TW International Wyatt in Texas

[Dr Owens]

Ok guys...seriously...

The amount of disinformation that is being posted here about viruses is approaching the ridiculous. Without going into a lot of detail (I have a meeting in a few minutes), viruses essentially cannot survive for very long outside of their host organism. 30 days? No way. Years? Ridiculous. The most common viruses can survive from a few seconds to at most a couple of days outside of a host.

And please stop bringing up HIV. The only bearing that HIV has on this conversation is that HIV is caused by a virus...and that is where the similarities end. There are zero points of comparison between HIV and what has been going on here.

Please...if you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to scientific topics, then please don't just try to "wing it." At the very least, look up the answer. This is how disinformation gets passed around, and rumors end up being presented as facts.

 

[LakesideBoas]

I suggested you as you work with patients every day.

I know that the Ebola virus is concluded to lie dormant in the soil for years until specific environmental factors allow it to infect a given host.

I'll have to dig out my books to look up some of the other common viruses I alluded to in my first post.

You are correct in stating that it is not a common occurrence, but there are viruses out there that are quite sturdy and their survivability in a conducive environment has been determined.

 

[LakesideBoas]

Apparently my sources for the Ebola example are outdated and no longer considered a reliable conclusion.

I haven't done these studies for about fifteen years so I am, indeed, going through my student material and educating myself by looking for updates. I do not knowingly pass on faulty information so I am going to be at this for a while.

That's why I thought of Dr. Owens (Jay). He IS the most reliable source for medical questions. And his information is not outdated like mine.

 

[ToshaMc]

Not to split hairs with the good Doctor - but HIV is a virus it's not caused by a virus - AIDS is the disease that is result of the HIV virus.

Also the nature of many virus' include the ability to maintain themselves in dormant periods inside and out of hosts as well as adapt and change to be able to be maintained in many hosts.

No one is suggesting we have some super virus that can lay dormant for years and suddenly reap havoc on all the snakes it come in contact with. But the possibilities are there that that the virus did come from any of the many recent animals coming into Jens collection - not just the ones that got sick and not just the ones that recently arrived. Until there is more information on the nature of the virus - we can speculate till the cows come home - but the most important thing is that Jen be proactive on getting her animals healthy and removing it from her environment.

 

[ravensgait]

It's really hard to know what happened here, in one post the snake was fine and eating the next it was sick before eating ETC ETC This email Jen sent seems to contradict her story but then a lot of what she has said is confusing at the very least.

""From: "Jennifer Harrison" <[email protected]> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To: "TW Inter" <[email protected]>
Subject: Het Clown Female
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:55:39 -0500
Hi Wyatt -- Sorry, I forgot to call this morning. I had a busy day and it totally slipped my mind until just now. Not sure if it's too late, so I'm e-mailing instead of calling.

The female is doing well, she has no signs of RI at all, is very active, but I think she's still stressed as she's being really aggressive and biting at any movement in the room (while doing the tail wag too). Or this is just her personality showing. LOL! I was curious as to perhaps she was hungry and that's why she was being so evil, so dropped a small weaned rat in with her and immediately turned the light off and left the room. I peeked in there 5 minutes later, and she was in the middle of swallowing it. So she can't be too upset if she's willing to eat!

I'm really happy that that 3-day drama had a happy ending, and am really glad I chose to do business with you again. She's a beautiful snake in great condition, and I saved the pictures of her parents so I can properly choose a clown male to go with her based on her dad's looks. I thought I had one picked out, but now I was shown a different one and am having a tough time choosing. This project is huge for me this year, it's basically my stepping stone into serious breeding since last year was all dinking projects. I'm excited!

Thanks again!

~* Jen *~ ""

Now before this animal mentioned above who had a a really bad shipping experience showed any signs of illness--one day after it arrived by Jens comments another of her animals got sick. Now just looking at that alone tells me the odds that this sick animal got sick from the animal she received from Damion are next to zilch !! and as more post and emails of Jen's are posted here I see that there were other animals that had recently been through her place including a male breeder. Now I look at that and say that it is far far more likely that whatever brought this Virus into her collection was there before the animal from Damion showed up.

Now some here may not like Damion and he has been difficult here . He also has other questionable dealings that have been brought to the BOI. Then we have those that want to throw out the uncaring breeder, dealer, out to make a buck card. And those that just like to take a kick at someone that is being kicked by others.

Now look at what we have for facts and they say that whatever these snakes have was there before Damion's animal arrived. Even if test show that this animal from Damion now has the same virus that killed the other(s) Balls it still leads to it having caught the virus since it arrived at Jen's. This animal ate right after it arrived even after it had been through the shipping from hell, and didn't show signs of illness for days or a week depending on which post of Jen's you read. I've seen a number of animals with RI's and they don't eat heck they usually don't eat for a good period of time before they show symptoms that are noticeable.

