My BP died inexplicably and I'm crushed... any ideas?

My beautiful spider ball python is dead and I have no idea why. He was fine just last night. I had him out, I was handling him, he was happy and active as ever... He had shown absolutely no signs that anything was wrong. He was eating fine. He lived in a rack system that holds several other BPs that are still fine... the temps and humidity were normal. I've had him for a year, and I've never seen anything out of the ordinary.

I checked on him just now and found him dead with a strange lump right by the vent. he was fine less than 12 hours ago.

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I am not a breeder... I have several morphs, and I was going to do amateur breeding eventually, but he was above all my pet. And I loved him dearly, and I always tried to take perfect care of him... This was so sudden and I have no idea what happened.

Does anyone know? Are my other snakes in danger? Any insight would be great, because... I just know what happened, and I feel like absolute crap. I loved him so much.

Oh my god that's terrible. However you should take his body to your vet for a necropsy to make sure your other snakes aren't at risk.

I am very sorry for your loss. It appears like he has alot of wood beeding impacted and it must have caused severe internal problems. He looked like a beautiful spider and again I am so sorry.

I am SO sorry for your loss! :( What kind of substrate do you keep them on? It looks like he was trying to pass something that he could not. :(

I am sorry for your loss, your spider looked nice!

Looks to me too, that it was trying to pass something out, & it couldn't. I hope you get some answers.

Thanks... It's aspen. I thought that a lot of people used aspen and it was safe. I got it at a snake show, actually, and I've never seen anything to indicate that it was dangerous. If I'd known at all that this could happen, I would've used something different... I guess I thought if it was a problem, so many people wouldn't use it... and that a creature whose stomach could digest bones wouldn't have a problem with the little bits of substrate that got on the mice.

The weird thing is, the last time I fed them was a week ago and he acted completely fine even last night.

I just don't even know. This is so terrible. He was so beautiful and I loved him so much. Had I gotten even the slightest indication that anything was wrong at all, I would've taken him to the vet immediately.

Did you notice that swelling when you were handling him? Unfortunately there is no way to say definitively why he passed except by having a necropsy done. If you would like to go that route, be sure to put the body in the refrigerator and contact a vet as soon as possible on Monday.

I'm deeply sorry for your loss.

Aspen is certainly considered safe and you shouldn't feel bad for having used it or blame yourself. Is it an option to take him to a vet for a necropsy? Were I in your shoes, I'd definitely be wanting some answers....as difficult as they might be to obtain. I've heard of people doing their own amateur necropsies as well....but I don't think I'd have the stomach for something like that. :(

I'm so sorry!

Was the wood just stuck to him or was it coming out of his vent? Looks fresh and not like it has gone through his digestive cycle. A lot of folks use aspen and they can ingest a little bit with their food and it shouldn't cause a problem.

I will do that, I think, if it's the only way to know.

I can't help but blame myself at least a little. I can't help but feel like I did something wrong, because he was barely a year old. I just wish I knew, so that it never happens again. And I guess the only way to do that is to do the necropsy. I'll find someone tomorrow, I guess.

But yes, he was on aspen, and he only ate mice. I don't know what could've happened.

I don't actually know about the wood. It looked like it was a little stuck, but not like it had gone all the way through his digestive system. I don't know about that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kairotique

I don't actually know about the wood. It looked like it was a little stuck, but not like it had gone all the way through his digestive system. I don't know about that.

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You are right, it does look to clean to look like it passed through his system. He may have had some fluid or something coming out and the aspen just stuck to it.

It looks like there was somekind of internal probleimpaction that did damage. Without any clues there is not much you could have done. The poor guy was trying to pass something that caused sever damage. I did have a BP from a petstore once that was so dehyrated the urates turned to rock and had to be removed by a vet. I was lucky enough to bring her in for other problems(ticks and mites) and the vet caught it. That was the last snake I ever got from a petstore.

Also, one important thing.
He last ate about a week ago, and he has actually pooped since then. A few days ago. Everything looked normal there, too. There was nothing strange about any of it, for the entire time.

