During my absence from BP.net

Well as you can see I'm back. I know I was gone for quite a while. I had a terrible loss happen to me.

I lost my whole collection to IBD

When I had a few of my boys up for sale a local woman contacted me and wanted to see the snakes that same day. She came by later that afternoon and held some of the snakes and the topic of care and her experience with BPs came up. She told me that he had a bp but it died. when I asked when she told me the day before and she took it to the vet right before she came to my place for biopsy. When I asked what the symptioms were I cringed. every thing she said pointed to IBD. I calmly took my snake from her and asked her to leave.

months later Angel was the first to go down hill. I had her and 2 others in quarinteen but it wasnt enough to stop them all from getting it. once Angel died, the rest shortly followed. tests came back positive for IBD and I dont think i will own another python or boa for as long as I live. I dont think I can go through that again.

Thanks for letting me get this out and I'm sorry if I dammpened the holiday mood for some of you.


(if this thread needs to go into off topic then move it... I didnt know where to put it. Thanks, Jess)

I'm very sorry to read of this Jessie. I was under the impression however that IBD kills in a very short time period so "months later" might indicate it had nothing to do with that lady's visit to your home. Hard to say really.

It is a wake up call though to not allow just anyone to handle your collection. Mike and I made a determination a number of months back to close our BP room to visitors. While we might allow the very occasional person to hold a snake outside of the BP room, and will still do our school visits when we can, we no longer take just anyone in to see the ball pythons as we once would have done.

Yes that is a very good idea. as for the IBD I guess I will never know. That was the only person I came in contact with that had a snake let alone one with possible IBD.

I now have something that takes up my time in a good way. A male Eastern Box turtle that I rescued and he has kept my mind of the loss.

Sooooooo sorry to her about your loss... *huggs*

They say you can go to school for an education, but you can't learn common sense.

This lady dropped off her ill snake to the vet one day, and then came to your house to handle yours the next? That isn't just a lack of common sense, that is a lack of a brain. Or maybe just a complete disregard for any other person and what they care for. Its like a parent who drops their kid off in kindergarten with a temperature of 103 instead of vising the hospital, nevermind that the other children will get ill and perhaps their parents and siblings, too.

Ug. I'm so sorry for your losses. I truly am. What a terrible thing to happen. But I do thank you for your strength in coming here to share the story, so that others may learn from it and avoid any similar experiences in the future. Let that hope be the lasting legacy of your little guys and gals here on earth.

Wow, I'm sorry to hear this. What species of animal did you have? Just BP's? This is an unfortunate thing, and hopefully it will teach others that good quarantine is an absolute necessity in any collection. Be it 5 or 500. My condelences. :hug:

Here is a link in case anyone would like further reading on Inclusion Body Disease. (IBD)
Merck Veterinary Manual -IBD

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Originally Posted by jessie_k_pythons

Well as you can see I'm back. I know I was gone for quite a while. I had a terrible loss happen to me.

I lost my whole collection to IBD

When I had a few of my boys up for sale a local woman contacted me and wanted to see the snakes that same day. She came by later that afternoon and held some of the snakes and the topic of care and her experience with BPs came up. She told me that he had a bp but it died. when I asked when she told me the day before and she took it to the vet right before she came to my place for biopsy. When I asked what the symptioms were I cringed. every thing she said pointed to IBD. I calmly took my snake from her and asked her to leave.

months later Angel was the first to go down hill. I had her and 2 others in quarinteen but it wasnt enough to stop them all from getting it. once Angel died, the rest shortly followed. tests came back positive for IBD and I dont think i will own another python or boa for as long as I live. I dont think I can go through that again.

Thanks for letting me get this out and I'm sorry if I dammpened the holiday mood for some of you.


(if this thread needs to go into off topic then move it... I didnt know where to put it. Thanks, Jess)

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Jessie sorry to hear this :(.

Thank you all. it was very hard for me to come here and admit that this had happened. I dont like to admit failure, or show flaws. (even though I do a lot) But this was important to tell and I took a risk in being ridiculed on a public forum for my lack of knowledge to keep you and your animals safe from something like this.