Jen's story keep getting holes blown in it some pretty big ones and yet there are folks here still trying to pin this on Damion? With the info we have on when the animals got sick, add to that Jen's changing story and her Quarantine method and it looks to me like this one is on Jen and that Damion just had the misfortune of sending her an animal at the wrong time, had to be someone elses fault so he got picked..Randy

 

[LakesideBoas]

I had to...

Look this stuff up as I don't like feeling like I am the perpetrator of misinformation.

This is a quote from a pbs.org article (I can post the scientific articles too, but you all be snoring before reading them in their entirety!):

"One of the ways in which disease organisms can be transmitted is by being durable in the external environment. If we imagine a disease organism that could last for 10 years in the external environment, even if a person who's infected is immobilized, coughing or sneezing or shedding one way or another, many people may come to that spot in the next 10 years, so that immobilized person could still serve as a source of infection for many susceptible individuals.
What we expect, if that argument's right, is to see an association between how durable the disease organisms are in the external environment and how harmful they are. And that's exactly what we see. At the top of the list is the smallpox virus, which can last, in some cases, for more than 10 years in the external environment, and it's the most damaging of all the respiratory tract infectious agents of humans. Next on the list would be the tuberculosis bacterium, which is also quite durable in the external environment. It's also a very damaging pathogen."

In no way am I saying this virus is akin to any of those stated, but the fact remains that viral diseases and vectors are constantly being studied to better affect treatments for them. As a vet tech I should keep up with those studies, but I have not worked in the field for many years. I will not let myself get too far out of the loop in the future and these kinds of studies are of interest to me.

 

[Cheryl Marchek AKA JM]

Completely out of left field.......

But has anyone considered that it could be environmental? Not as in anything is wrong with the environment Jen is providing~ but as in she has recently moved into an old, restored fire building I believe? And the symptoms began around or about the time of year when the season changes......molds in the water or the walls could have suddenly bloomed.....or in the heating ducts if the sudden respiratory issues coinsided with the onset of home heating in an older building............

I'd make sure to have that lab check for common molds and fungi Jen~ you and your daughter are living in that house too.

When I first started with snakes I killed a LOT of cornsnakes. Couldn't figure out why they kept dying. Had lots of help tyring to figure it out. More money in vet bills with no answers than I'd care to admit too. When we moved houses......it stopped. Thats when it occurred to me I lived in the middle of the Mojave desert and did not have bugs in the house....................
I'm sure now~ in hindsight that it was environmental. I hate to imagine what it was doing to my family.

 

[critical bill]

Jen's story keep getting holes blown in it some pretty big ones and yet there are folks here still trying to pin this on Damion? With the info we have on when the animals got sick, add to that Jen's changing story and her Quarantine method and it looks to me like this one is on Jen and that Damion just had the misfortune of sending her an animal at the wrong time, had to be someone elses fault so he got picked..Randy

Hogwash. Damion has a history of selling sick animals. I provided a link to one, and there is another and another and another.

There is a possibility that Jen received a sick animal from wyatt. It doesn't really matter how small or how large that possibility is, but just that the possibility exists. Given he has sold sick animals in the past, the smallest possibility should have him very interested and concerned and ready to be held accountable. Not just for his customer, but for his own collection.

But where is the chicken fart of all farts? He is not interested in vet reports. He is not interested in necropsy reports. Most importantly...he is not interested in sticking around to be held responsible. He stated as much clearly twice in this thread. He washed his hands of this situation.

He was interested in screwing around with me, that he had the time for. But interested in the smallest possibility that this virus can be traced to his collection? Hahaha.....NO....no interest or time for that.

Wyatt, where are you my little chicken fart? Busy diagnosing respiratory infected snakes with the sniffles? You Putz.

 

[ravensgait]

Hey Chuck you can believe what you want and hey it might have had the illness before he shipped it but there is no way her other animals got sick this soon because of it. Remember the snake went though a really bad shipping experience that could have made it sick but trying to say it made another animal so sick that it showed symptoms within 24 hours !! I can't buy that and if her animals already had some Virus going through them I lay the blame for Damions animal being sick at their door.

He may have sold animals that were sick in the past but we're talking about Jen's animal's here and the facts don't add up to it being from Damion's animal. You may not like the Jerk but he has kept to the same story in this thread which is more than we can say for Jen. Hey I don't like how he from the get go just dismissed the possibility out of hand that he just might have sent a sick animal but as more of the story comes to light it looks like he didn't this time.....Randy

 

[Wyatt]

Response

Mike, Glad to here about the male. I know you are going to love that gene he carries. If you want a pic of him and his siblings when I hatched them out next to there dad let me know so that you can see how much better that gene gets with each generation.

