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What could of happened?

mxracer4life

mxracer4life

"Daniel Boone"
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My '06 once proven female DH sunglow, Nina, that I have had for almost a year now died last Sunday while I was on a cruise. Before I had left, no visual signs of illness were noted and having a visit to the vet a few months ago her health was great. She had never had any issues with feeding or signs of a RI, regular stools, even had success with a visual copulation with my male DH sunglow a couple months ago. The week I was leaving she refused a meal, but had started to show a mid-body swell so I didn't think anything of it. I have been gone since Jan 12th and still won't be back until the first week of Feb. Since I was unable to be reached last week while on the cruise, my brother who was taking care of her was unsure of what to do. His girlfriend is going to school to become a vet so she inspected her thoroughly and even opened her up. The only thing noted was she had what looked to be an excessive build up of fat, or fat like substance (white in color). She has already been buried and no pictures were taken, so I have nothing more to go off of. What is the possible cause of death? She had 50% humidity which is somewhat low, her cooler side was 79 and her hot side was 91. She died in a circular pattern biting her mid-section. No signs of babies or sacks were found. Any help on this would be great, as I am stumped and now worried about the rest of my collection.

I may not be able to answer to this thread for a couple days as I have limited internet access here.
 
Seems awfully quick, even for fatty tissues being the cause. A grossly over fed snake will live 10 yrs +/- before succumbing to the neglect.


Sorry for your loss. :( Was just getting ready to relate mine too.
 
I'm sorry for your loss Jeremy, they are so good at hiding illness and sometimes we never know anything is wrong until you find them dead. The way you described her, coiled biting her mid-section, I have heard this before although I don't know the reason for it, I believe it's an internal pain, possibly a failing organ? I am speculating based on the various times I've heard of this before. Again, sorry for your loss, :(
 
Not sure how I missed this thread last night, but I'm sorry to hear about your loss! From what you described, I have no ideas, but wanted to offer my condolences, just the same.
 
Thank you everyone. I need to re-phrase about how he found her, she wasn't biting her self, just had her mouth open and the upper part was laying on her midsection. She was coiled in the popular gravid female position. Fat build up I believe is not the cause of death, she was only an 06 and fed slowly. Never taking more than 1 large rat every 10-14 days in the year I had her. I am agreeing with April, internal organ failure is the only thing I can imagine being the cause at this point. I have delt with a lot of sick snakes, rescues etc but she was a complete suprise. RIP Nina!
 
Hey Jeremy i'm sorry to hear about this. It is weird, but i got home from work yesterday and found my Big Bertha dead and in the exact same position as you described with her mouth open looking as if she were biting herself. She was around 7 years old, seemed perfectly healthy. I did notice a swelling in the back half of her as if she were ovulating a couple of weeks ago, but i had not had a male with her since last year as she was going to have this year off and thought maybe somehow she was gravid again having retained sperm or something?? Weird
 
Thanks Bill. It was hard to come back from such a nice vacation and find out I had lost her. I had another thought on what could have been found inside her. If it wasn't fat cells, could it have been oocytes (undeveloped embryos) in the beginning stage?
 
Were they little egg yolk looking things about the size of marbles? When they first develope follicles this what they look like. During ovulation, which is when fertilization takes place, these will literally turn inside out and swell to many times their size becoming ovum. Or what we know as slugs.

This how my vet describes it to me.
 
It was kinda decribed that way to me, I just assumed "fat cells", wasn't thinking about oocytes. I was reading up on some of Vin Russo's stuff last night and reminded myself of it.
 
If I can find it, I know a guy who lost hid BCC and opened her up for pics. They showed lots of fat lined everywhere.

Just to give you a better idea of what it looks like.

Provided I can find the thread at RTB.net. Its been a couple years now.
 
I have some links saved. Fatty tissue is more like masses of squisy tissue, ova are more like compact small round objects.

here's ova:
http://www.herpcenter.com/images/articles/necropsy/205365546.jpg
website it's from:
http://www.herpcenter.com/snake-necropsy.html

This might be the rtb thead Rick is looking for:
http://www.redtailboa.net/forums/boas/44496-necropsy-extremely-graphic.html

here's fatty tissue: (the original link I had isn't working.. so i just found this one:)
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i318/kmrkvicka/Other/jezzie2.jpg

website it's from:
http://forums.pnwhs.org/threads/5712-***WARNING-GRAPHIC-PHOTOS***-Necropsy-Pictures-of-Jezzabelle

another:
http://www.sareptiles.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=22522&start=0

hope these help
-April
 
Yeah April, that's the link. I knew you'd come and save me the trouble. You ROCK! ;)

Noticed my post in that thread went missing too. It was just before BW's response. Wondering why now, but it does strengthen my decision to not support the site anymore monetarily.

Jeremy, that's not one mass of fat, although I can see where it looks that way. That's many pieces held in location by membrane. If you look closely, you can see the outline of the individual globs of fat.

In my personal experience, I had a WC Suri sub-adult import that I got from Lloyd Lemke and my Mom for my 10th birthday in 1975. She passed away when I was a junior in HS, and we opened her up in biology class. Even though we thought nothing of all the fat at the time, I know now it's what killed her. I fed a bit rampantly back then, and well, you know.
But I can say she not only had all that fatty tissue lining her dermis, it also marbled through most of her organs, and encapsulated the heart at least ½ way. Very similar to what the 3rd link shows, except a bit more so in my case.
 
I see what you mean. They mentioned to me the pieces were about the size or smaller than a piece of mac n cheese (noodle).
 
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