Hi gang, I apologize for bringing this to this list, but I'm desperate for help, and need to pick everybody's brains ...
I've got what looks like a *serious* virus running through my snake collection, and fast. Brief rundown - First, every snake involved (appeared to be) healthy, were great feeders, active, and, all between the age of 1-2 years old. None of them (except the garters) ever had any contact with one another. Started four weeks ago with a tank of baby garters. Woke up one morning to find three of them dead. Not upside down, or coiled - dead, as if in their tracks, like they were actually tooling around the tank and bam. The next night, a smooth green who was in the tank inches away died, same way. I immediately quarantined the remaining garter, but I don't know if it was too little, too late. Two days ago, the last baby garter died. This morning, I woke up, and one of my three favorite hognoses was dead. At five o'clock today, I lost a second hognose. I've talked to my vet a few times, and he's not always available, due to some personal stuff. He has been unable to necropsy any of the snakes, but he says it walks, talks, and smells like a virus. I have numerous other geckos, frogs, and salamanders; whatever this is only effecting snakes. For that reason, he's ruled out chemicals, poisoning etc. I swear, I use strict handwashing between tanks, and I can't stop this thing - I don't even know what I'm looking for, as everybody who died was perfectly fine, then dropped dead - no symptoms of anything. Because the hognose just died a few hours ago, well, I did one myself - here's what I found. ~ [snipped from what I posted to the snakes list] Well, here it is ~ >I know some of you don't think it's a good idea, but the vet is unavailable to do it, so, why not? I just had to see ... And I found - nothing (at least for the most part). I opened up Busy, and found what looked like a perfectly normal, healthy snake (except for LI, later). Mouth looked great - no swelling, discharge, all teeth intact; roof of the mouth nice and light pink. Started in the right lung, because I figured if there was a problem, that's where I'd find it. Looked great, inside and out (didn't bother with the left, size). Judging by what I've seen of healthy necrospied snakes, the trach, heart and right lung looked great. Found last night's toad in the stomach; removed that (phew!). To be honest, I'm not sure which was which, [I always get them confused] but the gallbladder and spleen looked OK - about this big ( ) and black, one slightly larger than the other. The stomach and the bowel loops of the small intestine looked good, tissue was nice and pink; when I opened it, just small amounts of clear fluid. I was looking for tapeworms, anything I could see with the naked eye - nothing. Liver looked about the same size as in other snakes I've seen. I somehow missed the pancreas (must have come out with the bowel loops). Located both kidneys and the blood vessels to them; both looked equal in size; judging by the blood vessels, looked like they were well perfused, and didn't look swollen or anything. Only located one ovary, though. But here's what did look very weird: in the large intestine was a *massive* amount of brown fluid - I mean massive. There were some urates, right at the cloaca; when I scooped that out, looked like normal snake pee. The amount of fluid in there was unbelievable - and the smell! (Yes, I perforated the intestine :( I'm going to call the vet and tell him what I found, but does anyone have a clue what this massive amount of fluid means???? She had only been dead two hours, and extereriorly, looked great - no lumps, swelling of any kind anywhere. Just the normal bulge where the toad was.> Again, I apologize for this being off topic. But if anyone has any ideas, or has seen anything like this, please let me know. I've cleaned the living daylights out of everything, top to bottom, and I'm still losing snakes. I can't tie this to anything else: due to the various different species, they all had varied diets; haven't introduced anything new to the house or anybody's environment, and have used the same soap and water cleaning I've used for years. I don't use tap water on the critters; I buy bottled water for them. Food, when collected, is always from way out in the boondocks, far away from public water systems, etc. Thank you so much for any help, Barbie >^,,^< [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.tripod.com/barbieheid/ "Save the whales - collect the whole set." _______________________________________________ Global Gecko Association http://www.gekkota.com Classifieds http://www.gekkota.com/cgi-gekkota/classifieds.cgi gecko mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.gekkota.com/mailman/listinfo/gecko
