Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum

Help Support Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
Oh no i'm really sorry to hear about this.

But it is good that you are willing for your male to be used to help research OPMV.

I do wonder if he will show as having any signs of it, it would be very weird if he had no signs of Opmv if they were housed together.

Don't let this turn you off pythons, it was just really unlucky that this happened.
 
he asked for peoples opinion and he got the opinions, calling people deadbeats is a little over the top. which makes me wonder about "your" husbandry skills.


when you have been on the site longer than a month you may find out more about people
 
Oh no i'm really sorry to hear about this.

But it is good that you are willing for your male to be used to help research OPMV.

I do wonder if he will show as having any signs of it, it would be very weird if he had no signs of Opmv if they were housed together.

Don't let this turn you off pythons, it was just really unlucky that this happened.


hence the reason why they wanna check him out the vet was on the phone to me for about 45min last night asking questions about the males behavior an yeah hes got No signs of opmv.
 
Well if you're lucky sturdy, he might be immune to the virus. And if he is, then they may be able to isolate the reason he is not affected, and be able to make a vaccine for the future.
 
Is the breeder offering you a full refund? I think they definately should. I don't know what others think but I would also be looking for some compensation for the vet bills particularly if this breeder has animals that are dying but they can't be bothered finding out what the cause of death was. JMO.

Sorry to hear about the whole thing as well mate.
 
i feel so sorry for you, how awful knowing the dreaded OPMV has passed thru ur place, hopefully none of ur other snakes will be infected.

i thought the only way to test for it was when teh snake was dead,..maybe i'm thinking of something else.

anyway, sorry for your loss, i wasnt gonna bother quarantining the 2 bredli i have coming, but better safe than sorry, i'm gonna be super careful. thanks for sharing ur sad story. :(
 
Sorry for your loss,
But let this thred leed by example on how easy it is to aquire
snakes with severe health problems and the need for strict quarentine practice
to prevent any spread of deseases from new purchases to reps already owned.
There are experienced people on here that always comment on the quarentine
issue to be howled down by the uninformed, Now a thred such as this shows just
how easy it is to buy in a problem that has disastrous results.
 
sorry for your loss. Its almost a year and a half sine one of my snakes died from what the tests say is consistent with opmv. So far so good with all the others. this has also been the case with other peoples collections.
 
yeah I'm getting a full refund for the female.. but he didn't want to pay for vet bills (not even a %) which was a total of $300.

had a call from the vet today an she said that they will take some tissue samples , spool, rectal swabs, an mouth swabs an i can have him back.
 
I thought the animal had to be alive and euthanised before being able to test for OPMV unless things have changed as I have been through it myself and learnt a lot through it.At the time there was no way to know if your animal had OPMV or not unless it was still alive and had then been euthanised and samples taken for tests etc.There is a simple blood test that can be done for OPMV overseas however not in Australia.

Unfortunately OPMV is much more common than people think and there are many who know nothing about it even experienced keepers and breeders as not all get on the net to hear about it etc as I've spoken to a few breeders who don't get online and into reading forums etc who knew nothing about OPMV.Even people that do get online and read forums etc still ask what is OPMV?as has been shown many times when the subject comes up.

I would love to know if you can get tests done for OPMV after death and not before.Many animals can show no symptoms and just drop dead however others display a wide variety of symptoms and if things have changed and you can now get an animal properly tested for this disease after the animal has died and not before I would love to know about it as would others I'm sure.I know that at the time I went through having OPMV that there was no way of testing for it other than euthanising an animal you suspect has the disease and not after death and I haven't heard things have now changed and you can test for it post mortum and I do keep up to date with what's happening in our hobby.

Sorry for your loss and if it is OPMV I also feel sorry for the previous owner who obviously must have OPMV as well and who knows how big their collection is and how well they take care of it with even simple things such as cross contamination?I'm so anal now about cross contamination I won't even feed a rat that any animal hasn't eaten for whatever reason which happens regularly to many people which could be because they're coming up to shedding etc however I won't risk feeding that refused food item to another animal I know will definitely eat it as I used to do and my BHP's were usually my garbage disposal animals as they never refuse a feed but I won't do it now,right down to bleaching hooks between use on other snakes etc etc.

Anyone who has reptiles but knows nothing about OPMV should read up and learn about it,it's as important as proper husbandry or even more important believe me I know through experience and wouldn't wish it on anyone.

If anyone can tell me wether or not you can test for OPMV after death and not before I would really love to know because as I've already said you could only test for it by euthanising a suspect animal and sending samples away to only one place that tests for this disease at the time I went through it.So if anyone has a definite answer for that question I would really appreciate it if anyone who knows would reply and let me know???
 
yes she had OPMV an was tested for it after death. which was caused by opmv.

samples of internal organs are sent away an tested for traces of the virus which came back all positive.

they are going to use my male to see if they can develop a test that can be done by blood samples or swabs.
 
You should get a full refund for the male as well, give him back to the breeder after the tests.
 
Really?That seems strange to me as I know another person who took an animal in after it just suddenly dropped dead and it was said to have tested positive for OPMV also but the reason I say that's strange is because of the many times I've read,heard and been told it could only be tested for before death.Also strange that it takes so long for someone in the reptile vet industry to see if they can develope a test which can be done through blood tests or swabs etc as you'd think it would have been tried for ages ago by many of the well respected reptile vets we have as well as in the zoo industry,why now and why with this particular snake?I know there's a vet in Cairns doing studies on OPMV and she claimed to have come across 8 wild animals that had OPMV which was a real worry but who knows as you can speak to different vets and get conflicting stories or advice etc???

Thanks for the reply and again sorry for your loss it really sux having an animal die on you but don't let it put you off and put it down to a learning experience and keep on herping but keep strict with quarantine and hygiene etc which I'm sure you'll do after this experience!
 
yes she had OPMV an was tested for it after death. which was caused by opmv.

samples of internal organs are sent away an tested for traces of the virus which came back all positive.

they are going to use my male to see if they can develop a test that can be done by blood samples or swabs.

I dont want to get into any OPMV wars, but unless things have changed recently, your snake didnt have it (100%guaranteed), the tests can only suggest a "consistent with" diagnosis.
 
Correct olivehydra. Histopath is no diagnosis can only be SUGGESTIVE of OPMV. As such there are no CONFIRMED cases in Oz as we cannot culture the virus like they can in the US. Currently no anti-mortem (before death) test in Australia and research has been unable to develop one as yet. The blood test that they use in live snakes in the US has recently been proven to be unreliable as well. A study was performed using 4 different labs that offer the test with wild-caught rattle snakes and each lab came up with a different result for the same snakes, some with none infected all the way up to some with 100% infected, so it appears that this is not a good test anyway.
My advice to you sturdy would be to surrender the suspect animal for a full necropsy. The risk of having it in your collection is too high.

Get the vet to:
draw some blood off (as much as possible), get it fully analysed then spin it down, suck the serum off and then freeze it.
Euthanse the animal perform full post-mortem, save tissue in formalin as well as samples of every tissue in gluteraldehyde (this is much better for electron microscopy). EM can then be used to try and identify viral particles, it may also be a good idea to try to get the vet to do some PCR on the tissue looking paramyxovirus if suspicious on EM.
Good luck.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top