as if it needed Help flipping over. I then picked it up And laid it in Properly and instead of it going into his favorite rock he just stayed in front of it on the substrate. I thought everything was normal as he didn’t show any symptoms of anything. I left the room for about 15minutes to eat. I came back and he had a mouth full of substrate and was rolling his head back, I looked up “the wobble” and it seemed similar to what he was doin except he looked like he had it worse, his top head was literally almost touching his back.


My boyfriend then picked it up And it stopped. I immediately got as much dirty out as I could. I also took it to The bathroom to the sink in a little cooler than Luke warm water let him sit in it hoping to get the rest of the little bit it had left in its mouth. It seemed Fine for a little bit but when I took it out And set him down his neck would be a different direction from his body. Then all of a sudden his head would flop back he did it about twice this whole time I was looking up what could have caused this and all I got was wobble and corkscrew. He didn’t show any of the symptoms but the neck roll and that was the first time he’s ever done it. I’ve never caught him stargazing or anything He are fine once skipped a week of eating but after that it was Okay. But anyway I then took him from the bathroom into my room laid him on his back to see if he would flip on his own, he didn’t. He was so still not stiff but as like he had no energy or interest in moving. He would slither a little bit normally and he hadn’t did the head movement all night after that.


I was kinda worried as if I knew something was going to happen but when this all started it was Already too late to take him to the vet. I sat with him kinda as if i didn’t want him to die alone. I set him on my lap crying because it was My first reptile and I loved him so much. He began to start curling up kind of awkwardly so I put him down and he laid there for about 3-5 minutes. It was Time for me to go to sleep so I put him in his favorite rock even then I knew something was wrong because he usually curls up in the corner he just laid out in it . The next morning at 8am I was going to take him to the vet but when I open the rock he passed already. He was stomach side up in an awkward position loosely curled up with his head under him my boyfriend picked him up and he had a liquid spot under his head somewhat like gooey but it was Very little.


I took him to petco and fortunately they had gave me another one and disposed of the other. I was kind of feeling bitter sweet because how can I just replace him like that , especially that quick. But loving to be able to take a new snake in.

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss.

Unfortunately, this is why we advocate so strongly to avoid the big box pet stores and buy from a reputable breeder.

It doesn't seem to me that you did anything that could have caused the animals passing.
I certainly don't think this the reason the snake passed, but snakes aren't social animals and aren't the type of pet you take on errands. Please do your new snake a favor and leave your pet at home. There is literally ZERO benefit to taking your snake on errands.

Unfortunately, you'll probably want to forget anything you learned from the big box store employees as well. They're usually minimally trained and clueless on keeping snakes. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but this usually the case.

I wish you the best with your new snake.

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Originally Posted by Craiga 01453

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss.

Unfortunately, this is why we advocate so strongly to avoid the big box pet stores and buy from a reputable breeder.

It doesn't seem to me that you did anything that could have caused the animals passing.
I certainly don't think this the reason the snake passed, but snakes aren't social animals and aren't the type of pet you take on errands. Please do your new snake a favor and leave your pet at home. There is literally ZERO benefit to taking your snake on errands.

Unfortunately, you'll probably want to forget anything you learned from the big box store employees as well. They're usually minimally trained and clueless on keeping snakes. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but this usually the case.

I wish you the best with your new snake.

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Any explanation about the head roll? And how is gettin a snake from the pet store different from reputable breeder. And I will try to insert a picture of how it was Laying
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/blob...6-0cbe5207c560

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Originally Posted by BV2

And how is gettin a snake from the pet store different from reputable breeder
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/blob...6-0cbe5207c560

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Similar to buying a bike at Walmart vs buying a bike at a bike shop. Walmart does not hire bike mechanics, their bikes are of poor quality with low grade parts, often incorrectly assembled, and can offer little if any assistance when a tune up or repair is needed. Sure, they may have employees that have some mechanical knowledge of bicycles, but that is not their top priority when hiring folks.
To make a broad generalization, Petco/Petsmart/PetSuppliesPlus/etc are basically Walmart in this analogy. A reputable breeder/reptile specialist pet store will be far better equipped to offer tips on husbandry and also intuitively be able to assess the health and well being of the animals they are selling.

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Originally Posted by BV2

Any explanation about the head roll? And how is gettin a snake from the pet store different from reputable breeder. And I will try to insert a picture of how it was Laying
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/blob...6-0cbe5207c560

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I honestly don't know enough about the head roll. It sounds neurological to me, but that's little more than an educated guess.

As for the difference, reputable breeders breed from select stock to breed better animals genetically. They also provide better care for the animals prior to selling them.

