Burm Had IBD--Had to Euthanize It.

[CoolioTiffany]

Well today I decided to go mist the snakes that needed to be misted, so I filled up the bottle with warm water and headed to my room.

I misted the pink toe, then moved on to the QT room. Misted my favorite Blood girl, then misted the naughty Blood. Moved over to the Burm, and I even said to myself before misting the second Blood, "I'm going to mist that one last."

Well, I opened up the tub took the Burm out and put it on its lid on top of my rat tank. The back of his head started to twitch and shake, a.k.a. head tremors. I misted his tub, then looked closely at him.

He never looked good, always skinny so I took him home from the sanctuary to try to get him to eat. He never ate anything I offered and was never interested. Never acted lethargic until I noticed him today.

His jaw was at the side, he was opening his mouth and twisting around, started getting head tremors, so I knew what I had to do. I talked to a friend of mine (BP breeder) about it while the Burm showed the symptoms and was told to do what I think is best, so I decided to euthanize him (freeze him).

I threw out his tub, threw out everything he touched, disinfected the hell out of the area his tub was place at, took a shower afterwards, and put on clean clothes. His tub was sort of close to my mean Blood, but from what I've read the only way to spread IBD is the snake gets into contact with another, you touch the snake and touch another snake without washing hands in between, and the other snake touching something the sick snake had already touched previously.

Here's a photo of him before I went to go freeze him. I only had small snack bags so I sort of had to stuff him in the bag, but he did fit pretty well in it since he was so skinny and small.


I wasn't very attached to him anyways, I just thought I could try to get this Burm to eat and it ended up having IBD. Keep in mind this snake is from the Texas seizure, so it had to have had something. I informed the sanctuary about the Burm so hopefully none of the others have it too. They said they'd check on the Burms as well.

One question, I had a UTH for heat connected to a thermostat, so would it be okay to reuse both items or would I need to completely toss everything?

[ColdBloodedCarnival]

I'm so sorry for your loss....

[2kdime]

Id be interested in hearing what a Necropsy brings back (should you decide to do one)

Sorry to hear Tiffany

Might be best to stick further animals in a shoebox tub and in the freezer.

Sticking that animal in a sandwich bag probably suffocated him before he chilled down and fell asleep until he inevitably passed away.

[FIEND_FO_LYFE]

You state he had IBD... but never had it tested?
Just having tremors, and not eating aren't sure signs...
Freezing it doesn't seem like the best idea either...
burms, even babies are a little too large for that...

[CoolioTiffany]

I'm so sorry for your loss....

It's alright, I read a couple caresheets and I was positive his husbandry was great, though I assume the IBD was causing him to lose his appetite along with being housed with another Burm in a big tub at the sanctuary. All the others there are doing wonderfully, just this Burm got it bad.

[JLC]

I don't doubt your judgement about it being time to put the poor thing down...but I would not call it "IBD" unless you get that specifically diagnosed from a vet who does the tests required to identify it. IBD is a very specific and serious diagnosis, but it gets misunderstood far too often by folks referring to it every time they see a wobbly or sick snake.

As for the equipment being safe to reuse...if you can insure it's been been properly disinfected, I don't see why not.

[rabernet]

How do you KNOW that it had IBD? Are you getting it necropsied to be sure? I'm also a bit shocked how non-chalant you are about stuffing it into a SNACK sized bag to freeze it.

Did the sanctuary not have any terms and conditions for you fostering, including getting proper veterinary care before deciding to euthanize on your own?

I dunno - I just find the entire post a bit disturbing...

[CoolioTiffany]

Id be interested in hearing what a Necropsy brings back (should you decide to do one)

Sorry to hear Tiffany

Might be best to stick further animals in a shoebox tub and in the freezer.

Sticking that animal in a sandwich bag probably suffocated him before he chilled down and fell asleep until he inevitably passed away.

It wasn't my snake, it was a snake I brought home from the sanctuary that I wanted to try to get it to eat since it wouldn't take anything offered.

I believe I didn't zip the whole bag up, I did leave some space for airflow since I thought about the whole suffocating thing, which would have been horrible. I can only stand freezing snakes instead of suffocating or banging on the head with something heavy really hard (I could NEVER do that)

You state he had IBD... but never had it tested?
Just having tremors, and not eating aren't sure signs...
Freezing it doesn't seem like the best idea either...
burms, even babies are a little too large for that...

He was twisting his body around too, so I assume it was IBD. We had a couple snakes from the Texas seizure have IBD so I think they could have passed it on to some of the Burms, although this is the only one I've seen showing signs.

I was always told the best way to euthanize is to freeze it, so that's what I did. I couldn't ever do the other ways, and I wouldn't go to the vet for a shot to get it euthanized since it's pretty expensive and this snake isn't mine. He was very limp when I took him out as well, so I assume he was just about dead.

[Freakie_frog]

Freezing the animal will make it impossible to do a Necropsy. freezing them destroys the tissue and makes pathology near impossible to determine.

I understand your concern and can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing..but if this animal has been in your collection longer than a few weeks you might want to start looking at your other pythons.

As for whats ok to save...I'd say nothing..

there is no known way IBD is transmitted or how long it can live outside a host.. trash it all.. and anything he touch or was with in 20' of..just to be safe..

Hopefully you properly QT'ed this animal..

[CoolioTiffany]

I don't doubt your judgement about it being time to put the poor thing down...but I would not call it "IBD" unless you get that specifically diagnosed from a vet who does the tests required to identify it. IBD is a very specific and serious diagnosis, but it gets misunderstood far too often by folks referring to it every time they see a wobbly or sick snake.

As for the equipment being safe to reuse...if you can insure it's been been properly disinfected, I don't see why not.

Even if it was not IBD, I knew he couldn't have made it because the way he was limp, skinny, and showing those frightening signs. I've seen videos on IBD, I've seen boas with IBD at the sanctuary, and I don't know of any other diseases with those symptoms besides IBD and this other disease I can't remember the name of (all snakes get it though).

I will most definitely try to disinfect it as much as I can, what would I need to use to be able to do so without ruining it?

How do you KNOW that it had IBD? Are you getting it necropsied to be sure? I'm also a bit shocked how non-chalant you are about stuffing it into a SNACK sized bag to freeze it.

Did the sanctuary not have any terms and conditions for you fostering, including getting proper veterinary care before deciding to euthanize on your own?

I dunno - I just find the entire post a bit disturbing...

For the first part, read the above reply, and I was looking for larger bags but I couldn't find anything, but I definitely did not want that snake spreading anything to my snakes in the QT room or anywhere else in my house. He was just about gone, I did leave a space in the zip-lock open for airflow, and he wasn't packed in the bag, he did have some space since he was pretty small.

I didn't mean for people to attack me on this thread, just had to inform them about the Burm today.