RIP Freya & Ghost

[mandymg86]

My boyfriend and I purchased two very young, very small ball pythons in October 2018. I joined this forum, and worked on learning everything I could. About 3 weeks before Christmas, I noticed bubbling from Freya's nose. I knew that it was RI. I took her to a highly recommended exotics vet immediately (Dr. Craig at Best Friends Animal Hospital in Swansea, IL) and we started her on antibiotics. She seemed to be getting better. Ghost then started showing RI symptoms the week before Christmas. I called and set up an appointment with the vet on December 26, the same morning of Freya's follow up appointment. Christmas morning, we check temps, change water, everything is looking good. Seriously, no issues at all with the snakes. We get home and Ghost had passed away. We were DISTRAUGHT. Freya was still seeming okay, so I left a voicemail with the vet and said that we'd be in with Freya the following morning. The next morning, I found her deceased in the tank. I called the vet in tears. Looking back, I should have had a necropsy done on both, but having been our first snakes, I was too distraught to do anything than give them a nice burial in my yard.

The last two months I've spent anxiously tearing apart our husbandry in my mind, trying to figure out where we went wrong. I've gone over everything a thousand times. I was scared to post here out of fear of judgement. My boyfriend and I completely redid our snake enclosure with better heat and humidity sources. We converted a spare bedroom in my house to be our "snake room". All of our snake housings and accessories have been scrubbed down with F10. We're extremely focused and paying attention to every tiny little detail.

Losing our babies was so insanely hard, but I hope that our story will help other people. We just purchased a new (a bit older and quite a big bigger) female ball python yesterday. She's perfect, and we are working very hard to make sure her home is perfect for her.