The animals from the big box stores are basically bred in "puppy Mills" with little attention paid to genetics, health or care before selling the animals.

The stores themselves typically provide horrible care for the animals as well. Their husbandry is usually way off, they underfeed, etc...

Don't get me wrong, some animals from the big box stores live long, healthy lives. But more often than not when we hear about an animal suddenly dying young like that, it came from a store and not a breeder.

Considering these are living creatures who will live in our care for 20+ years, it's worth doing some research and buying from a reputable breeder.

Agreed, sounds like a neurological issue. Wobble is a specific neurological issue tied to genetics, so unless your snake was a spider or one of the other wobble morphs, it was not actually wobble. (And most spiders do not present nearly that sort of wobble without additional stressors or health issues potentially caused or exacerbated by many I list below)

None of us can see your snake nor know for sure without a substantial amount of additional info, but here are some possibilities you can consider looking into. Many should be easy to rule out, but confirming one could be impossible...

Most commonly neuro issues are caused by either heat or chemicals in some form.

Heat, such as unregulated heat lamps or heat mats, can cause it. As can using a dimmer to control the heat and the house heating up during the day while no one is home to see it or light from a window baking them through the greenhouse effect. Especially an issue in glass tanks since the extra glass layer will magnify it more than a tub.

Alternatively is chemical. Most people are good about thinking of not spraying bug killers near their snake's cage, but there are a lot of possibilities besides that. Most commonly unknown is scented candles in the room or plug in air fresheners or smoking/vaping. Those chemicals and smoke can do some major damage to snakes. Along those lines are products like febreeze, failure to fully rinse off cage decor when washed with bleach (residual vapor), or even non-label use of things like reptile mite sprays.

On top of that, rodents can be treated with pesticides for mites and other issues (including antibiotics) which if not allowed to exit their system before being frozen or fed off live will harm the snake and can present various symptoms including neurological as well. Many medications for rodents have multi-month periods to exit the system and a disreputable rodent vendor could be a potential culprit. (Or pesticides sprayed at a pet store that got onto a rat you bought.... etc.)

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Random, but as far as adding a pic, many of us use the free app Tapatalk to upload pics.

I am very sorry for your loss. There really isn't any way we can tell you for sure what went wrong, but one possible thing stands out to me. You said you took him with you on errands, and like any other pet in hot weather, they are best left home as our cars (or just being outside) can cause them to over-heat & die from a heat stroke. A snake that's over-heated might well show neurological symptoms just as yours did.

On the other hand, his passing may have been a coincidence & he might have died from an illness that he had when you got him. Pet stores are risky places for buying snakes, as their animals come from various places, & all that exposure means they have a greater risk of catching diseases from other animals, as well as mites, which can spread diseases among them.

Unless you had a necropsy done (& right away) there's no way to be sure what went wrong, but in the future, if you MUST take your snake in the car (like for moving or to a vet), the safe way for them to travel is first in a secured snake bag or pillow-case they cannot escape from, & then the bagged snake is placed in a styro-foam shipping box (like food or snakes are air-shipped in) or in an insulated "cooler". Sun coming thru car windows can over-heat pets quickly & cause injury & death. So can just having them outside on days that are too hot, or for too long in the sun. In the wild, snakes go underground where it's cooler to escape the heat of the day. In my town there was a guy who used to like to show off by walking around with his boa on his shoulders...until his poor boa died of a heat stroke. I learned about it from the vet. :( It's unfortunate that snakes cannot tell us they're uncomfortable...it's up to us to KNOW what they need.

So listen: while I think it's very possible that your snake was killed accidentally from being over-heated, I'm not telling you this to make you feel guilty, but so that you learn from your mistake, & even if he died from some other cause, it's important that you don't make this mistake at some point in the future, with another pet. That's why we have a forum, to share what works & what's harmful, to prevent as many accidents as we can so we don't all have to learn the "hard way". Again, I'm sorry for your loss.

And by the way, getting another snake so quickly after one dies of unknown causes (some of which may be both communicable & deadly) is not a good move
on your part, BV2. If this second snake (as referred to in the thread https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...90-Snake-mites) came from the same
shop AND has mites, those are both health risks, besides whatever 'germs' may still be lingering from your first pet that passed away. It would have been safer
to wait a while before acquiring another snake, & personally, I'd not likely have bought from the same place.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

And by the way, getting another snake so quickly after one dies of unknown causes (some of which may be both communicable & deadly) is not a good move
on your part, BV2. If this second snake (as referred to in the thread https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...90-Snake-mites) came from the same
shop AND has mites, those are both health risks, besides whatever 'germs' may still be lingering from your first pet that passed away. It would have been safer
to wait a while before acquiring another snake, & personally, I'd not likely have bought from the same place.