Aspen is safe for substrate, but not for feeding. It can cause impaction. Some bags will even warn about feeding on aspen. 4 of my snakes are fed in a seperate feeding container because I use aspen. The two that won't eat in another container are fed on a "tray". Before feeding them I cover the aspen with a piece of cardboard for them to eat on. I am very sorry about your snake. I too recomend taking him to a vet to find out the cause for the sake of your other snakes.

That is so terribly sad :( Let us know what the vet says......

I'm so sorry for your loss. I think a necropsy would most likely ease your mind.

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Originally Posted by ohyeahnow

Aspen is safe for substrate, but not for feeding. It can cause impaction. Some bags will even warn about feeding on aspen. 4 of my snakes are fed in a seperate feeding container because I use aspen. The two that won't eat in another container are fed on a "tray". Before feeding them I cover the aspen with a piece of cardboard for them to eat on. I am very sorry about your snake. I too recomend taking him to a vet to find out the cause for the sake of your other snakes.

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It can cause impaction in large amounts, but is very rare.
And it's doubtful that was the reason this animal died, as the other posters have said, that was just aspen stuck to his vent, it had not come out of his vent.

Good luck and I hope your collection is safe!

So very sorry for your loss:( please post updates when you find out what happened.

Rich

That could just be postmortem bloat at the vent -- really no way to tell why your snake died without taking it in for a necropsy -- have you cleaned his cage lately or cleaned around his cage? Perhaps he got in or around something toxic?

I am sorry for your loss. :(

I bought a Ball Python from PetCo and it died in a few months o_o I never cried though I wanted to ._. mine died a resp infection along with blister disease. we herd clicking noises sense we bought her.but we payed no mined to it. I'm guess it was not just clicking but a sigh of a resp infection.

So sorry for your loss. That is terrible! We lost an African Fat tailed gecko to an impaction and per the vet there was nothing that we could do about it. We tried everything for over a month (laxatives, assisted liquid feeding and all and nothing helped) it was devestating for our 8 y/o

I am so sorry for your loss. :(

When I first looked at the picture, I was thinking along the lines of many other posters, and maybe similar to what Tosha already stated. It doesn't look to me like the Aspen passed through the digestive system. It also doesn't appear to me that Aspen just got stuck to the cloacal opening. The first thing I thought was that the snake may have prolapsed, and sucked the Aspen back up into the cloaca when the prolapse retracted. However, none of that explains the mysterious death. After reading through the entire thread, I can see nothing that gives any clues to the cause of death. As most of the other posters stated, if you are concerned with the rest of your collection, and/or what more answers, a necropsy is definitely in order.

Make sure you do not freeze the animal, as it may destroy vital information for the vets. Also, set up an appointment as soon as possible, to avoid any further possible deterioration of the animal.

Sorry for your loss, it is always hard. I hope this helps in some way.

muddoc, actually that makes perfect sense. I was wondering why there would be a bloody piece of aspen that still looked like it hadn't passed through his system. I had no answers at all, but that makes perfect sense. Thanks a lot.

And thanks everyone for your concern. I really do appreciate it. I have scheduled a necropsy and I will be dropping him off at 4 today. He has been in the refrigerator all night and still is. They'll be able to look at him tomorrow, then hopefully I'll get some answers.

sorry for your loss keep us informed.

Very sorry to hear about this, he was a beautiful spider :tears: Let us know what the vet says, hopefully it's just a fluke thing and the rest of the collection is not in danger.

what did you find out?

I am so sorry for your loss. I know how it feels to lose a snake I lost a boa in a freak accident. I was trying to find ways blame myself it seems as well. We just have to accept that if we do our best to take care of them and an accident happens we have to try to accept it. He looks just like my spider. If I have any spider clutches this year I will let you know. Maybe I can send one your way. Again sorry for your loss.

So the vet took a day off on the day she was supposed to do the necropsy because her kid was sick apparently. But I got the results back yesterday.

She said she can't really make heads or tails of it because she found several slight abnormalities but nothing that should've killed him without warning. I'm sending tissue samples away to get them run through the battery of tests, just because I have to know and I have to keep my others safe.

