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Help, numerous fatalities

R

Rescuegal

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Hello,

I am a person who has multiple species of reptiles in our family. I have a "reptile room" that all the reptiles are in. I keep the cages clean, they get the proper diet and lighting and heating. I have had a healthy population for some time. However, within the last twenty four hours I have had four anoles (they were new in the last ten days but in their own cage so just sharing the air in the room and crickets I buy all from the same place), our baby beardie that we have had for two months (son is devistated) and has been thriving, and a mountain horned lizard that we have had for six months and has been the most healthy vibrant creature I have ever seen..die. I have an adult beardie that is acting a bit sluggish as well. I called the closest reptile vet we have which is three hours away and left a message to call me back. Typically, in our area, if a gecko is not eating or a beardie has problems with metabolic disease, or a snake needs to be force fed, people call on me to help in this area. However, this has taken me by suprise and we are devistated and also worried. I don't want to loose any more. Does anyone know of any diseases that spread through the air? Has anyone ever heard of crickets being( a cause of reptile sickness? I do occassionally handle them without washing inbetween, but not often and as I have said, I have had a healthy population. I of course, have not handled the anoles since I brought them home...they don't tolerate that well overall as a species (green and brown common anoles) and we don't handle the baby beardie other than when we have to clean the cage and we are very careful doing that as well. The mountain horned lizard I do handle from time to time as she has been very tame and receptive to such. I just don't know what to think or do. Should I clean all the cages now? Should I move them all to another room? That would be hard as this is the only room the dogs and cats do not have access to and it is the only room "rigged" for proper temperature for reptiles in the house. It is getting cold at night in the area we live. Like I said, it is a reptile room, so rigged up for such. Would an air purifier help? I think I will go get one of those now...it can't hurt. However, it doesn't smell in there, it isn't too moist of air, there is no mold as far as I can tell anywhere here (I am highly allergic and like I said I keep their enclosures really clean)....Help please!:(
 
another thought

The kids and I have all had upper respiratory issues this last two weeks. It is that time of year when kids go to school and I started college as well...could we have given them something?
 
There are very few zoonotic diseases that pass from mammals to reptiles or vice versa. Our bodies are just too different for most diseases to make that jump (although certain strains of Salmonella are noteworthy exceptions).

Have you recently acquired a new animal which could have introduced a disease to your collection? Did you visit a pet shop? There are several diseases that pass reptile to reptile that can be devastating to collections.

You need to do a few things before you can figure out what is going on.
1. Take the deceased animals to a vet for a necropsy to figure out the cause of death.
2. Get yourselves to the doctor to figure out what could be causing you to become ill.

It could be purely circumstantial, but that fact that your family has had upper respiratory problems in the past two weeks and your small animals have been dying, there may be something seriously wrong with the air in your house. The frost finally hit us here in North Dakota last week, and I'm assuming the same is true of your house in Montana. It is possible that some sort of contaminant managed to get into your heater (such as mold) during the warm summer months and is causing you to become ill now that your heater is starting to kick on again.

Also, do not purchase an air purifier. Air purifiers release ozone, which has numerous negative effects on people. Honestly, I'm stunned that people still think air purifiers are ever a good idea.
 
There have been reports of colony die offs and human illness, with the culprit being mold in the walls and/or carpet. I think that a check for mold might be very wise.

I think there are companies that test for potential health risks, including mold, radon, carbon monoxide, etc. It could be something with your water as well. If you have your own filter, might want to have it checked.
 
sounds like mold to me. Headache is a common symptom with humans. There is also the chance that it is some sort of respiratory issue, not to say that it has anything to do with you and your family's sickness (few herp-human illnesses exist). There is a thread on here about the importance of quarantine where a guy lost an entire stock of ball pythons to a respiratory illness that went airborne. Have never heard of this before, but apparently he had a necropsy done and a virus strain that was unknown until then was the culprit. Bacteria and Viruses are constantly mutating and evolving.. I don't know what relationship you have with your pet store, but you could ask them if they have had any issues as well. I would still lean towards a mold issue before an airborne illness. Good luck.
 
The kids and I have been to the doctors...we all have strep throat. The vet said that since I froze the bodies in a deep freezer, the necropsies will not be accurate, so I buried our pets that died, cleaned out the cages really well, moved the pets to a different room after getting it to the temp needed and maintaining such, and cleaned out the room really well and aired it out.

I talked to the pet store where I bought the anoles that were new...their entire population of anoles died that same week and so did their long tailed lizards that were next to the anoles. I told them of my situation and they just offered me a gift certificate to replace what I bought there....not what I was looking for. I won't be shopping there ever again. I explained that pets are not items to just replace and that we weren't looking for replacements...that we are mourning the loss of our pets. I wasn't looking for money but expect them to start running a more ethical business. They could pay for the cost of what I lost or even a gift certificate for the same amount of pet supplies...but that isn't what they wanted to do, so to heck with them. We can shop elsewhere and will.
 
Thank you all for your input. I didn't know that air purifiers were bad...hu, I have been using them off and on for years. Darn it.

The mold thing...I do worry about that, but we live in a very dry area...but we live in a very old farm house and I am going to get the ventilation system cleaned out for sure. I am sure that will be good for us all in this house.

