Any ideas dead BHP

[rum.pig]

Sorry About your loss rum.pig

Reading your thread, I would like to add that.

Some people argue that fluoride and chlorine in tap water is bad for all reptiles; misting and drinking water. I personally use tap water (but wouldnt drink it myself as flouride contributes to damaging your mental health), for reptiles how ever the effects of fluoride and chlorine would only be seen over a long period of time such as 5-7 years, arguable the long term detrimental effects would be hard to trace.

In your case it sounds like it is highly probable it is the substrate, and I would not trust Pet shops some will tell you all sorts of fiction to obtain a sale.

Maybe try astro-turf (with short grass blades so the snake cant accidentally eat it) if you want it to look decorative

but no doubt news paper is the best and free!


Best way to get over the pain of losing a pet is get a new one

The water is no problem with me as I'm on bore water so no additives. I do not even treat it for my fish.
And yes I will be getting another one soon as BHP are my favorite snake.

Thank you every for your opinions and help one thing I have learned is from now on a diary will be kept.

 

[bdav70]

the rotting process becomes higher than the digestion process causing too much bacteria to a point that the snake will regurgitate the food to try and prevent illness.

A friend of mine's woma died this way due to a problem with the heat mat while he was at work. [MENTION=30418]rum.pig[/MENTION] sounds a little dangerous to keep your BHP indoors with the rationale that you don't need heating due to it being near it's natural environment, as there's no way your setup could mimmick this indoors. It's a good chance that the snake didn't have enough belly heat to digest properly and died in a similar way to my friend's. Consult a care sheet for your next snake which will help ensure your setup is adequate foremost temperatures, and have a look at appropriate sized feeding charts from rodent suppliers which should provide you with some good rules of thumb to avoid underfeeding the snake. These could help you not make the same mistake next time.

 

[Ramsayi]

Bottom line is it could be quite a number of things that caused it.Without a necropsy you will not get an answer and even getting one done doesn't guarantee an answer.

Some people argue that fluoride and chlorine in tap water is bad for all reptiles; misting and drinking water. I personally use tap water (but wouldnt drink it myself as flouride contributes to damaging your mental health), for reptiles how ever the effects of fluoride and chlorine would only be seen over a long period of time such as 5-7 years, arguable the long term detrimental effects would be hard to trace.

In your case it sounds like it is highly probable it is the substrate

Chlorine in tap water is dangerous and damages your mental health? Please cite some evidence that doesn't come from some pseudo scientists/conspiracy theorists.

As far as the substrate being a highly probable cause goes that would be highly doubtful as even though it is not an ideal substrate lots of people use it with their reptiles without any ill effects.

 

[Drazzy]

Only Australia and America nation-wide use Fluoride in their tap water, and I imagine great inventors in the 0 AD - 1950s where labelled as idiots and quacks; I would never disregard someone just because they think, think outside the box.

Further discussion would be off topic, if you would like information I can provide it in links via private message.

 

[rum.pig]

Ok I feel I have got enough info, thank you all for your contribution and trust me I have taken it all on board.
I now need to set up my sons aviary then I will look at buying another BHP with a number of changes.
Thank you all again.

 

[phatty]

A friend of mine's woma died this way due to a problem with the heat mat while he was at work. [MENTION=30418]rum.pig[/MENTION] sounds a little dangerous to keep your BHP indoors with the rationale that you don't need heating due to it being near it's natural environment, as there's no way your setup could mimmick this indoors. It's a good chance that the snake didn't have enough belly heat to digest properly and died in a similar way to my friend's. Consult a care sheet for your next snake which will help ensure your setup is adequate foremost temperatures, and have a look at appropriate sized feeding charts from rodent suppliers which should provide you with some good rules of thumb to avoid underfeeding the snake. These could help you not make the same mistake next time.

I have a few snakes some inside some outside all with no heat nearly every one I know up here doesn't use heat including breeders some times I think every one thinks to hard.

Sent from my GT-I9210T using Tapatalk

 

[SteveNT]

Cairns- dental capital of the universe.

My (Top End locale) bhp lives on the balcony with no heating (In Darwin, which IS part of their natural range.). If it's cool he burrows under the astroturf. NOTHING stops him eating. I too have read that pine chips can be toxic but I'm stuck on astroturf for ease of cleaning, aesthetics, insulating property and great aid the rubber underlay gives to shedding. So I have no first hand experience of it.

Very sorry you lost your bhp RP. I would definitely up the food size for your next one. We feed ours medium (multiples) and occasionaly large rats, but no bigger due to fat content. They are susceptible to fatty liver disease. Ours in now 4, very healthy and happy, 100% toilet trained and loves handling. I hope your next one is too.

 

[Bluetongue1]

It certainly does hurt when a long term captive bites the dust. Even more so when you don’t know why! And as BeZaKa mentioned, without taking it to a competent vet and paying for an autopsy you have Buckley’s chance of determining the cause.

In order to monitor the temps in your enclosure, which is extremely important, you should strategically place at least a couple of thermometers in the cage.

Pine timber contains a number of volatile chemicals that give it its distinctive smell. These chemicals include terpenes (a major constituent of resins) and phenols. The limited surface area of untreated pine timber does not present a health hazard. However, pine chips or pine shavings have a huge surface area to volume and are known to have a toxic effect on animals kept in close contact with untreated products. Heat is used to vaporise and remove these volatile chemicals, rendering chips or shavings safe for use with animals. If your pine substrate has a strong smell of pine about it, it is odds on that it has not been appropriately heat treated and is therefore likely not safe to use with your animals..

