Have you guys read this sad IBD story?

[Skiploder]

It seems awfully strung out to me too, I was always advised that balls died within about a month.. not several months. If she had necropsies done, they would have seen the IBD to begin with, so when did she have the first necropsy? Or possibly testing on liver biopsy? If she never had that done, then I would suspect something else for it to take so very long between snakes, but I guess anything is possible.

Time of death from IBD varies from snake to snake, species to species. I had two long term captive boas come down with IBD. They were in a room with several pythons species - including a ball.

They were also in a rack with 10 pythons - none of which were infected. These boas were asymptomatic for over five years. The two boas who were diagnosed with it via esophageal biopsies had been mated several times over the years.

So in my very limited experience, it doesn't spread that easy. It takes a definite vector. On the other hand, an RI or other virus can be spread easily through the air.

I had a friend go through an OPMV outbreak and all of his affected snakes went very quickly with amazing amounts of mucous coming out of their mouths in the very final stage.

It could have also been an RI. There are several highly resistant strains out there. That's why it's so important to not administer antibiotics until a culture has been performed.

[twistedtails]

I can say that I live in Socal and there is a big breeder here who got a rare ball python disease that killed off the majority of his collection. He is still rebuilding it to this day. It wasn't IBD though. Just some rare disease. I don't think he ever knew what it was.

[WingedWolfPsion]

It sounds like the vet treated it wrong anyhow, whatever it was. Most of us here know that you never lower the temperatures on a sick snake--you elevate them slightly. Lowering the temps just to start antibiotics is going to lower the snake's immune system, and with a virus, all the antibiotics are doing is combating secondary infections. So that was exactly the wrong treatment for a viral outbreak.

It could have been IBD, but with the symptoms described, I would put a first guess on OMPV, with improper treatment explaining why there were no survivors at all. But it could also have been one of the other half-dozen deadly bugs (rhabdovirus or reovirus, etc).

Whatever it was, however, was probably not airborne, or the boas would have caught it too.

[RichsBallPythons]

I read about this from Brian at BHB who followed this persons Myspace blog about it. I believe Brian donated snakes to her when her collection withered away from this disease.

If only i could find the exact blog on this persons page im sure it has more details and comments from MANY wanting to know what the resulting cause of deaths.

[rjk890]

It is a sad story.

They were taking in unwanted and neglected snakes and housing them five deep, after only a few weeks of quarantine.
It could have been anything.

I wonder if they ever got a necropsy done on the last Ball to drop.

[dc4teg]

This came from Anapsid.........enough said.

Agreed

[wolfy-hound]

They were taking in unwanted and neglected snakes and housing them five deep, after only a few weeks of quarantine.

Five deep? You mean in a 5 slot rack? That just struck my curiosity. Five per bin? Five bins stacked up?

I've never heard of lowering temps on an ill snake either. Slowing their system down would also slow the absorbtion of drugs, as far as I know. Just sounds really sad, and also very odd.

[CoolioTiffany]

Wow, from reading the story and reading every post so far I've learned quite a lot from this.

I remember reading in the story that the owner of the shop had a Red Tail on his shoulders when he went to go get Jade, so he didn't wash his hands or even put the snake back when he went to get Jade so the person can handle her.

That might've spread something to Jade, but something also could have been in her from being in a shop with a reputation of selling diseased snakes.

[MarkS]

All I had to see was,

Melissa Kaplan's
Herp Care Collection

And I stopped reading. I wouldn't trust anything found on her site.

[WingedWolfPsion]

What's wrong with her site? I used it extensively like 10 years ago when I was keeping water dragons.