My baby Bread

[valhalha30]

About a week and a half ago, Bread, my 2 1/2 year old triple hybrid, passed away with a violent death..
From what my father said, Bread had a violent seizure/stroke "as if he was stepped on or hit by a car" (what my dad described it as) and it appeared to have substrate in its mouth. By the time I came to its tank, it only looked as if it was trying to rid its mouth of substrate, so I took him out, and took a q-tip to its mouth and removed the substrate.... Bread was putting up a good fight with me, and the substrate in his mouth just seemed to be the issue at that time..... as I set him back into his tank, he went limp... and refused to slither away.... I touched his tail, and he flailed around with his mouth wide open and went limp again..... I immediately called a friend for a refrence to a good vet, and then took him to the vet I was reccomended to go to... which was suprisingly and thankfully, only 5 minutes up the road from my house. I took Bread there within 3 minutes and stimulated him on the way there just so he wouldn't give up on living... the doctor saw him immediately as I walked into the door, and checked him out. Nose, mouth, stomache, vent, spine, just about everywhere without cutting him open.... and he said that he looked perfectly healthy and had no signs of anything wrong. He gave Bread a shot of electrolytes and water, and that's when Bread took his final breath. I took his sister to that same vet, and he checked her out all over too, and said she was in perfect health.
I told the doctor everything I told you, and he thought perhaps because he was a hybrid and because he was so abnormal (color wise) from his clutch-mates, that he was abnormal internally... and that something with his genes and traits malfuntctioned internally during development.
I told Bread, Butter, and Peanut's breeder, whom I'm friends with, that it looked like Bread was having a stroke... and he said that can happen to reptiles and that it could've happened with him, he also said that they usually pass away if it was a violent stroke, like I described... but he couldn't tell me for certain that that's what happened to Bread. My friend said that he's had a few snakes randomly "stroke out" and die, and that's why he thinks that happened to Bread... he also agreed with the vet about how abnormal he was in comparason to the rest of his clutch, and told me exactly what the vet said (maybe he was special internally too, and that caused some developmental issues that lead to death). My friend went on to tell me that he was working on a rattlesnake hybrid project, and his hybrids but one didn't make it because the genes didn't mesh that well.... and after a few years, the survivor from that clutch passed away randomly.

While Bread's passing stings and haunts me... it made me do tons of research and with that I learned a lot about diseases, infections, and ailments. And really alerted me to keep a extremely close eye on my other snakes' health... Butter, Bread's sister, is still looking and acting fine... but a little depressed, as she was bonded with her brother..... I think that, out of everything, breaks my heart the most...

I realize that this isn't the most informative thread dealing with a random death, but, I hope others can extract the importance of keeping up with their herps' health and understand that flukey things sometimes happens with normal herps, morphs, and especially hybrids..... and that everything can seem alright, until something tragic happens.