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For 1 if you would’ve read my thread I said they GAVE it to Me I didn’t “get” it
and 2 everything I had from the other snake was thoroughly cleaned out.

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Originally Posted by BV2

For 1 if you would’ve read my thread I said they GAVE it to Me I didn’t “get” it
and 2 everything I had from the other snake was thoroughly cleaned out.

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Doesn't matter if you bought it or they gave it to you...the end result is the same.

get /ɡet/ verb 1.come to have or hold (something); receive.

• synonyms:

  acquire, obtain, come by, come to have, come into possession of, receive, gain, earn, win, come into, come in for, take possession of, take receipt of, be given;

And what you don't seem to "get" is that we're just trying to help you so you don't repeat a sad outcome.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BV2

It just rolls over on its backside as if it needed Help flipping over. I then picked it up And laid it in Properly and instead of it going into his favorite rock he just stayed in front of it on the substrate. I thought everything was normal as he didn’t show any symptoms of anything. I left the room for about 15minutes to eat. I came back and he had a mouth full of substrate and was rolling his head back, I looked up “the wobble” and it seemed similar to what he was doin except he looked like he had it worse, his top head was literally almost touching his back.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by BV2

Any explanation about the head roll?

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What you witnessed were death throes. When a snake starts twisting and turning and biting randomly like that, the end is nigh. At that point, there was nothing you could do to change the situation. Most illnesses are going to show some kind of symptoms before you get to the end stages. I think Bogertophis's is on the right track with likely overheating. I'm not sure where you took the snake or how but overexposure to the sun is not something people often think about and a lesson most learn the hard way. I learned firsthand about the greenhouse effect when I was a kid and cooked some Sceloporus I had field collected and left out on the deck in a coffee can while I went inside to eat lunch. It was a cool day and I thought nothing of leaving the can in direct sunlight. Came back maybe 10 minutes later to dead lizards and boy did I feel terrible. To this day I'm extremely careful, borderline paranoid, about unchecked sun exposure. Even in a cool car, something in a container that's set in direct sunlight can heat up to lethal levels faster than you'd believe. Not necessarily what happened to your snake but something to be aware of nonetheless.

I'm very sorry to hear about the loss of your snake. And I hope the new one you were given lives a long, healthy life.

If you wish to get more pets down the line, I agree with the others in recommending that you avoid petstores...and take any advice they offer you with a grain of salt.

I say this, because as a young kid, I lost between 6-7 leopard geckos, one after the other, to a deadly, highly contagious disease. All from the same petstore chain. At the time, I had assumed it was by my own failings in proper husbandry and this devastated me. While the animals appeared healthy enough in their display tanks, their actual enclosures weren't sanitized properly, so every animal that went in those tanks became infected and rapidly deteriorated.

But yes...as I lost my geckos, they would offer another..free of charge. And another, etc. And as I said these were animals that otherwise looked healthy at the time, and the employees were oblivious.

With that in mind, I currently have a female leopard gecko who is approximately 8.5 years old, and who I purchased from a petstore as a hatchling. She is the sweetest, and I love her to death. However, she has had a fair amount of health issues over the years, which I attribute to her questionable breeding. My other two leos were purchased from reputable breeders at expos, and there is definitely a marked difference in their "quality" (they're notably more robust and resilient). But between the three, she is the biggest pig, and has the friendliest personality :rolleyes: I just have to keep a closer eye on her, is all.

Sure my story was about geckos, but it doesn't matter with petstores. It's still a mixed bag.

Besides the fact that your snakes were both from chain stores, which we all have explained is a bad idea (Not your fault, you didnt know and are still beginning, we all start somewhere. Though next time you should do the research first, even on where to buy! Just make sure you learn from this) Ill run over a few things to narrow down why your snake may have passed. Sorry if this is patronizing but im just assuming you dont know anything since youre new to keeping.

Do you have pictures of the snake + enclosure? Humidity and temp seem fine from what you said but thats all for nothing if you have the wrong type of substrate or something in your tank thats harmful. (sadly i see all too often people having pine in their enclosure without knowing its toxic to bps!)
Also important: thermostat and humidity gauge if you dont have them already. Dont get the kind with the sticky backs because they can be VERY harmful to your bp.
((and dont smoke or burn candles/incense/ have aroma diffusers in the same room as your snake, they only have one lung and they can die from that kind of stuff))

How long ago did you get this snake? How long did you wait to handle said snake after you got it? Did you feed this snake before you handled it? Stress can also make snakes die suddenly. (reasons to not take snakes on airplanes or random places or. do dumb stuff like throw them? idk dont do anything that would stress your snake out)

How hot is the lukewarm water? Remember that our internal temp is 90ish degrees, so anything warm for us is REALLY warm to them, for proper lukewarm water for snakes you actually want it to be room temp to the touch or slightly cool. Maybe how a pool feels or a tab bit warmer.

