• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

My Snake Died

The Nebula

The Nebula

New member
My snake died yesterday...... no need for that trip to the vet

She wasn't eating for about 5 to 6 weeks and after consulting this forum and Snakes.co.za I thought that going off food isn't that uncommon for Corns. I tried everything: live fuzzies, f/t fuzzies, live pinkies, f/t pinkies, fuzzies left overnight with her in separate container, fuzzies left inside her enclosure on a piece of paper, NOTHING worked. Some of the advice suggested that she will start eating again (with the use of intro-boost).

She was 1 year old and I kept her in a 1.3m viv with lots of hides and fresh water. The temps were normal South African summer temps 28 to 32C (no heating). I use corn-cob for substrate and always fed her in a separate container to avoid impaction.

Saturday I discovered a lump one quarter down her body length. The lump was hard and I thought that it could be corn-cob causing impaction. I planned to take her to a vet ASAP but yesterday afternoon she was dead.
I did a post mortem to see if I could find any corn-cob in the lump but there was none.

Do any of you guys/gals have any idea why she died. I'm planning to buy some new snakes soon and it would set my mind at ease knowing what caused the lump (yes I will disinfect EVERYTHING before I get the new snakes).

Sorry for the essay and thanks for your help.
Heinrich.
 
Heinrich,

I am sorry to hear your news. I am afraid I don't know what your snake died of.

Some corns do go off eating - either because they are in breeding season, or because they are getting ready to brumate. Your temperatures would exclude the latter, and your snake was quite young for the former.

Having said that, at 1 year of age they are of a large enough size that 5-6 weeks without food would not kill them, unless they didn't have water either.

The lump is the biggest clue. Were there any other symptoms other than the lump and the non-eating? What did the lump look like. Being as you fed her out of her cage, then you were being careful to avoid the impaction issue, but cancer is one answer that is springing to mind, in which case ther is nothing you could have done.

Parasites would cause loss of appetite, but would be unlikely to give death so quickly and the lump.

Do be sure to sterilize everything very thoroughly just in case, and once again - I am sorry.

Skye
 
You said you did a post mortem. Did you find the lump then? Sorry to hear of your loss. I would be devastated if anything happened to my girl.
 
Someone with much more knowledge than me can elaborate on this but isn't a lump one possible sign of Cryptosporidium?
 
Before we scare everyone silly.....

I'd suggest leaving the diagnosis of lumps up to a vet. ;)

With that said, hard lumps can be a symptom of crypto.
 
how about some post-mortem pics?

Was the lump a tumor or a lump of crap you dug out of the intestines.

For next time, if you suspect impaction or backing up of feces immediate bathe your little guy in some warm water and gently massage the lump. If it's poo it will definitely go.

Second and better line of defense for "backed up" feces etc is bathing your little guy in some pedia-lyte which is typically given to children with diarrhea to replace electrolytes but in healthy well balanced (osmotically) humans and reptiles is causes diarrhea and REALLY clears things out.

Sorry about your loss, better luck next time.

P.S. might want to stick to repti-bark or aspen for substrate, these fancy substrates can be trouble.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top