A very sad night

[Atherosdragon]

I found Mr Jackal, Mr. Ibis, Athena, Annebelle, and Eros Half of my collection all dead or half dead from being to cold due to my dimmer switch failing... Damn I wish I had bought that Spyder a LONG time ago!! all I can do is blame myself... I still have all my girls Zorya, Solara, Hathor, Xena and my trooper Odin... so I didn't lose everyone

[notmyfault]

So sorry for your loss. Take it as a lesson learned. It's always a good idea to use a quality thermostat especially with as many snakes as you have, plus a back up thermostat isn't a bad idea either.

[DooLittle]

Bummer, that's sucks. Sorry for your loss.

[MSG-KB]

Sorry for your loss

[heathers*bps]

I'm so sorry

[DemmBalls]

Sorry for your loss. This is the exact reason we all preach the importance of a good T-Stat.

[muddoc]

That sounds horrible. However, are you sure they were dead? What did the temp get down to? I ask, because I have seen some balls get so cold that they appear dead, but after warming up a bit, they will start to tongue flick and will make a full recovery. It is possible that they got cold enough to slow down bodily functions to almost a stop. Unless it got down to below 40 degrees for 6 hours or more, I would suspect that they might still be alive. If you haven't disposed of them yet, warm them back up before you make the final ruling on death. Then get that new t-stat.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

[L.West]

Wow, how awful. How long had it been since you checked in on them?? Of all the things that could go wrong - I never thought I needed to worry about them freezing to death. I check my collection, morning and night faithfully.

Godspeed to your poor snakes.

[DemmBalls]

That sounds horrible. However, are you sure they were dead? What did the temp get down to? I ask, because I have seen some balls get so cold that they appear dead, but after warming up a bit, they will start to tongue flick and will make a full recovery. It is possible that they got cold enough to slow down bodily functions to almost a stop. Unless it got down to below 40 degrees for 6 hours or more, I would suspect that they might still be alive. If you haven't disposed of them yet, warm them back up before you make the final ruling on death. Then get that new t-stat.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

This is an excellent point. We lost a snake in our car in December while moving back to PA from OH. We never found the snake until the next day with the temps dipping into the 20's overnight. Once we found him...I wrote him off for dead. No breathing, no tongue flick, etc. After a night of slowly letting him warm up...He seems fine to this day.

[dr del]

What Tim said.

You're not dead till you're warm and dead.


dr del