Originally Posted by hhmoore
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I mentioned earlier that i had, at one time, kept a few devenomized snakes. One of them, a gaboon viper, died at approximately 16 months of age because his digestive system failed. The rat just sat there and began to rot inside him. he looked pretty normal for about 3 days, then began to swell. The swelling increased daily, and by day 6 he began to stink of decomposing flesh (ever smelled a rat that has been shoved into the warm part of the cage and left overnite, or a 2 day post-feeding regurg? nothing in comparison to this). The stench permeated first the room, then the whole floor of the house. 2-3 days later, his color changed to a sickening greenish/grey and black fluid began to ooze out of his mouth when he moved. He died a day or two later. (my vet, who ordinarily doesn't do hots, was out of town...and I couldn't get another to even see it) It was truly an awful thing to behold.
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Response by dennis
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That would be terrible,But couldnt it have been a number of things that caused this? Did you vet do a necropsy and tell you thats was why?
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It wasn't necessary, the putrefaction of prey due to slowed digestion is, or was at the time, known to be a problem with 'voids. I had the gaboon at low-mid normal temps when the swelling began (right where he had been since the beginning of his time with me, due to several regurges at slightly higher temps) , and increased it to mid-high normal when it was obvious what was happening (only a few hours after the swelling was noted). I was honestly hesitant to raise the temps at all, because my initial fear was that the rat would rot before he could digest it. My thoughts then turned to "oh crap, what if he tries to puke". I would happily have dealt with the consequences if it would have saved him...but as the process continued, it was obvious that if he regurged that thing, he would likely die in the process.