So my snake died :(

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silent36

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I have a 3 yr old BHP femal

I had fed her last night a rat that i had bought from a local pet store (frozen rat)
she was fine this morning so i had gone out but i get a phone call froma house mate saying that my snake had regurgitated her rat and was violently moving about the cage .

So i quickly came home and discovered she passed away she also had white spots over her entire body
she has had no contact with any other snakes for at least 4 months so im stumped to why she has died im very upset
 
So sorry to hear mate :(

I don't have any experience in this field but your best option of finding out how and why she died would be to have an autopsy.

All the best to you xxx
 
Thats horrible to hear, sorry for your loss. I also have no experience in the VET field of herps sorry.
 
I'm sorry to hear you lost your snake. Do you have any photos of the white spots? If there's any chance you want to get a necropsy done, put the body in fridge rather than the freezer and organise it as soon as you can.

Again, my condolences.
 
I have a 3 yr old BHP femal

I had fed her last night a rat that i had bought from a local pet store (frozen rat)
she was fine this morning so i had gone out but i get a phone call froma house mate saying that my snake had regurgitated her rat and was violently moving about the cage .

So i quickly came home and discovered she passed away she also had white spots over her entire body
she has had no contact with any other snakes for at least 4 months so im stumped to why she has died im very upset

photos of white spots?
 
Snakes with IBD show lots of signs before they croak it
Doubt if any snake with IBD would feed the day before death
 
You might be able to find out what went wrong if you get a necropsy done.If you are going down that track put the snake in a fridge and get it to a vet as soon as possible.It could have got internal damage from a rats tooth or claw etc along with heaps of other possibilities.
 
This is probably way off and had nothing to do with your BHPs death (white spots and all) but... How big was the Rat?
Never the less I am sorry for your loss and I hope you at least end up finding some answers.
 
... she also had white spots over her entire body...

My condolences, too ... but a picture of these white spots might be really interesting for the community here. Could you possibly still arrange for that? Also, a question from me as a beginner: What does BHP stand for? I just have a freshly skinned and very active young Bredli python slithering around my neck trying to strangulate me, huh - is BHP a Bredli Hybrid Python? (just a guess)

As for frozen pet shop rats, my local pet shops keep telling me that the commercial suppliers breed the rats they sell in sterile and absolutely hygienic and disease-free conditions and their facilities are controlled and monitored - that's their standard response why they "can't" and won't buy any of my home-bred rats who are probably the happiest rats in the world ... I wonder what the breeding conditions at the commercial pet shop suppliers are really like?
 
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What does BHP stand for?
Black-Headed Python

As for frozen pet shop rats, my local pet shops keep telling me that the commercial suppliers breed the rats they sell in sterile and absolutely hygienic and disease-free conditions and their facilities are controlled and monitored.
It also gives the stores the ability to hold their suppliers accountable if anything does go wrong. How much would it suck if your rats weren't frozen or stored right, and a few locals fed their snakes some slightly off rats... ANY ill effects would be the store's responsibility, and the pet shop can't deal with that risk (and I know it's minute).
 
Question to the "slightly off rats" issue. I also breed guinea pigs. Occasionaly, though very rarely, it happens that I find a rat or a guinea pig dead which have not shown any signs of a disease. I usually assume that it was the cold or the heat or some cage mates squeezing them too much or they may have died in a fight with their cage mates, etc. And I put them into a plastic bag and into my freezer for possible later use as feeders. Is it indeed a too big risk to feed them to my snakes? I would guess that a few months of freezing plus the stomach acids of the snake should be able to reliably kill any possible disease agent.
 
In the wild these rodents would be first eaten anyway with survival of fittest etc so it shouldn't be a problem but personally I'd only feed them to monitors
 
Question to the "slightly off rats" issue. I also breed guinea pigs. Occasionaly, though very rarely, it happens that I find a rat or a guinea pig dead which have not shown any signs of a disease. I usually assume that it was the cold or the heat or some cage mates squeezing them too much or they may have died in a fight with their cage mates, etc. And I put them into a plastic bag and into my freezer for possible later use as feeders. Is it indeed a too big risk to feed them to my snakes? I would guess that a few months of freezing plus the stomach acids of the snake should be able to reliably kill any possible disease agent.

The guinea pig hair is really coarse and thick, I stopped feeding them after hearing about the hair clogging the intestines. I didn't feed my BHP for 4 weeks and they still pooed hair...
 
Question to the "slightly off rats" issue. I also breed guinea pigs. Occasionaly, though very rarely, it happens that I find a rat or a guinea pig dead which have not shown any signs of a disease. I usually assume that it was the cold or the heat or some cage mates squeezing them too much or they may have died in a fight with their cage mates, etc. And I put them into a plastic bag and into my freezer for possible later use as feeders. Is it indeed a too big risk to feed them to my snakes? I would guess that a few months of freezing plus the stomach acids of the snake should be able to reliably kill any possible disease agent.

Shouldn't be a problem at all - larger food items routinely begin to rot in a snake's stomach before the digestive juices can really get working. It can take weeks for a very parge meal to break down in the gut of a very large python - the giant species eat pigs, deer, goat etc and they don't break them down in a day or two.

Jamie
 
As for frozen pet shop rats, my local pet shops keep telling me that the commercial suppliers breed the rats they sell in sterile and absolutely hygienic and disease-free conditions and their facilities are controlled and monitored - that's their standard response why they "can't" and won't buy any of my home-bred rats who are probably the happiest rats in the world ... I wonder what the breeding conditions at the commercial pet shop suppliers are really like?

I don't believe commercial suppliers of rodents are kept pathogen/disease free and in sterile conditions. The shop probably just tells customers that so they think they are getting their money's worth for pet store prices, not that it would make a difference to quality if alternative backyard rat breeders were using good rats with strong immune systems. A lot of customers at pet stores will only buy all white rats too, and are really wanting rats to be incredibly neatly frozen, which commercial people are really good at.

A frozen rat would have to be pretty messed up to actually make a reptile sick, also. If people have problems with their reptiles i feel it would be highly unlikely to be caused by a frozen rodent, and more likely something else to do with disease, genetic weakness or husbandry. Many reptiles will happily eat rotten food that they find, without health issues, including BHP's.
 
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