TKReptile

Here are the dates of feeding.

The dead one:

11-04-03 1 f/t pinky
11-11-03 refused food, shed
11-18-03 refused food
11-24-03 refused food
12-02-03 1 f/t pinky
12-02-03 regurgitated pinky

Never ate after that. Soaked it on 12-19-03 and it defecated the green stuff.

The healthy one:

11-04-03 1 f/t pinky
11-11-03 1 f/t pinky
11-18-03 1 f/t pinky
11-19-03 regurgitated pinky found
11-21-03 shed
12-02-03 1 f/t pinky
12-02-03 regurgitated pinky found

It has not eaten since then. Soaked it on 12/19/03 and got the white poop from this one.

While I was gone I had a friend of mine who knows about snakes taking care of them. We left for California the evening of the 24th, and returned on the evening of the 2nd. I think I had the person taking care of my house attempt to feed them while I was gone, but if they did, it did not get written down. I might have told them not to because of the regurgitation, but we were really busy with the trip plans and trying to tie up loose ends before leaving.

I tried to give each at least a week between the regurge and attempting to feed again.

Hope that helps.

Personally, I see absolutely no fault on the part of Tkreptile. How long is their guarantee supposed to be extended, really??

The snakes had been out of Krystle's care for well over a month. They must have appeared to be healthy enough upon arrival that Clara did not see it necessary to call Krystle immediately.

Obviously something went wrong. Unfortunately, when you are dealing with baby snakes, MANY things can go wrong. I've had my own hatchling corns just stop eating and die for no apparrant reason. It just happens sometimes.

Not all babies were meant to live.

Good luck, and I once again hope you two can come to a reasonable agreement.

Thank you everone for your replies.

Clara you should have told me Nov 11 or 18th if they refused food. Not a month later.

Krystle

I apologize that I did not contact you, but we were busy planning out our trip-as any person who has ever taken a long vacation knows how much stress that is.

I was taking my veterinarian's advice, as well as others who have seen baby corns regurgitate, and giving them time between the regurgitation and their next meal to recouperate. As I said on the phone, at first I attributed it to shipping stress, but now it is quite obvious something else was/is wrong.

One person I've spoken to pointed out the babies could have had something before they were shipped, showing no symptoms until after they got too cold and their immune system was down due to being too cold.

Clara,

I understand why it is that you did not notify Krystle sooner, but, good intentions aside, the fact is you did not notify her sooner. That being the case, it seems to me that Krystle cannot be held accountable for the condition of those two babies more than month after she last had them in her possession.

If they were impacted with Calci-sand, AND Krystle had kept them on that substrate, then I would say she was liable, even after her stated policy concerning notification, because the CAUSE of the impaction would have been obvious. But, that is not the way this has taken place, it seems, and Krystle looks as though she has done nothing wrong at all.

Clara,
The way I deal with a shipment comming in is open it immeditly, if there is any issue: Cold, Sick, Dead ect I contact the person I purchased it from that second, no matter how small, just to give the person a heads up. The email I got from you was about how great they were and that they ate frozen thawed that evening. Nothing about them being cold. Just the fact that they ate frozen thawed after the stress of a shipment shows that they were healthy animals. My snakes are my first priority, all are snakes have clean cages, have full stomachs before I get anything. That means vet bills, food anything. Even with the stress of getting ready for a vacation its not hard to send an email or make a phone call. The snake that wasnt doing well should have been your first priority not your vacation.

Krystle

We'll see what the necropsy report comes back with. I'm scheduled to drop off the dead one tomorrow, the sick one is going in for a vet check tomorrow as well. Not sure when the results will come back, but I will definitely post them here.

Hi Clara,
Sorry to hear about your loss. Based on what I can see I would guess that the snakes death was from food rotting inside the stomach. There could probably be a few different causes but the most probable would be to big of meals, not having the thermogradient needed for proper digestion, or maybe some other stress induced situation. I don't think you mentioned how long you have waited to feed since the snakes regurged but when a snake regurges the stomach acids get all out of whack. So you need to wait a while to feed again and feed a much smaller meal than normal other wise you are just looking for another regurge to happen. If the snake is impacted with rotting food or something else then that really needs to be passed before feeding again.

One other thing kind of bothers me about what I read. You stated the snakes arrived freezing which means there is a good chance they could have been in those extremely cold circumstances for many hours. Still you fed them that same day? I can't help but think that this could be part of the problem.

With the time that has gone by and what you have shown us so far I don't think you would be able to get to many sellers to give you a fefund under those conditions. With that said I hope the necropsy can shed a little light on what the real cause was.

Take care,
Ben Rogers

BenR:

The feeding dates are listed, go back a few pages in this thread to find them. I'm sure I gave them enough time between feedings.

I also slowly warmed them up before feeding them-they both were slightly skinny-I did not want to wait a week before seeing if they would eat.

Given the duration of time involved, both in the animal's responses to feeding and in the communication between the involved parties, I have to concur that it looks like a husbandry issue on the part of the buyer, rather than a pre-sale care issue on the part of the seller.

There is a period of time which is agreed to in advance of a sale where problems will be dealt with and communication needs to be maintained. While a longer guarantee certainly shows a seller's faith in the health of their animals, ten days is a very reasonable period of time. Even within that short time frame, negative or inappropriate husbandry on the part of the buyer can injure or even outright kill an animal, especially a neonate colubrid... any longer than that would simply be inviting people to slowly neglect the animals and then return them for refunds.

As has also been stated, if a necropsy shows some massive husbandry issue AND can pin down a time when this issue would have been instigated, both of which are very unlikely, and place it in the lap of the seller, THEN and only then there might be cause for a bad guy complaint... Until some kind of definitive evidence of that nature is posted, this thread really just looks like a buyer that allowed some animals to become unhealthy who is now looking for someone other than themselves to blame.