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Never mind naturalistic enclosures!

MegF. said:
Oh, and while I agree they can be much hardier than people think...I've had enough drop dead on me to know that they aren't too.....I'm not courting disaster if I can avoid it.
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It's always wise to err on the side of caution. I didn't know you had lost some! Sorry to hear that :( What sort of issues have you found to make them keel over?
 
Tula_Montage said:
It's always wise to err on the side of caution. I didn't know you had lost some! Sorry to hear that :( What sort of issues have you found to make them keel over?
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Some I have no idea. I had one die from obstruction and sepsis. One for unknown reasons...did a necropsy on both and did not see anything grossly wrong with it. Had another high blue animal die for no apparent reason I could find. I'm staying away from the designer chondros...a lot of money with high risk. I think they inbreed the lines too much. Switch died after laying eggs. She lost a HUGE amount of weight during her pregnancy and would not eat once she laid. Her body was donated to a young girl who is studying to be a biologist. She sent me photos from the necropsy and I sent those on to my vet who feels that she had some sort of infection. Without pathology for pathogens, there's no telling if it was bacterial and exactly where. I had a beautiful sorong baby from my friend die for no reason I could discern and then recently my favorite...my rainbow boa died suddenly. That freaked me out so I took him to my vet for full necropsy and pathology to see if he was perhaps a secondary death to what killed my Sorong baby. It turned out to be acute bacterial enteritis. He doesn't know why or how he got it, but they ruled out IBD and crypto (tested extra for that when they saw the issue with the gut) and so there you go. The forums are littered with sudden death stories in chondros and I never had issues for years and now I did. I certainly have higher numbers of snakes than I did before so the odds go up that something will go wrong with one or more of them. Statistically it's just the way it is. I've had two animals fully necropsied and pathology done and neither pointed to anything husbandry wise. I'm greatful for that, but not at the same time. It means there's nothing I can fix to make sure it won't happen again....kind of frustrating. Makes you wonder sometimes why you keep them! They are so beautiful though that you know why....
 
Sorry to hear that Meg :( High blue and designer chondros are very difficult to source here. I know of one or two people bringing them in, but they are int he 6 grand region for babies. I just wouldn't pay 6 grand for ANY snake, nevermind one that might not turn out blue anyway.

I like my 3 guys, they are all very different and beautiful in their own way. Siren was £375 4 years ago which is fantastic, Cyan was £500 but he was already blue and I wanted him for that (and he has retained that lovely colour) and Mushu was £190 because of her kinky bits :(
 
Didn't pay that for mine, but I definitely paid more than most of the snakes. You'll have to post some updated pictures of the three at some point! Of the snakes that died, besides my rainbow boa, Sparks was my greatest loss.....she was the most beautiful animal I'd ever owned and was going to be an amazing looking critter. She had a huge amount of black, white flowers on her and a lot of blue coming in. Of the clutch, Steve said she was the nicest one and she had almost no markings on her when I got her. Just flecks of yellow on a deep red (why I called her sparks). I really cried when I lost her. I'll never be able to own anything like her again...she was a once in a lifetime find.
 
MegF. said:
Didn't pay that for mine, but I definitely paid more than most of the snakes. You'll have to post some updated pictures of the three at some point! Of the snakes that died, besides my rainbow boa, Sparks was my greatest loss.....she was the most beautiful animal I'd ever owned and was going to be an amazing looking critter. She had a huge amount of black, white flowers on her and a lot of blue coming in. Of the clutch, Steve said she was the nicest one and she had almost no markings on her when I got her. Just flecks of yellow on a deep red (why I called her sparks). I really cried when I lost her. I'll never be able to own anything like her again...she was a once in a lifetime find.
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I dont think I ever saw pictures of her? Could you link me to some? I am so sorry you lost her, losing any animal is bad, but there is just something to magical and special about chondros.

I just posted updated shots of Mushu the other day, they are in this section :)
 
Here she is:
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Thanks. It was a real blow. I'm not sure that even if I had figured out what was wrong sooner I could have done anything short of surgery on her and she wasn't that big. A little over 125 grams. I necropsied her following death (I had taken her to the vet the night before for x-rays) and inside she had a huge mass of hair, fecal material and that sort of thing adhered to the walls of the intestine. She had ulcers in her stomach and her lungs and heart looked bad. I feel that the obstruction led to sepsis and both or either would have been her demise. A large area of intestine would have had to be removed to get the obstruction out. It was difficult for me to pull it away from the wall as it had imbedded in there. She had continued to eat up until I noticed her tail hanging and didn't really see any sign of obstruction until I removed her from the cage and felt it. The x-ray didn't show much. No air above the obstruction and not much to see as far as the obstruction itself. Very sad...
 
No, I'll have to look for it. I don't get as much time to come on here as I used to so I miss a lot of posts. Post the link to the thread please!
 
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