Dead tiger snake

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kwaka

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To all experienced elapid keepers,

First and foremost, I am the Snake Co-ordinator for Wildcare, and am responsible for collecting elapids to train people with. I have been caring for injured elapids near Canberra for the last few years and haven't lost one without obvious reason (injuries), so I am puzzled.

I am extremely upset by the recent death of a tiger snake in my care - it was a good healthy specimen, caught in chicken wire in February, healed nicely, shed late August/early September, had a fuzzy rat 9/9. Moved to a different smaller enclosure to accommodate some bigger browns that were coming in, heat source was a marble paver with heat cord under it that I made on the cheap, had temps last time I checked varying from 28-34 degrees - no thermostat as that was as hot as I could get it, even buried under a few layers of newspaper and marine carpet.

I fed Nettie an X-breeder from Dolittle farms that has been in the freezer for 9 months, never thawed until used. 3 days later, noticed a smell, thought it was poop, but she was dead. She was draped around the paver, not on it - she wasn't pinned at all, but the mouse was still undigested - big lump, but not too big - she had taken similar prey items in Feb before she clocked off for winter.

She died with an undigested mouse inside her, and not on the heat source. I double checked the paver to ensure it was working after disposing of the body, and the temps were ranging from 34-38 degrees!!

So, possible causes of death are:
  • heat stone too hot? - reluctant to get on it in her last days, although she was in her hide on the heat stone on several observations, and she died draped around it.
  • not enough heat to digest? By not being on the heat stone, she wasn't getting a lot of belly heat, but one would think that being in contact with the heat stone would have been sufficient for digestion - overnight temps are almost double digits and the garage keeps enough heat to be warm.
  • Dodgy mousicle - it was properly warmed before giving it, and she scoffed it quickly - it had been 4 weeks since her last feed, so she was ready for it. I have used Dolittle for mousicles for the last 2 years, used dozens of them for rescue snakes and never had one that smelled weird - I also use their X-breeders for my stimmy. Longest I have had a mousicle in the freezer is 12 months in line with their recommendations.

Really upset about the loss, as apart from the heat stone being hotter than it was last time I checked, I am doing everything the same that I have done for upwards of 30 elapids over the last 3 years.

Any other ideas for cause of death (apart from some undetermined internal injury) that I haven't thought of? Or even if you agree that the heat stone was the issue?
 
•Dodgy mousicle - it was properly warmed before giving it

I have herd of people thawing there rodents in hot water …apparently boils the rodent and is a lot harder for the snake to digest and can cause death.
 
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I reckon that you might have cooked the snake.
 
Possibly a bit too hot - we've had a few days in excess of 35 here already, and with a heat source operating that warm, it might have been a problem. Tigers generally prefer more moderate temps - they live in swampy places where it can be quite a lot cooler for most of the year. Pretty hard to tell conclusively though - I've had a snake (bredli) bleed to death internally from a claw which lacerated the oesophagus on the way down, but this was pretty obvious from the flood of blood in the enclosure. Sometime we just have to accept that things die from no apparent cause - you sound like you know what you're doing, so there may not have been anything you did that contributed to the death.

I used to collect Tigers on the south coast for a research project at Royal Perth Hospital, and I know that these swamp dwellers are host to a myriad of parasites not seen in other species, lung flukes, tongue worms and other ghastly things that you may have missed when you opened it up, so cause of death could have been anything really.

Jamie
 
I agree it was probably too hot, although when I put it in and tested it before this season, the temps were a lot cooler - no idea why it suddenly decided to heat up so much. I have retired that heat stone, and expecting an order of proper heat mats sometime next week.

Cheers

Wayne
 
Did you clean it out at all?. Wild tigers are full of nematodes and bacterial parasites, some with direct life cycles, in captivity these can build up in the animal very quickly and have devastaing effects. As long as it could get away from the heat stone to a cool area the heat should not of been a problem.
 
It could easily get to a cooler area. Not sure what you mean by "clean it out" - I assume you mean the box. I use F10 between each snake, and if a box is empty for a while, I use Top of Descent after cleaning, and another squirt just before putting another one in... at this time of the year, snakes are coming in thick and fast, so I save ToD for if I notice anything.
 
Sorry no, I meant the snake. It needed to be given a dose of flagyl to get rid of bacterial parasites, ie protozoas etc and a couple of doses of wormout gel or something simular to kill the nematodes.
 
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