sorry, strange topic of bp's and death

[zennygirl]

well i love my snake so much (as you all do i'm sure) but i am so paranoid about some bizarre tragic death with all the stories i hear on different forums. i am so paranoid that i honestly stick my hand in the enclosure a few times a day just to touch alfy's side poking out of the hide to make sure it does that delicate little flinch of a live snake. so i'm wondering, who has endured a bp death and do you know why it happened or how it could of been prevented and or have you ever had a snake die tragically for a reason in which you have no idea and how old was it and did it show any signs of sickness?

[Kara]

Probably not the best idea - every time you do that you're disturbing your snake, yet not taking it out for a defined interaction period. If the snake is hiding it wants to be left alone. How would you like it if you were sleeping & someone kept coming up to you & poking you to make sure you're still alive? In the long run, you're just stressing the snake.

K

[Astra_Valyesky]

I lost a snake early this year to an Inclusive Body Disease (IBD) (stargazer illness/the AIDS of boas). She aquired the illness through a mite infection. The things I learned from it were A) Never leave fresh food in with snake (it was not live it was pre-killed, f/t would probably be safe as parasites are killed) because anything crawling on them, will then crawl on your snake...B) Deal with mite infections as soon as you find out about them, not a day or two later. C) Always have your reptiles examined for their yearly (or 2x yearly) checkup (we need them and so do they).

However, regardless of that, as long as you keep your heat/humidity levels up, feed properly etc there is no reason to be paranoid, they survive in the wild with mites and ticks and other predatory animals, they're going to survive spoiled in their habitat in your home.

[BallPythonBabe448]

I am paranoid too, yesterday, I was walking up to my room (my gecko and BP are in it) and I smelled this dead animal odor, I started crying and didn't want to go in my room, and it turned out that my 'rents had put some rat poison out and there was a dead rat in the attic.

[zennygirl]

Probably not the best idea - every time you do that you're disturbing your snake, yet not taking it out for a defined interaction period. If the snake is hiding it wants to be left alone. How would you like it if you were sleeping & someone kept coming up to you & poking you to make sure you're still alive? In the long run, you're just stressing the snake.

K

KLG i am not saying i jab my snake in the side incessantly all day long. when he's been really sleepy for long periods of time i do pet him gently for a second just to make sure. i don't really believe i'm doing any harm. i have a very happy mellow snake who is very inquisitive and when i go in there to clean/water etc he is very inquistive and will generally when he's awake cruise right out on to me if i stroke him gently. i feel i know when my snake is stressed and not and wouldn't do anything to harm or disrupt his "normal" lifestyle.

astra thankyou, those are the kinds of things i want to take note of.

[Kara]

KLG i am not saying i jab my snake in the side incessantly all day long. when he's been really sleepy for long periods of time i do pet him gently for a second just to make sure. i don't really believe i'm doing any harm. i have a very happy mellow snake who is very inquisitive and when i go in there to clean/water etc he is very inquistive and will generally when he's awake cruise right out on to me if i stroke him gently. i feel i know when my snake is stressed and not and wouldn't do anything to harm or disrupt his "normal" lifestyle.

No problem...no need to get defensive. Just trying to help, you know...since you're the one who's paranoid about your snake dying for no reason.

I'm glad you feel you know when your snake is stressed - it's good that you're observant. Over time you'll come to know even more what is normal behavior for that particular animal so that if something ever goes wrong you should be able to catch it early.

Just a word on yearly checkups & such...for healthy snakes it's generally not necessary, although it may give a beginner/novice keeper a little added peace of mind. (I promise you, those of us who keep a couple thousand snakes don't go dragging them all to the vet once a year - it's simply not necessary) It's pretty easy to educate oneself on basic herp medical husbandry & most of it can be done in-home if necessary if one is confident & comfortable with it. Nothing against vets - there are some great herp vets out there, but in my experience there are also a LOT of vets out there that really don't have a thorough understanding of how a snake works. We do quite a few educational seminars for local vet clinics every year & you'd be amazed at what they don't know - even some of the simplest stuff like establishing a good thermal gradient, etc.

Just a different perspective.

K

[zennygirl]

thankyou K. i wasn't feeling that defensive just wanted to reiterate myself better.
but yea i do feel that i would know when my snake was sick. the paranoia comes from people i've come to know on the internet that are obviously doing all the right things, have kept many snakes for years, and then said one suddenly died. i guess the person/snake i have in mind was a very young gtp. that probably has something to do with. i'm sure that i'm doing a wonderful job i just get overlyconcerned about things that i love soo much. that's a snake mother for you...

[firedragon]

I lost two baby ball pythons this summer. I got a whole bunch of them from a breeder and I'm beginning to think there were a few of them who'd never eaten (they were all very young). I suppose they never recovered from the stress of the shipping. It hurt and made me feel like I hadn't done everything I could have, but now that I look back I'm pretty much over it. I have my own girl who's going great, and she was from the same litter.

I'm paranoid as well, though. I have recurrent dreams of my snakes being cut in half or otherwise injured. The cutting in half is the most usual fear, though, and I wonder why on earth - how much more likely wouldn't it be for the snakes to die in other ways, like *knocks on wood* getting stuck on duct tape (not that I use it, too paranoid) severely, getting stuck somewhere else in their cage, escaping and going into all sorts of dangerous places, or getting some disease.

[BallPythonBabe448]

I had a dream once, that I let my RTB on the floor and watched him, I turned around for 2 seconds (literally) and turned back around an dhe was split in half. The crazy thing is my friend had the exact same dream about my snake, I think alot of snake owners have that dream.

[hhw]

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not certain about this, but I thought rodent mites and snake mites are different, and the hosts are not interchangable. Secondly, how would rodent mites have IBD in the first place?

I presume you found out it was IBD through a necropsy from your vet, so I don't doubt it was IBD, but the cause you listed sounds really unlikely to me. Are you sure it didn't already have IBD when you acquired it, and that it just hadn't progressed enough to be noticeable yet?