My Ball Python tested positive for Nidovirus

[BuddyK]

The title says it all.
My first snake was a corn snake, who I’ve had for the past 6 months. I’ve always wanted a Royal Python, and researched them for years. I finally took the plunge and bought Buddy, who was perfect when I first bought him home. He’s a stunning low white pied with a lovely temperament, I was over the moon.

He was great for the first 2 weeks, he ate for me twice. Then out of the blue, he stopped eating. I tried to leave him be, knowing this is common in royals. Then after a month of not eating, I noticed he had a bubbly mouth. I knew this must’ve been an RI, so took him to the vets the very next day. Upon talking through my vivarium, temps and humidity, the vets said they seemed to be good. The vets took swabs and blood work from Buddy but said it would take a week or so to get results. They gave me antibiotic injections to give him daily, and nebulise him twice a day which I have been doing for the past 10 days.

However, today I received my results back. Buddy tested positive for Nidovirus. I didn’t know what this was at first, but upon researching it a bit I realised the fatality and I am absolutely heartbroken. He came from a big breeder so I will definitely provide them with the results, but I’m not sure what they’ll say about this. I have never seen a bad review against this breeder, which makes me very confused with how my snake can have Nidovirus but no one else (that I can see) has experienced this? I also checked reviews for my corn snake’s breeder and I’m met with the same thing. All positive reviews.

I’ve kept Buddy completely quarantined from my corn snake, and have been careful, I assume Nidovirus affects all snakes, however I can’t find much information on it. I don’t know if my corn snake has it, and whether I can even get him tested as it can lie dormant in them.
I am heartbroken, as I’m sure I will have to get Buddy euthanised as there is no cure. I just wanted to share this here as I can find very little information on it. Has anyone else had any Nidovirus experiences? I can’t possibly see how it can be preventable which is so upsetting.

[Bogertophis]

I'm so sorry for your sad situation. I have no personal experience with this, just wanted to share this, not knowing where you are (but it can happen anywhere):

https://www.9news.com/article/life/a...f-b8928893d4ba

And notice the date on that ^ ^ ^ news story was December 30, 2020

[bcr229]

I'm sorry. Nido has hit a lot of collections hard and it seems like in the past year we're hearing more and more about it.

The seller may not have even known it was sick since was eating and appeared outwardly healthy. Often the stress of shipping can cause it to flare up if the snake is carrying it.

If you search for "nidovirus" on Youtube you can find videos with experiences that other breeders have had. Some lost a lot of animals.

[Trinityblood]

Sorry to hear that. Hope your snake pulls through. From what I've read, Nidovirus can lay dormant and have flareups like a cold sore. Only it's much worse. When they're not having flareups they can even test negative even though they are a carrier of the virus.

[SnKReptiles]

I have just gone through the same thing. Bought 2 ball pyhtons in December and in January they started showing signs of an RI so brought then to my reptile vet and nothing seemed to shift it so we sent off swabs and while waiting for them to come back my albino female passed away and once I got the result I has to bring in my pied female to be euthanized. Broke my heart. I had never heard about it before and its the most horrendous thing when you read about it.

[Bogertophis]

I have just gone through the same thing. Bought 2 ball pyhtons in December and in January they started showing signs of an RI so brought then to my reptile vet and nothing seemed to shift it so we sent off swabs and while waiting for them to come back my albino female passed away and once I got the result I has to bring in my pied female to be euthanized. Broke my heart. I had never heard about it before and its the most horrendous thing when you read about it.

That is so very sad, I'm so sorry about your losses. So sudden & unexpected- just awful.

[Amos1974]

Because buyers are afraid to name the breeders they got sick snakes from often times they don't get that reputation until some one says the name and then others realize "me too"... To have a "Big breeder" sending out snakes with Nidovirus is dangerous to the whole reptile community.

[asplundii]

Nidovirus is not an automatic death sentence. This narrative is solely down to the fact that the ability to test for the virus is stupidly easy but our actual knowledge of the virus and its behaviour/pathology/prevalence is pretty hazy.


https://youtu.be/EU4iJMdD6Tw

[Hugsplox]

Because buyers are afraid to name the breeders they got sick snakes from often times they don't get that reputation until some one says the name and then others realize "me too"... To have a "Big breeder" sending out snakes with Nidovirus is dangerous to the whole reptile community.

You know I read a story and an exchange between a buyer and big breeder a year or so ago. I'll leave the breeder's name off of this because this was an alleged situation and I don't know how true it is. Buyer picked up a handful of snakes from the breeder, over time found that they had nido, reached out to the breeder, didn't have a good experience, and took to forums/FB to comment on the situation.

Two things happened as a result of this. One, the breeder got involved and began displaying some pretty poor customer service, and two and more importantly, the fans of this big breeder started attacking the buyer on his posts. Of course all the responses weren't an attack on the buyer, but there was a lot of blame shifting, excuses, alternate theories, etc etc.

I do think if you have a bad experience with a breeder you should let the community know, but at the same time I understand why some people might be hesitant to do so based on situations like that one.

[Bogertophis]

Nidovirus is not an automatic death sentence. This narrative is solely down to the fact that the ability to test for the virus is stupidly easy but our actual knowledge of the virus and its behaviour/pathology/prevalence is pretty hazy.


https://youtu.be/EU4iJMdD6Tw

Re video ^ ^ ^ Very interesting in depth discussion. Long video, you can skip at least the first 6 minutes of irrelevant chatter. Lots yet to be learned on this- thanks!