Crypto :(

Seems like its going to be a bad few weeks or so. I had an adult male cornsnake, Oak, put down recently. He first became sick late April/early may. Showed up with loosing a lot of weight quickly and runny poos. No vomiting and still had a great appetite. So took him to the vet for tests. Initial fecal tests came back as pinworms and coccidia from the lap. So I started treatment on him for the parasites. Did okay for a little bit.. but then went down hill quite fast. Lost a lot more weight, starting vomiting and then the day I took him to the vet, earlier he was flipped upside down in his tank and acting quite strange. I opted to put him to sleep since he was not doing so well at all and had his body sent to the lab for a full necropsy.

Bad news is the report came back yesterday. He had crypto, with no other signs of other illnesses. Worse thing is my savannah monitor,Tank, is acting real sick as well. Weight loss and he vomited once during the weekend. I took him to the vet yesterday as well, which is when I got the news about the necropsy. Not good at all. So he will be having tests as well and a test for crypto done. I'm really worried.

The thing is tank and Oak never came in contact with each other, but there could be a chance I think with things such as washing bowls. Of course when oak became ill I was very careful, using gloves and washing any of his equipment in an isolated area.

Now I'm worried about my other reptiles. I've got five other corn snakes, two kingsnakes, six hognose snakes, two leopard geckos, five bearded dragons and a ball python. I'm dreading finding this disease in anyone else.

So I will be getting fecal sample from the snakes first and sending those off to be tested and see what happens. I also bought a steam cleaner and some ammonia for cleaning. Once that comes in me and my husband will be steam cleaning the racks and soaking them with the ammonia in hopes to stop this thing.

Another thing thats not good is the rack oak was in my husband bought, and it was originally from a friend who did some reptile rescue before she stopped. So if the crypto came in on the rack then all those snakes could be infected... Which sucks. I cleaned the thing like mad but apparently crypto's resistant to almost everything.

My understanding is that crypto is fecal-oral transmitted, being a mutant type of coccidia correct?

Well bad news, we ended up euthanizing the savannah monitor, Tank, over the weekend. He took a terrible turn for the worse. Vommitting alot and vommitting up blood as well as watery diarrhea with blood in it. Not good at all. It was very upsetting, he was a favorite and had a fabulious personality.

Now were waiting on those test results to see if he had crypto as well. I hope not. Well also see if any of the other critters turn out crypto positive on the PCR tests and go from there. If negative we will test again in a bit.

I'm so sorry! That's just horrible news. I always picture my snakes living 15-20 years, but it would be so hard to for them to go in their prime.

Good luck with the testing - hopefully it's not crypto.

I'm sorry you are going through this...

I am very sorry that this is happening to you.

My condolences, and good luck with the tests!

Thanks guys, its certainly not been fun. I'm hoping it was just the two who were infected but we shall see what the tests results are. I'll keep you all posted what the results are as they come in.

Hopefully noting bad!