So we bred our normal BP female to a male Lesser and she popped out 7 healthy eggs, no slugs, all of which hatched on time, all of them pipped on their own and shed very healthily after hatching.
We were not able to raise them since we were moving from Alaska to California and didn't want to ship the eggs, so we left them with a fellow breeder that we knew very well. She's the one that made sure they all hatched, shed, and ate their first four meals on their own. She maintains very strict quarantine and they were kept in a separate room far from the rest of her collection.
One of our friends decided he wanted to buy one of our lesser females from the clutch at $200. When he bought her she had already eaten several meals on her own and was well enough to be rehomed. Immediately he started having problems, according to him she wouldn't eat and against our recommendations he assist fed her. This is only the second BP he has owned which is why we told him he shouldn't do it and that it would cause the BP undue stress.
After that she started taking on her own every week. Then a week an a half ago he told us while he was holding her she suddenly went limp and evacuated her bowels and was unconscious for 30 seconds before twitching and coming to. Another week goes by and right after feeding he was holding her again and she went limp again, evacuated her bowels, but this time did not wake back up. She died the following morning and he took her to a vet. The vet found no parasites, no blockages, and nothing that seemed overtly wrong. The vet said he would need $400 to test for other disease like IBD to see if that was the problem and the client/our friend is demanding the money from us claiming he made no mistakes on his end and it must be something either we did or the breeder that housed our babies for us.
Other facts: The other breeder still has 6 of the 7 babies in her care and they are all still healthy and eating on time. None of the other snakes in the breeder's household are sick with anything either.
The dame and sire in our care are healthy and eating and showing no signs of any disease.
The client has one other snakes which was from us as well, sired by the same snake, and that BP is doing fine.
The client says his temps, humidity, and housing are perfect and that he checks them religiously.
Total amount of time he owned her: a month.
The client has admitted he handled the snake after feeding it several times but claims that's the only time he was handling it. We know he handles his other BP almost excessively and takes her everywhere with him so we're not entirely sure what 'Little amount of handling' is for him concerning the new baby.
The client says that when he DID hold the snake it was striking and biting him every time.
The client says he used hand sanitizer between holdings of his older BP and the younger one and that he cleaned her tub with a bleach mix of 10:1.
Our questions: What should we do?
We only have male lessers, normal male BP's, and a normal female BP left in the clutch that we could possibly comp him with...
We can't afford to pay $400 for these tests that we're pretty sure doesn't need to happen.
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