We haven't lost any other pets as of yet but I do have one adult male beardie not real interested in food. I called the vet and he said to just watch the guy and we may need to force feed him if he doesn't come out of it. I just wish a good reptile vet wasn't so far away. It's been a tough year for us in the pet department and that isn't usual for us. I have animals live past their expected usually. I had a ten year old g.pig, an eight year old hamster, a ten year old water dragon, and a fifteen year old St.Bernard in my lifetime as well as a twenty year old cat and a fish I had for fourteen years and it was huge when I got it. They are part of our family and I want them to be for as long as possible and when things like this happen it is heartbreaking.

Thank you all again for the help. It is appreciated.
 
Youre dealing with something that could be viral spreading from one reptile to the next, Take your animals to the vet, he wont be able to help you without seeing your animals.
 
Rescuegal said:
The kids and I have been to the doctors...we all have strep throat. The vet said that since I froze the bodies in a deep freezer, the necropsies will not be accurate, so I buried our pets that died, cleaned out the cages really well, moved the pets to a different room after getting it to the temp needed and maintaining such, and cleaned out the room really well and aired it out.

I talked to the pet store where I bought the anoles that were new...their entire population of anoles died that same week and so did their long tailed lizards that were next to the anoles. I told them of my situation and they just offered me a gift certificate to replace what I bought there....not what I was looking for. I won't be shopping there ever again. I explained that pets are not items to just replace and that we weren't looking for replacements...that we are mourning the loss of our pets. I wasn't looking for money but expect them to start running a more ethical business. They could pay for the cost of what I lost or even a gift certificate for the same amount of pet supplies...but that isn't what they wanted to do, so to heck with them. We can shop elsewhere and will.
Click to expand...

What else do you expect the pet store to do for you aside from giving you your money back? Im pretty sure they are suffering a loss too considering they openly admitted to losing their entire collection of anoles the same week as you. They are losing money on both ends of the deal yet they are still offering a full refund to you, i would be happy with that.
 
hadenglock said:
What else do you expect the pet store to do for you aside from giving you your money back? Im pretty sure they are suffering a loss too considering they openly admitted to losing their entire collection of anoles the same week as you. They are losing money on both ends of the deal yet they are still offering a full refund to you, i would be happy with that.
Click to expand...

I agree. And it might not be something they even had control over. The neighboring business may have been sprayed for varmints, since there is no info we don't know what happened, it may not be a lack of ethics that caused the critters to die. I'd think unethical places would not tell you what happened or offer you certificates to buy new critters.
I hope you and the family are better soon.
 
I expected...

I thought this petstore being a large chain that says they promote animal welfare, that they would quarenteen animals for at least a week once they received them. The other two small pet stores in the area do that and the one pet store I know on the larger reptiles and birds etc they have blood work and fecals done as well before they offer them to the public. I expected them to quarenteen and that way when they put the pets out on the floor for sale chances are they are healthy. I know, some things take more than a week to show signs, but with most viruses they show up in a week to ten days. This pet store doesn't do that. They get the shipment and the next morning they are out on the floor. I just expected better from a pet store which promotes responsiblity. I should have asked those questions I guess before buying there.

A store suffering a finacial loss is certainly in no way the same as a family suffering both a financial and emotional loss.

Our two two year old corn snakes died today. It is a virus. I just hope we don't loose our entire collection of reptiles due to this. The corn snakes and my mountain horned lizards were my favorites of them all. Very sad week.
 
:(:(:(

I really feel for you, you must be having a horrible time.

I know it won't help right now, but this really shows the importance of having your own quarantine facility if you are going to be adding to your collection. I haven't heard of an airborne virus that would spread between species this fast, but if such a thing does exists, then separate rooms for new purchases would be the only answer, as well as very thorough hand washing between rooms.

Very sorry you are having this happen.
 
Rescuegal said:
I thought this petstore being a large chain that says they promote animal welfare, that they would quarenteen animals for at least a week once they received them. The other two small pet stores in the area do that and the one pet store I know on the larger reptiles and birds etc they have blood work and fecals done as well before they offer them to the public. I expected them to quarenteen and that way when they put the pets out on the floor for sale chances are they are healthy. I know, some things take more than a week to show signs, but with most viruses they show up in a week to ten days. This pet store doesn't do that. They get the shipment and the next morning they are out on the floor. I just expected better from a pet store which promotes responsiblity. I should have asked those questions I guess before buying there.

A store suffering a finacial loss is certainly in no way the same as a family suffering both a financial and emotional loss.

Our two two year old corn snakes died today. It is a virus. I just hope we don't loose our entire collection of reptiles due to this. The corn snakes and my mountain horned lizards were my favorites of them all. Very sad week.
Click to expand...

If it is a virus that you can link from your animals to the ones at the pet store then there may be some justification you can get through legal action (if you can prove it properly). Protocol for quarantine for reptiles is recommended a minimum of 6 months, regardless of what they are doing it for. Viruses can take years to finally show symptoms (IBD for example), i can tell you right now absolutly NO pet store in business will wait 6 months before selling an animal.
 
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