It is comforting to see that you all understand my pain.

as for the snakes that I had they were all pythons and one of them was my jungle x coastal carpet, the rest were ball pythons.

Thats horrible man. Very sorry for your animals, no telling what i would do if that happened to me. Good luck

That's terrible. I can't even imagine something like that happening to me. That lady should have been a lot smarter than that.

Oh my, jesse I am so heartbroken to hear this. I cant even imagine the pain you are going through -

I know it sucks a LOT right now, but I dont think you should close yourself off completely. I know when Im having a bad day, my snakes are one thing I can turn to to make me happy. Give yourself some time, and then entertain the idea of maybe picking up a new buddy.

Geez, again I am so so freaking sorry about this. :tears: :hug:

I am so sorry to hear about your loss. Hopefully one day you will feel better and want to start again. Hopefully your story will help someone else from having this tragedy from happening to them.

I still some day want to have a Pastel male BP to call my own. With all the healing this little fella has done for me I might get one in a few years.

http://www.hexibase.com/~jessica/bt.JPG

While IBD is transferred from snake to snake, I don't recall ever reading that IBD could hitchhike on the owner and then be transferred to another collection that way.

I took this from the link posted above:

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Exposure to this retrovirus appears to be due to a transfer of body fluids. Breeding, fight wounds, and fecal/oral contamination are common ways of transfer. Casual handling of an infected specimen and then a normal specimen does not appear to create enough viral exposure to cause infection.

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Could you post the lab results that your vet gave you? I'm sure we'd all be curious to see exactly what it was.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jessie_k_pythons

I still some day want to have a Pastel male BP to call my own. With all the healing this little fella has done for me I might get one in a few years.

http://www.hexibase.com/~jessica/bt.JPG

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Great lookin Turtle!

Here is another useful link with illness and disease.
ACVC 2001, Snake Medicine

I have read that the common suspect of spreading disease is through the mite.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

While IBD is transferred from snake to snake, I don't recall ever reading that IBD could hitchhike on the owner and then be transferred to another collection that way.

Could you post the lab results that your vet gave you? I'm sure we'd all be curious to see exactly what it was.

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I am very curious about this as well.

I am very sorry for your loss. :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

Could you post the lab results that your vet gave you? I'm sure we'd all be curious to see exactly what it was.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by LadyOhh

I am very curious about this as well.

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me too.

:)

I'll Find the paperwork when I get a chance. I'm packing up everything right now for a move back to AZ so I'll start unpacking some boxes when I get a chance.


My husband was put out of the military.

I didnt read the paperwork, I just couldnt ... I just asked the vet out right was it was. if it was transfered by mites then that would make more since, and it wouldnt surprise me one bit. I have heard cases of mites clinging to cloths after some one has held a snake with mites but for all i know that could be false. you guys are the experts lol.

I'm so sorry :( I can't imagine what you're going through.. Just reading that makes me so sad. That must have been so devastating. Loosing an animal is so hard.. Loosing more than one, is almost unbearable. I'm so sorry that this happened to you. I don't really fully understand what IBD is, but I read that link Littleindiangirl posted and the thing that stuck in my mind was that it said it was "uncurable". I'm sorry for your great loss, but know that I, among many other people are here for you.

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Originally Posted by jeffnme

me too.

:)

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me 3.

thats horrible man, sorry about your loss.

I am sorry for your loss. That would be very hard to deal with. I hope you can find it in you to own more again. I don't think that love will ever go away.:(

Wow, I am sorry that you lost your collection. However, if IBD were transferred from the lady to your snakes.. I don't see that as any kind of failure ou your part. So you should not feel like you're admitting failure that was not yours. Who among us can say that they've never let a fellow boid keeper handle one of their snakes? Not many, if any at all, in my opinion. Perhaps one of the snakes had it when you got it, and it spread around? Again, that really would not seem to be your fault in my opinion.. you could quarantine a snake for months and not technically know if it had ibd, as per the testing being unreliable if even possible on most people's living snakes..
I wish you sympathy in all of this regardless.