suicide

Hi everybody,
On my birthday my boyfriend gave me a normal hatchling corn. I have a yearling and two other babys that eat and are happy, all in single enclosures. I put the new arrival up like the rest (lots of hides, fresh water, 20 to 25 °C...) after a week I offered her a pinky, she wolfed it down but regurgitaded the day after. I let her be for some days, tried another pinky, ignored. Tried again two days ago. Ignored. Last night I go to pick her up, but found her dead. She had bitten her body and attached to it and I guess suffocated. Is that ever happend to any of you? Did I do something wrong? Is that avoidable in future? It was a chock!

Thanks for any replies
Lisa

Oh my god, that sounds awful! I'm so sorry to hear about that.
I dont think that it would have been suicide...or that your snake suffocated. I think there must have been something wrong with it in the first place (probably even before you bought him). Some vets will do autopsies so you can find out why it died, just incase it was something contagious which would therefore infect your other snakes. I would recommend that, and I'm sorry I can't be of more help. I have never heard of a snake dying like that or read of anything. Maybe someone else will have experience of it??

Getting a necropsy done may give you some peace of mind in knowing what killed your snake, then again it may not. I would treat it as if you knew it was an infectous disease. Remove everything the dead snake came in contact with, clean and sanitize all your snakes cages. Make sure you wash your hands well after touching anything the dead snake came in contact with. Keep a close eye on the rest of your snakes and take them to a vet. if they show any signs of illness. There are several things that can cause what happened to your snake, parasites, viral infection and perhaps bacterial infection. Parasites and bacterial infection can be treated, there's nothing you can do about viruses. It might be a good idea to get a fecal exam done on your other snakes. IMHO

My first

Thoughts were that you mentioned keeping it at 20-25. That is a high of 77F. Corns should have a hot spot of 82 at least, I give mine a hot spot of 85. So a warm side of 28-30 and the cooler side can be room temp.

BMM

Although the temperatures where low they would not have caused it to die in this manner. IMHO

oh yeah

I wasn't even address the death part. I didn't really get that across though in my "first thoughts" i just wrote down what came ot my mind first hahaha sorry.

bmm

Self-inflicted biting is a common behavior among dying snakes. It's not a factor in their death, though.

As to what caused the snake's death, it's impossible to say without a necropsy ( a daunting task on such a small corpse). Although it's no consolation, I doubt that it was anything within your control. Sometimes, even with the best of care from the moment of birth/hatch, animals die.