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Random Snake Death?

snakechaarmer

snakechaarmer

}:{snakechaarmer}:{
I was just wondering if anyone had any insight about random young corn snake death?

In the past 8 years or so, I 've had about 4 baby corn snakes that I purchased, 2 from very reputable people, just up and literally drop dead for no reason.

These snakes had been eating, shedding, pooping - all very normal. No ill behavior or regurgitations, made it a few months after being brought home, one almost a year - just for me to go in one morning and they'd just be dead.

Does anyone think this has something to do with genetic deficiency's of the higher end morphs? My observation was it seemed to be snakes that were highly cross-bred, usually with albino genes - pink snow, banded candycane, one was an amber, i believe...one was a hypo lavender.

It's so discouraging and sad. It's so weird how they can seem to thrive and then just be dead one day for seemingly no reason!
 
In mammals, such a thing usually points to a heart condition, typically an arrhythmia or PVC that worsens suddenly and makes the heart unable to function.
 
In mammals, such a thing usually points to a heart condition, typically an arrhythmia or PVC that worsens suddenly and makes the heart unable to function.
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It's odd that snakes from different sources should all be affected though. I'd expect that sort of thing to either be inherited or to arise spontaneously. One would be unlucky, two could be coincidence - but four?

To my mind it points to something environmental although what - in the absence of any symptoms and over a number of years - I'm blessed if I can explain.
 
It happens to all of us at one point or another. I get sudden death occurring in hatchlings on up to established adults. They are all apparently healthy, eating, shedding, pooping, active and as the OP states, I just go in to find a dead snake. I've at necropsies performed with absolutely no findings. It happens with snakes I have produced here and to snakes purchased from different breeders. The snakes will be fed the same, given the same water, and housed identically and next to (on either side, above and below) other snakes. I notice no difference between the morphs as it happens to high end morphs and normals with no hets, from lines that have been closely bred to completely unrelated genetic backgrounds. I've just learned to accept it as "one of those things", no matter how much it stinks. I've had to completely dump projects as a result, but I move on.
 
Fair point there Susan. Must admit I was thinking on a small-scale pet-owner scale rather than a full-on breeding operation, which would see apparently spontaneous hatchling death much more often.

Might be worth bearing in mind that this is the same owner who's having trouble with some sort of recurring RI in their collection as well? Don't know if they could be linked, although affected snakes with that are showing definite and protracted symptoms of something unidentified.
 
Yeah..I don't think random deaths of young corns over the past 8 years in a collection of 30+ corn snakes has anything to do with the respiratory problems of 3 adults with isolated symptoms that nobody can seem to figure out...
 
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