Unexplained Passing.....Any Thoughts??

[zina10]

First of all, I'm very sorry for your loss.

And sometimes, there just isn't one good explanation.

However, the fact that he was a bad eater and also didn't shed good ever tells me it may just be husbandry related.
Many snakes can survive errors in husbandry, even eat and grow. But they live on despite these errors, not because of them.
And some just never thrive.

Can you tell us how he was housed ? What kind of enclosure, the size of it ? Pictures would help. How were the temperatures? How did you check, control those temperatures? How did you control humidity? Did he have privacy, hides?

It sounds to me like he was probably a typical petstore snake. Stressed for many reasons. Which lowers the immune systems ability to fight off disease. Since he didn't get sick until a month after you bought him, I do not think he caught it at the store, unless he had slight symptoms before you noticed them. That also makes me wonder if perhaps there was something "off" with your husbandry.
It could have started him on being a snake that just never did real well, never really thrived all that great. One that stayed susceptible to illness and disease.

I do not believe he had IBD UNLESS you may have added a infected animal to your collection not to long ago. That disease kills BP's pretty quick, it doesn't take 4 years.
The slight tremor when they hold themselves straight up is normal. Its from the strain of holding their body up. If it was just a slight tremor and only then...that is normal.

Honestly, it sounds to me like he wasn't the healthiest to begin with and eventually his body just shut down, possibly due to the stress of the bath, the temperatures, or the bad shed. The eye being cloudy AFTER removing the eye cap could be due to accidentally damaging it.

Of course it could also be that he wasn't the healthiest and eventually died despite GREAT husbandry. But the refusal to eat and the problems with shedding point to husbandry not being ideal. Even if that did not cause his death.