For future reference, dont take snakes out on errands no matter how short and tempting, especially in the summer. If you can get heat stroke from being out too long, think about what the heat can do to their tiny bodies, not to mention being in the wrong humidity for too long.

Im very sorry to hear about your snake dying, especially one so young! I wish you luck in the future (especially with those mites your new one has... thats rough!) All I can say is do more research. Research until you think you know everything, then research some more! And of course make sure those sources are reliable. Husbandry is so important in reptile keeping, snakes are very delicate creatures. BPs are pretty easy in comparison to other snakes but people really hype up how much of a 'beginner' snake they are and how 'easy' they are. :(

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Originally Posted by glowstone

...Remember that our internal temp is 90ish degrees, so anything warm for us is REALLY warm to them, for proper lukewarm water for snakes you actually want it to be room temp to the touch or slightly cool. Maybe how a pool feels or a tab bit warmer...

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Just wanted to add, human body temperature is actually closer to 100*...our "normal" is 98.6*, so yes, what feels warm to us will be way too hot for our snakes. It's a very easy (& common) mistake that owners make.

yes thank you bogertophis! i couldnt remember the exact temp.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Doesn't matter if you bought it or they gave it to you...the end result is the same.

get /ɡet/ verb 1.come to have or hold (something); receive.

• synonyms:

  acquire, obtain, come by, come to have, come into possession of, receive, gain, earn, win, come into, come in for, take possession of, take receipt of, be given;

And what you don't seem to "get" is that we're just trying to help you so you don't repeat a sad outcome.

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at this point you’re just here and being annoying unlike other people who are commenting once again something USEFUL. So since you’re not sayin anything informational you can get off the thread 👍🏼

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Originally Posted by BV2

at this point you’re just here and being annoying unlike other people who are commenting once again something USEFUL. So since you’re not sayin anything informational you can get off the thread 👍🏼

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Any updates on the mite situation?

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Originally Posted by Craiga 01453

Any updates on the mite situation?

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I watched a video from “goherping” and I thoroughly checked him he’s good must’ve been just the substrate falling off.

I finally figured out how to upload pictures of how my snake was when he died anybody know why was happening ?

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...c31cbc8488.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...7aa5ee9887.jpg


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Originally Posted by BV2

at this point you’re just here and being annoying unlike other people who are commenting once again something USEFUL. So since you’re not sayin anything informational you can get off the thread [emoji1360]

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Ok I am going to step up and say something here.

Boger is by far one of the nicest and most knowledgable people on this forum. I recommend you drop the attitude and actually listen to what is being said (written).

We are not trying to put u down, but she gave you constructive criticism. I highly suggest you follow it. And just cause a pet store gave it to you, doesnt make it right.

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Originally Posted by sur3fir3

Ok I am going to step up and say something here.

Boger is by far one of the nicest and most knowledgable people on this forum. I recommend you drop the attitude and actually listen to what is being said (written).

We are not trying to put u down, but she gave you constructive criticism. I highly suggest you follow it. And just cause a pet store gave it to you, doesnt make it right.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

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Oooh stepping up... Did your good deed for the day huh? [emoji1434]
Good job.


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Please stick to your original concern if you truly want input from others. Disrespecting others who take time out of their days to respond to others, no matter how large or small the request, only serves to de-rail the resource we have found in each other. I only grant you this response because I, too, value the time, respect and information that sur3fir3 and Bogertrophis and others have given me and flagrant disrespect is not a great way to utilize a resource that might shed some light on the question you first posed.

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Originally Posted by Tila

Please stick to your original concern if you truly want input from others. Disrespecting others who take time out of their days to respond to others, no matter how large or small the request, only serves to de-rail the resource we have found in each other. I only grant you this response because I, too, value the time, respect and information that sur3fir3 and Bogertrophis and others have given me and flagrant disrespect is not a great way to utilize a resource that might shed some light on the question you first posed.

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To avoid that all they have to do is stick to the concern not everything else just like your comment instead of commenting what you just did if you didn’t have anything today about the post why comment

Alright we are done here yet again another thread that is not going anywhere.
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