With an extremely heavy heart I have a serious issue / information that needs to be shared and addressed by anyone and everyone that keeps or breeds reptiles. Over the course of the last 5-6 weeks I have lost 90% of my entire collection to a brutal disease outbreak that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. I have spent quite a bit of money on veterinary care and necropsies to basically end up with more questions than answers.
The first animal to show any symptoms was a nearly 2yr. old Anthrax Tiger around 8ft long that was in my colony for over a year. This was a very strong retic with a expected healthy food drive. A few days after a regular meal she regurgitated a partially digested rat. I honestly didn't think to heavily on it with the exception of checking to see that her heat pad was functioning normally. She was still alert active and strangely enough followed me as if still hungry. From that point she began to develop a rash of skin blisters over the next 48-72 hours. Once the second symptom showed itself she was removed from my facility in her cage for quarantine and observation. She further developed a respiratory infection and passed about a week after the regurge.
Roughly 2-3 days after her death a 15ft female tiger had a very abnormal runny very foul smelling stool. I obviously decided to keep a very close eye on her due to the closeness in time to the Anthrax girls sickness. She went from an alert, responsive, hunger stalking retic to covered in blisters and dying from a respiratory infection in the exact same timeline as the last. Nearly immediately after her passing her body was taken to the Rollins Animal Disease Laboratory in Raleigh, NC for necropsy. The results were shocking to say the least. They told me that there were cell body inclusions throughout the body organs. The skin blistering was from a secondary bacterial infection. This news perplexed me because of the complete lack of any neurological symptoms most commonly associated with IBD. I've seen cases of IBD in years past that displayed themselves entirely differently. Loss of motor function, head wobbling, stargazing ect ect. What I was seeing was very different.
I immediately went into full quarantine mode in my facility with only spot cleaning and fresh water for everything in order to eliminate further spread of this plague. Unfortunately there wasn't enough bleach in the world to fix what was already done. Believe me plenty of bleach was used. A mass die off was underway that couldn't be stopped. From talking with several very influential people in this industry and quite a few specialists in reptile disease, I've come to believe that this is something that I feel and others agree is different that what's commonly known as IBD. Obviously it leaves a similar signature in a retics necropsy. I feel it's a divergent strain of IBD or something along the lines of a chicken pox type virus. Through my conversations with people I've found out that this has been around the states for at least several years. Several people have admitted to me they've had this go thru their collections and caused a similar result.
Quite possibly the worst part of what I've learned is that this disease can carry totally unnoticeable gestation of 4+ weeks. As soon as the second animal showed symptoms and full quarantine methods were necessary I moved quite a few irreplaceable/ worlds only animals into my house and spread them apart as much as possible to avoid cross contamination. One by one they began to show symptoms and die off. Some of these we're separated as long as 4 weeks without negative signs. Multiple vet visits and necropsies later my collection was decimated. Diagnosed as IBD but in my humble opinion I feel this is more than just a case of what we all know as IBD. This truly seems to be something different than the test show. As I stated before there are multiple other people in the US that have had this in their collections that I urge and beg to step forward with any information they learned /insight they gained on this subject.
I will not call out these people publicly as I don't wish to throw stones or start wars. I only wish that information can be shared to help protect others from what has happened to me. Staying quiet to protect future sales simply isn't the answer and puts everyone who loves these beautiful animals at risk. Sharing knowledge is the only positive that can come from such a horrible thing. Please step forward and help protect our community as a whole.
Thank you to everyone who has supported me through all this terrible situation. The past years of keeping and breeding Reticulated pythons have been some of the happiest times of my life and these animals will always be a part of me and my heart.
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