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Lost my '02 0.1 hypobloodred to aspen

D

Darin Chappell

Very Senior Hillbilly
My little hypo blood gal died yesterday. It looks like she ingested a piece of aspen and it perferated her gut when she tried to pass it. It had blocked her gut for a couple of weeks, causing three successive regurges (she'd never regurged before this). There was no way to palpate her for fear of doing what her own intestinal muscles did anyway, and there are no qualified herp vets in my area to have tried a surgical solution (besides the fact that a hatchling corn is way too small for most surgical possibilities).

Anyway. I'm taking my hatchlings off of aspen and switching them over to paper towels. I suggest everyone else consider teh possibilities for themselves.

I hate to lose ANY snake, but it couldn't have been a normal hatchling or a ghost. It HAD to be the hypo bloodred female I waited on line for from Rich Z.!!!!

Murphy's law strikes again!

:mad:
 
Darn Darin! Sorry to hear this.

Did you open her up to verify it was a piece of aspen that caused the problem?

Again, real sorry this had to happen.
 
hi daren sorry about ur lose that hapened to me about 2 weeks ago but notwith my snake it hapened with my lepord gecko he got very thin and stoped eating and doing all bodily functions it really bad so i took him to a vet and she said he was sand impacted and that he was dying and there was nothing she could do so i had to put him to sleep, but any how i baught a baby corn not long after that and im scared to use any other kind of substrate it apart from paper towels .
 
exact

Same thing happen to my Amel het Charcoal male. I verified, and it was more than obvious. I never understood why people used it in the first place as I find it impossible to be as clean as I like in my cages, but decided to use it anyway with 80 percent of corn owners doing so.

Won't do that again. Ever.

bmm
 
I am really sorry to hear that Darin, I am also curious if you took a peek at what was inside.
Murphy's law gets us all from time to time.:(
 
You know, I didn't open her up. The main reason was that I found her when I getting ready to feed, and then we got called away from the house for a little while. I didn't want her to be smelling even worse than she was, and I just didn't think about freezing her for later. I was just to bummed to be thinking very clearly, I guess.

Anyway, I did snap a couple of pictures of her really quickly to save for someone else having problems later on. It is REALLY obvious that she had something perferate her bowel. Aspen is really the only thing it could have been. She was only eating fat pinkies, so the bones had not even fully calcified in her food source, and there was NOTHING else that she could have ingested beyond the aspen. She was just never exposed to anything by water, pinkies, and aspen.

I appreciate everyone's concern. I just hope that we can examine the use of aspen for young corns a little more closely. I was always told that aspen was digested by corns if they ingested it somehow. I don't feed on aspen, not wanting to test that theory, but it looks like it's not 100% true. Of that much I am pretty much certain.

Well, Rich, I guess I will probably be sending you some more money this year! THAT was going to happen anyway, but now I'll be a year behind my plans in producing hypo bloodreds.

AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!
 
yes

And the corn I had die from it wasn't a baby. He was over a year old and wasn't fed on aspen.

Another interesting fact although I doubt it is of importance here....I had one Amazon Tree Boa I was keeping on some forest type bedding....when the snake was taken to the vet its mouth, throat and vent (it came out with poop and a enema) were full of this substrate.

bmm
 
really sorry

awwww....im really sorry to hear about you loss...its awfull when it happens...
but let it be a lesson to all of us, keep your babies on paper towels!!and even if its grown, feed it outside the usual cage, just put it in a little plastic box (whatever) its good for the snake (to be fed seperate) and it cannot eat anything other than mice...
but to daren: its really awfull to have to lose one of your animals like this...and im very sorry for your loss...
maris
 
Darin,

real sorry to hear this. I totally could feel how bad it is to find one of your favorites to die just like that....
I too lost a candy cane during the Christmas period....which my heart almost broke in half..............(as you can see candy canes are my favorite morphs out there~~~

sorry about your loss
 
Oh Darin, I'm so sorry to hear that.
I wonder why she ingested some if you didn't feed her on the aspen...Hm...Maybe I'm going to switch back to paper towels after all.
 
Sorry to hear about your little girl. :-( I'm sure glad now that I've kept Bonnie (my hypo bloodred girl) on paper towels. I think she'll be staying on them. Too bad we're not closer geographically... I've got just the female hypo blood, and now you have just the male. :-/
 
I hate to post this, but here is the postmortem picture of this poor little gal. You can see where her bowel was perferated by something (aspen) and the resulting peritineal infusion of the bowel contents.

Too sad . . .


11826deadhypobloodredfemale0001.jpg
 
yes

That is very sad. I think the entire hobby has a lot to learn about substrates myself.

If our two snakes, who weren't fed on aspen could die from impaction from aspen,,,,,how many other times could this happen but be misdiagnosed as something else? Or just plain happen without being fatal but causing discomfort.

I am starting to question the safety and reasons for using any wood substrate product with snakes. Because as it seems now, *ALL* wood products are capable of causing more harm than good when compared with paper towels.

bmm
 
wow, I had no idea...

that they've been droppin like flys on these wood chips.
Obviously it's a lot more common of an occurence, than I would have thought.

I've just ordered the paper :)

Definitely Murphys snake breeding laws at work here, Its got my attention.

I'll be bad mouthing this stuff from now on. A lesson learned :(

That really sucks a lemon, Darin :(
 
Last edited:
there

Is also other advantages to the paper!!!

I love the paper because
It is soooo clean. If I want, I can clean up even a spot of urates without worrying about some seeping into other wood chips. I feel it really keeps more sanitary. It allows you to clean more because its cheaper and easier. And I don't get all paranoid checking my snakes mouths. They are clean. Period. No possible side effects. :) I love it.

It is not as good looking to our eye though I am afriad. But paper towel is nice and white and can at least look tidy if not natural. :)
I am sure you'll like paper better. I find layering helps as well. Sometimes they go under the paper but if you leave enough layers, and make sure its really pushed down and pushed to fit, they normally stay above the paper and crap above it too.
bmm
 
Oh my!

Sorry to hear you lost your hypo blood, Darin. What a shame.

I'm actually suprised to hear these stories concerning aspen bedding. I've used aspen exclusively for years with no ill effects to my collection. But I suppose these things will happen...

Last year I started using paper towels for my adults (and hatchlings) but I still use aspen for my yearlings.

For the most part the paper towels work well. My only caveat is, as bmm noted, that they sometimes go under the towels and relieve themselves there. After that it tends to gets messy FAST if your not on top of things...

Oh well, In light of recent events I guess I'll be going all paper myself.
 
Re: there

bmm said:
It is not as good looking to our eye though I am afriad. But paper towel is nice and white and can at least look tidy if not natural. :)
[/B]
Click to expand...

You can actually get brown paper towels, at least here in the US, if the white towel aesthetic doesn't work for you. We get them by the case at a warehouse store. They are a little thinner than kitchen towels so we triple layer them, but they work quite well.They are like the kind that you find in restroom towel holders. Janitorial supply companies might be another option. Just an idea. Oh, and hello to y'all. This is a very nice and informative forum. My sympathies to the original poster, Darrin. Losing babies is so hard.

chele
 
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