The results:
1) He had two tiny strange lumps on his back near his tail that the vet said were caused by some sort of developmental injury or sickness (before I got him- either very very young or still in the egg), but shouldn't have been a serious problem.
2) His heart was a little bigger than normal, but she couldn't think of anything that that would cause. Just for completeness sake, she told me absolutely everything.
3) He had the very very beginnings of a respiratory infection (probably from when the stupid power went out for 5 days straight citywide last month and I had to do my best to keep them warm with body heat and makeshift heat pads out of glove warmers.) But it was so mild that he didn't even show any symptoms of it at all. He never laid funny or kept his mouth open, he didn't make any unusual sounds, there was nothing unusual about his mouth, etc. It was just the very start of a normal treatable respiratory infection that hadn't progressed at all, thus shouldn't have killed him.
4) He had a pancreatic cyst, and she said that those are caused by parasites or disease- hence why I'm having the tissue tests done. Because that's the most likely clue.
5) His liver had a little bit of discoloration that she found slightly odd, but it looked still functional, just a little strange.

She concluded that she thinks that he was a carrier of something that he didn't show symptoms for. I've been obsessively watching the rest of my collection for any strange signs of anything at all. Unfortunately, two of them are shedding, so they're acting a little grumpy and lethargic anyway and I can't tell the difference. I've obsessively cleaned and washed everything, and I wash my hands every time I touch them now. But none of the others are showing any symptoms of anything yet. Here's hoping.

There are two details that I didn't mention in the first post. One is, he stopped eating for about a month awhile ago. I don't remember the exact dates, but I do know that he had eaten 4 times between when he was off feed and when he died. He ate a mouse 4 times, each about once a week between then and now. So there's that, but I think I can explain it. I think he was just a little stressed out because he didn't like his hide situation. He was a bit of a picky snake, and once I gave him a new and better hide, he started eating again that week.

Also, I forgot the single behavior change that I had noticed because I didn't think anything of it at the time. He had started the past month or so to, instead of alternating between his two hides on the warm and cool side, alternate between his warm hide and wrapping himself around his water bowl. To be fair, it was probably comfortable because he could wedge himself between the bowl and two sides of the tank, so he probably felt hidden anyway. But he had never done that before, and I would often find him curled up around it. That was the only symptom or behavior change that I can think of. If anyone can think of any negative reason that a yearling male would do this, let me know.

So... yeah. I told them to send the tissue samples away, and they're going to run a battery of tests on them. Hopefully I'll find out for sure what happened soon. I don't know how long it's going to take to get results though.

*hugs*

I hope they figure out what happened soon :(

Oh also, I should probably specifically state that the vet found no internal organ damage, despite the strange lump by the vent. So I think that Tosha was right on the second page, and it was just very misleading postmortem bloating. Whatever happened with that aspen and his behind was incidental, according to the vet. There was no tearing or internal bleeding according to her.

So it seems like being shocked by a suddenly inexplicably dead snake made me jump to the conclusion that any visual abnormality was automatically implicated. Such is apparently not the case.

I'm so sorry about your spider! it looked like an impaction to me... I'm really sorry

Yeah, I know! It really did to everyone who saw it.

But then, after being dead awhile, the lump went away. And the vet found no evidence of there being one. And while she might not know absolutely everything there is to know about ball python pathology, she did sound at least like she was a very competent surgeon and knew a lot about their insides. So I'd think something like that would be very obvious to her. Totally bizarre. Guess things aren't always what they seem. I'm glad I brought him in.

again im so so so very sorry for your loss.

Let us know about the tissue results. I'll be watching the thread. It doesn't sound like it could have been IBD (recalling from memory).

My sympathies also.

Okay, everything is taken care of and the tissue samples are officially and definitely sent off to a special reptile pathology center somewhere in California. I should have results back about a week from today, and I'll post whatever I find out. So this thread will be revived in about a week with new interesting info.

Thanks again everyone. I really appreciate the support. My other snakes still seem fine. Of course I'm paranoid about every little thing now, but I haven't noticed anything truly out of the ordinary. I've got them each in separate tanks now where I can see them due to an unfortunate coincidental rack system malfunction a few days after the death of my spider. Everything seems normal, so... here's hoping it's nothing contagious.

Looks like he was impacted or something. Thats a bummer and I know how you feel I lost my first red tail about a year and a half ago and it was a depressing ordeal and I felt terrible. :(