Cheryl, I thought that also seeing that Jennifer came from Texas and used to live less than two hours south of me. I know a bunch of breeders up north and to move a collection from this environment to that one would seem pretty dramatic. But I really cannot comment on that one since I have lived in Texas my whole life.


Thanks,
Wyatt

 

[Wyatt]

I really hate to respond to this because all it does is feed that mushroom more of you know what to keep him alive. But if he was so busy defamating my charcter and abusing everyone else that I guess he really did not read the thread that he posted to refer to. Mike was very aware of the female boa that was sent to him and infact in knowing this when the female did die that I made good on my end. You see Chuck, I can't figure out your motive ( other than the obvious of why everyone keeps ignoring you ) because that was actually a thread from Mike about how happy he was in that transaction.

I believe it was 2001 when I bought an adult hypo boa from Wyatt. He told me that she had had a "cold" for quite sometime. He told me she had been to the vet and had been treated with Baytril and was not diagnosed with a R.I.
He said she had a runny nose and they believed it was an allergy as it all began when she was relocated from Colorado(I think that was it) to Texas. All this being said he was very up front about her condition and I bought her for $500 which is (or was) quite low for an adult hypo female. I kept her for about two weeks and she began bubbling so I took her to the vet. He did a lung wash and she was diagnosed with a nasty R.I. that was resistant to Baytril. By the time the results of the test had come back she had died. While I was disappointed to say the least he had been up front that she had some ailments. My vet admitted that because of the resistant bug (to Baytril) it could easily be mis-diagnosed without the lung wash. When I contacted Wyatt I told him that I didn't hold him accountable because I bought her as a sick snake but I didn't feel very good about the experience.
He offered to compensate me for her with offspring from the upcoming season. I found that to be more than expected under the circumstances. We talked a couple times but never found anything that we both agreed on. Another season past and again he really didn't have anything I wanted. It wasn't that I was being picky it was only a $500 credit and I just didn't want something I wasn't into. About 2 1/2 years passed before I contacted Wyatt again. I had seen and ad for ball pythons 100% het for yellow ghost and 50% het for pied ball. He was asking $1000 for a pair. I emailed him asking if he remembered our transaction. I really didn't expect anything from him as he had made several attempts to compensate me. I told him I didn't want him to feel like I was holding him hostage but wondered if he would make me a "deal" for a pair. After all this time had passed I really expected nothing. I figured he might offer a $250 discount or something to that affect. He replied that he would send me a pair if I paid the shipping. I have to admit I was blown away a bit. After all that time I wouldn't have been surprised if he told me to piss off to be honest. They arrived today in great health and Wyatt has gone above and beyond anything I expected. Thanks Wyatt and I hope anyone feels comfortable in doing business with him.


Mike

 

[critical bill]

I really hate to respond to this because all it does is feed that mushroom more of you know what to keep him alive. But if he was so busy defamating my charcter and abusing everyone else that I guess he really did not read the thread that he posted to refer to. Mike was very aware of the female boa that was sent to him and infact in knowing this when the female did die that I made good on my end. You see Chuck, I can't figure out your motive ( other than the obvious of why everyone keeps ignoring you ) because that was actually a thread from Mike about how happy he was in that transaction.

I noticed you rather carefully worded your response to EXCLUDE any mention of the word SICK.

Mike was not aware he was getting a sick snake that was going to die. He believed, and I have no idea why, that the snake you were sending him developed allergies due to a relocation. Ha ha...sucker born everyday.

And it doesn't really matter how well it ended for Mike at all, but just that you sold a snake to mike that had an RI in your collection. Whats is the possibility that you did this same thing with Jen? HA. Its possible.

Defamation of character for the facts? HA HA HA HA HA. Get yourself an attorney. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Another veiled threat by my little chicken fart wyatt.

Whats next wyatt? mexican hit squad out of Texas to silence me?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You are such a bozack.

 

[KelliH]

I think there are too many inconsistencies here and I just don't see how Wyatt can be held responsible for Jen's unfortunate present situation. The only way the necropsy reports would be able to point the finger to one source or another is if they show how long the virus had been inside the snake, and I'm not sure if that is possible to do (might be though. Jay?).

It seems that subpar quarantine procedures are a big factor in all of this, and had there been a true quarantine it MIGHT have been easier to determine the source of the virus. I'm certainly not putting you down in any way Jen, and I hope you understand that. But you made a decision about your method of quarantine, and should probably take some of the blame yourself. Trust me, I found out the HARD way once how important quarantining new animals is and it was a heartbreaking experience, one that almost caused me to get out of herps all together. I lost nearly my entire collection. Looking back on that situation, I had no one to blame but myself. If I had done a proper quarantine and relevant tests, only the few new animals that came in would have been lost, rather than dozens.

