Humm let’s see...where to start? Well let’s see, I am a little upset at all the assumptions and accusations going around, definitely did not expect that from this forum, but that’s beside the point. It’s also funny how if I happen to be away from my computer for any length of time, and don’t offer a reply within two seconds of someone’s post (Pandora, joepythons), all of a sudden I’m responsible for the death of the snake, I’m this horrible person, and you want to get angry. Sorry, I have a job and I have a life, just because I don’t reply to posts every 3 hours is irrelevant to me ( and the point remains that I did reply).

Next, as far as the quarantining process, why is that such a big deal? You all act like I put her in a small fish bowl with paper towels and no heat. And since apparently I need to reveal every minute detail about the quarantine, I will do that right now. I got the snake home, took her out of her tiny tube that she was sold to me in, you know the clear plastic tubs that you often see snakes being sold in at reptile expos? I put her into a separate, not the actual tank I had setup as her actual home, a separate 10 gallon tank that I prepared the night before, that day would be Friday, January 9th.

On Friday night, I cleaned the empty 10 gallon aquarium(remember she is about or less than a foot long) with a 5% bleach solution and let it sit for 5 minutes, then I came back rinsed the tank out with hot water (made sure the UTH did not get wet b/c I am sure someone is gonna jump to conclusions and say u messed up the UTH by getting it wet, the snake froze to death, its your fault, stop flaming the breeder) dried it and let it sit for 1 hour. After the tank sat for an hour I put about three layers of white paper towels down in the bottom of the tank, then I put in two identical hides which also were cleaned prior to being put in the aquarium, one on the cool side and one on the hot side. Then I put a medium sized water bowl in the middle of the tank between hides, and a piece of driftwood on the hot side. Finally, I put a screen top on the aquarium and put two heat lamps on top, one on the cool side, one on the hot side. I let the hot side lamp heat up and with two digital thermometers with probes, watched the temps, hot side was at a constant 90, cool side read 82, and digital hygrometer was at constant 52%. I also have fish tank thermometers stuck to the back of the aquarium about 2 inches above the ground on both sides which measured same temps as probed thermos.

Let me restate myself, the purpose of putting her in this separate tank was to make sure she did not have mites, yes I could have done that at the show, but you have to understand that the Havre de Grace show is in a tiny community center and is packed with people looking over your shoulders at other snakes, bumping you, noisy, and the lighting is not that good, so seeing tiny mites on your hand in this environment is not as easy as say….in a 10 gallon tank with white paper towels and proper lighting. I still did a good examination of the snake at the show which is why I said everything about her seemed to be healthy, unless I could have missed something which I never denied however it is still the breeders job to not sell unhealthy snakes, unless of course he didn’t realize that the snake was sick, then we are both just out of luck.

Anyway this is getting long so I’m wrapping it up, I get the snake home…btw in addition to me cupping the snake’s container in my hands for warmth on the ride home, I obviously had the heat on in the car, so whoever wrote that cupping my hands isn’t sufficient heating, umm I don’t know what to say to you, I figured that me having the heat on in the car was a given…but I guess not. Moving on, I get home put the snake in the 10 gallon tank, AGAIN I am checking for mites NOT treating for them, with that said there were no chemicals put in the cage, no chemicals used on the snake, no nothing!! So like I said I put her in the tank, watch her explore for a couple of minutes maybe 10, check temps and humidity, they are perfect, I walk away, grab some food and watch tv for 30 minutes, come back look under the warm side hide (which btw isn’t right above the UTH) and she is laying there on her side lifeless and limp.. I hope that explains everything and I am done with my trial. I came here looking for a since of community in trying to figure out what happened to my snake for it to go so suddenly and deduce some possible answers, not for ppl to take sides on this and that, point fingers, get angry, assume and jump to conclusions. I hope to God that the government doesn’t make it a Federal law not to own snakes because we wouldn’t be able to come together as a community to fight that law based off of what I’ve seen in the past few hours since I posted this. All that I care about and to me the most important thing is that there is a dead ball python and I want to figure out why this happened. As far as broadude, I reached out to her and she reached back and that is why she has pictures and knows the ins and outs of the whole ordeal…she also has pictures because I could send them to her email, and I don’t have photobucket so I cannot put them up here, yet. Also broadude, thank you so much for all your help and everything, I really appreciate it!!