• 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.

Help solving a death

antsterr

antsterr

Always mostly awesome
I'm really sad to come here with such a downer of a situation. My '11 lavender male passed away this morning.

He came down with some spots of infection on his skin that I was treating with polysporin. Once I found this I changed his bedding from aspen to paper towel and did a full sanitization on his tub. I found then that he was discharging clear liquid with bits of white in it from his vent on a daily basis. I don't know for how long, in the aspen bedding I couldn't see it it. Yike! I've seen this before and quick antibiotic treatment saved the day. However, the pour fellow didn't last long enough for a vet checkup. I found him dead about an hour ago.

I'd like get some input into the cause. I won't be having a necropsy done but I'm hoping some input will give me a petter idea of what I may be dealing with.

What I have is a photo after death that shows a big green batch in his belly about half ways down his body. It wasn't there before death. I don't know if it's the cause of death or if dying causes the discolouration. I'm wondering if someone with experience dealing with sick corns would be able to help figure this one out. I could PM the photo if it would be helpful, I don't want to post it in the thread.

The biggest thing I'm worried about is how contagious this might be. I thought it was just a skin issue until late last week when I changed him to paper towel and found his poops were all messed up. He's been isolated, but now I'm going to be checking everyone's cage and temporarily switching from aspen to paper towel.
 
The discolouration in his belly is the gall bladder, which is affected like that after death. It won't be a contributory factor.

I can't really comment on the actual root cause. The scales are essentially inert, made from the same material as human fingernails. So unless there are breaks in the scales where you saw the "spots of infection", I'd think the "infection" is likely to have been some kind of fungus or bacterial condition. However the only one I've ever seen is scale rot and it doesn't sound like that. In any case, it might be contagious, so it sounds like some general deep-cleaning is called for.

I hope somebody else has seen or heard of the condition. It's awful not knowing.
 
Ok, I'm deleting the pictures then because they are gross. I can't really show what the infection looked like because it was cleared up by the time of death. Imagine the nice purple lavender scales with a sport about half the size of penny where the scales look brown and scabby. No amount of soaking in water would get it to wash off and after four or five treatments of antiseptic performed every other day it cleared up. He didn't shed, but it was all but gone at that point.
 
Sorry to hear of your loss :(

Why won't you be getting a necropsy?

Was the lav your only snake? Necropsies are well worth the money, in my opinion. I highly doubt the scale condition caused death. Had your snake been pooping solids regularly?
 
Necropsy is out because they would have to freeze and mail him away to a lab to get it done. Also, I disposed of his body right away.
I have about 16 corns right now sterilization has been my number one concern. I don't want what he had to spread. Especially right now while the males and females are being paired up for breeding, isolation isn't exactly happening.

No, it's really too bad, he was a very purple lavender, I was so thrilled with him. He was get hypo and stripe. I was going to breed him with my opal butter motley het hypo and see what I get.
 
antsterr said:
Imagine the nice purple lavender scales with a sport about half the size of penny where the scales look brown and scabby. No amount of soaking in water would get it to wash off and after four or five treatments of antiseptic performed every other day it cleared up.
Click to expand...
Oh dear, that does sound like a bad case of scale rot, which is bacterial and transmissable if the conditions are right. Generally it means conditions are too damp and there are nooks and crannies where bacteria can proliferate without being caught by spot-cleaning. It can be fatal if it starts to run out of control, although that's pretty rare.

I know that when one of mine got it she was pretty off-colour even though all she outwardly had was some discolouration of the leading edges of belly scales. She went off her food and it took weeks after it cleared up before she ate again, so she must have felt properly ill. The external symptoms seem to be the tip of the iceberg sometimes.
 
Just a note about scale rot, it wasn't on his belly, it was on his side in 3 places, two about the size of pin head and one about the size of a dime. I thought at first he just had poop stuck on his side but it wouldn't clean off.
I suppose what caused his death though was his digestion and bowel problems.
 
It can be anywhere on the body. Mine just happened to be on the belly - that's not the limit of it by any means.
 
Sorry to sidebar, but what does a necropsy cost? I hope to never need one but starting with buying 2 snakes may warrant it he day
 
I once considered one, as my very first hatchie died after a week or so for no known reason (he was eating and drinking fine, the other one I bought with him's doing fine after all these years). I asked what a necropsy would cost at the closest reptile vet, she said it would be over €90,- :S
 
I know around here it would be about $120 plus extra for additional lab tests. It's pretty costly.
 
The one and only snake we had pass on us was a baby ball python. Well, it didn't actually pass while under our care, he just failed to thrive. Would not eat no matter what, dropped a lot of weight, his spine was protruding and skin hanging down so we brought him in to the vet. I didn't expect to bring that snake home, and we didn't. I had tried everything.

The vet took him and humanely euthanized, and sent him off for a necropsy. He was nice enough not to charge us for any of that. I think if you have a good working relationship with your vet you might get off a little bit easier on costs.
 
antsterr said:
Necropsy is out because they would have to freeze and mail him away to a lab to get it done.
Click to expand...
Domestic-type freezing would cause cell rupture and make any meaningful necropsy impossible. If they have to use a cryo freezing process and then transport the body accordingly, I can understand how that might considerably add to the cost.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top