BTW, I am still trying to get in touch with the person I know that had that virus that I referred to earlier in the thread. It is hard to get people to discuss it though.

 

[critical bill]

If wyatt cant be held responsible, and Jen should probably take some of the blame herself, who else would be partly responible or to blame?

 

[LakesideBoas]

I was thinking more along the lines of what type of virus is detected through the pathology report.

I have a niggling idea, but hope to heck I am wrong.

Jen does need to determine a way to provide a real quarantine area. Jen, you mentioned the laundry room, I believe, but that there is no heat. Get a reliable space heater (they do exist- LOL!) and set it up where your child can't reach it.

 

[The BoidSmith]

Ok guys...seriously...

The amount of disinformation that is being posted here about viruses is approaching the ridiculous. Without going into a lot of detail (I have a meeting in a few minutes), viruses essentially cannot survive for very long outside of their host organism. 30 days? No way. Years? Ridiculous. The most common viruses can survive from a few seconds to at most a couple of days outside of a host.

And please stop bringing up HIV. The only bearing that HIV has on this conversation is that HIV is caused by a virus...and that is where the similarities end. There are zero points of comparison between HIV and what has been going on here.

Please...if you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to scientific topics, then please don't just try to "wing it." At the very least, look up the answer. This is how disinformation gets passed around, and rumors end up being presented as facts.

Jay,

Maybe you are thinking about humans but animal virology is a whole different story. Different viruses can and will survive in the environment for extended periods of time given the right conditions. Here's an excerpt of just one article from the USDA referring to FMD. But you can find hundreds of references in the literature.

Synopsis of Results: Mechanical Transmission
There are many factors to consider in order to arrive at a risk rating for mechanical transmission.
Whether or not a particular agent is infectious is of importance. Agents requiring a vector for
transmission are not at risk for mechanical transmission under this study’s focus. The amount of
the agent shed in secretions and excretions is also important. If a disease-causing agent is shed in
doses too low to cause disease in another host, the risk level is much lower then if high amounts
of the agent are shed. Many of the viruses causing List A diseases can survive in the environment
at room temperature for extended periods of time. This prolonged survivability increases the risk
of disease transmission by allowing more time for contact with a susceptible animal to occur.
Another factor to consider in mechanical transmission is the type of contact with the infected
animal that is required. If an agent can be transmitted via environmental contact, the level of risk
is much higher than if direct contact with lesions is required. An example of environmental
contact is a person walking onto an infected premises, never touching an animal yet becoming
contaminated with the disease agent. The person then walks onto another premises, again never
touchs an animal and yet spreads the agent to the new location. For this project, only the person
and their clothing were taken into account when assessing the risk of mechanical transmission
from a human to an animal. Any animal products or equipment they might be carrying were not
considered.

Source: The Potential for International Travelers
to Transmit Foreign Animal Diseases
to US Livestock or Poultry
August 1998
USDA:APHIS:VS
Centers for Epidemiology and Animal Health
555 South Howes
Fort Collins, CO 80521 USA

This is the main reason why if you try to attempt to bring animal products into the US from countries that have had outbreaks of the virus you are not allowed. Same goes for your shoes, you need to declare if you have been in contact with soil, pasture, and/or animals. Your shoes will then be scrubed cleaned with an antiseptic. They act as fomites (inert carriers) and can very well transmit a virus from one country to another (not to mention from one farm to another when the truck follows the same route).

Regards.

 

[critical bill]

What about using a closet in her bedroom? Just run an extension cord under the door for light and heat tape.

 

[Dr Owens]

Not to split hairs with the good Doctor - but HIV is a virus it's not caused by a virus - AIDS is the disease that is result of the HIV virus.

First, I typed that last post in haste due to the fact that I was late to a meeting. Second, you're correct from a technical perspective. However, HIV positive status is discussed in the medical community as if it's a disease entity (the patient is a 32 year old male with HIV, etc, etc). Someone can be HIV+ without having AIDS. Hence, they are a patient with HIV...a disease state brought about by the presence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus in their body.

 

[Wilomn]

I think Jen mentioned she now lived near her inlaws.

The BEST thing she could do is get them to set up a quarentine room at thier house.

I'm a 90 day guy myself unless I am certain of the source I get my animal from. I figure there are less than half a dozen of those though.

 

[KelliH]

If wyatt cant be held responsible, and Jen should probably take some of the blame herself, who else would be partly responible or to blame?

There is really no way to determine that IMO. The virsu might have come from Wyatt's animal but until there is conclusive, beyond a reasonable doubt type proof of that then I don't see how he can be blamed. Maybe I am missing something, I do that sometimes. It's because of all those substances I ingested and inhaled in my younger days. That and all those Metallica concerts.