The small size of a meal is not, of itself, going to have any adverse effect. Large BHPs are known to eat small snakes and small skinks in nature.

The yellow staining of the bedding is from discharge of bile. This is made and stored by the liver. I would conclude from this that there were issues in the functioning of the snake’s liver. The liver is the largest internal organ and it is respnsible for more essential chemical processes than any other organ. So problems with the liver can affect lots of critical chemical pathways in the body.

Blue

 

[CrystalMoon]

It certainly does hurt when a long term captive bites the dust. Even more so when you don’t know why! And as BeZaKa mentioned, without taking it to a competent vet and paying for an autopsy you have Buckley’s chance of determining the cause.

In order to monitor the temps in your enclosure, which is extremely important, you should strategically place at least a couple of thermometers in the cage.

Pine timber contains a number of volatile chemicals that give it its distinctive smell. These chemicals include terpenes (a major constituent of resins) and phenols. The limited surface area of untreated pine timber does not present a health hazard. However, pine chips or pine shavings have a huge surface area to volume and are known to have a toxic effect on animals kept in close contact with untreated products. Heat is used to vaporise and remove these volatile chemicals, rendering chips or shavings safe for use with animals. If your pine substrate has a strong smell of pine about it, it is odds on that it has not been appropriately heat treated and is therefore likely not safe to use with your animals..

The small size of a meal is not, of itself, going to have any adverse effect. Large BHPs are known to eat small snakes and small skinks in nature.

The yellow staining of the bedding is from discharge of bile. This is made and stored by the liver. I would conclude from this that there were issues in the functioning of the snake’s liver. The liver is the largest internal organ and it is respnsible for more essential chemical processes than any other organ. So problems with the liver can affect lots of critical chemical pathways in the body.

Blue

As always Blue you are a wealth of useful information. My thoughts kept coming back to the yellow bile, thank-you for your post I have again learned much.

 

[andynic07]

It certainly does hurt when a long term captive bites the dust. Even more so when you don’t know why! And as BeZaKa mentioned, without taking it to a competent vet and paying for an autopsy you have Buckley’s chance of determining the cause.

In order to monitor the temps in your enclosure, which is extremely important, you should strategically place at least a couple of thermometers in the cage.

Pine timber contains a number of volatile chemicals that give it its distinctive smell. These chemicals include terpenes (a major constituent of resins) and phenols. The limited surface area of untreated pine timber does not present a health hazard. However, pine chips or pine shavings have a huge surface area to volume and are known to have a toxic effect on animals kept in close contact with untreated products. Heat is used to vaporise and remove these volatile chemicals, rendering chips or shavings safe for use with animals. If your pine substrate has a strong smell of pine about it, it is odds on that it has not been appropriately heat treated and is therefore likely not safe to use with your animals..

The small size of a meal is not, of itself, going to have any adverse effect. Large BHPs are known to eat small snakes and small skinks in nature.

The yellow staining of the bedding is from discharge of bile. This is made and stored by the liver. I would conclude from this that there were issues in the functioning of the snake’s liver. The liver is the largest internal organ and it is respnsible for more essential chemical processes than any other organ. So problems with the liver can affect lots of critical chemical pathways in the body.

Blue

Well done Blue,
As usual though Blue your insight has generated more questions for me. Is bile naturally occurring in the stomach of a snake and could be just normal considering the snake has regurgitated the meal? The reason I ask is because when I have been sick in the past and there is no food or fluid left in my stomach I often see bile regurgitated. I am not even sure if this is normally occurring in our stomachs or present as part of being sick. In the meantime until you setback to me I might do a little research on the subject of my own.

Cheers
Andy

 

[tahnia666]

Thanks [MENTION=20726]Bluetongue1[/MENTION] your answers are educational to say the least

Sent from my HTC Velocity 4G using Tapatalk

 

[Bluetongue1]

I made an error in presuming the bile was passed through. It could just as readily have been regurgitated under the circumstances, now that you mention it Andy. My apologies. Must try and remember not to post when tired but cannot sleep.

Fat and oils (lipids) are not water soluble and form large globules in the water-based digestive juices, which includes the fat-digestion enzyme lipase. The salts and phospholipids in bile allow the globules to physically form into tiny drops that they coat and then stay separate – an emulsion. This then allows effective chemical digestion at the surface of each by the lipase.

Bile is produced by the liver. A certain amount is stored in the gall bladder. The presence of fats or oils in the stomach stimulates the liver to make and release bile, including what is in the gall bladder so that lipid digestion can get rolling straight away.

For the OP to recognise blood at the mouth it likely quite red and has come from the front end of the snake. Digested blood has an almost black colour to it. It may also be from a damaged liver via the gall duct.

Problems with the digestive tract are usually not acute unless there is blockage – which should be able to be felt. But organs like the kidneys, liver and lungs are critical and problems there can result in rapid declines. This was the thinking behind my previous post’.

Pressure on the human gall bladder when vomiting can cause bile to be brought up as we involve our diaphragm and inflated lungs as well as our stomach muscles. I don’t know if snakes can exert pressure to achieve the same effect.

Blue

 

[andynic07]

I made an error in presuming the bile was passed through. It could just as readily have been regurgitated under the circumstances, now that you mention it Andy. My apologies. Must try and remember not to post when tired but cannot sleep.

Fat and oils (lipids) are not water soluble and form large globules in the water-based digestive juices, which includes the fat-digestion enzyme lipase. The salts and phospholipids in bile allow the globules to physically form into tiny drops that they coat and then stay separate – an emulsion. This then allows effective chemical digestion at the surface of each by the lipase.

Bile is produced by the liver. A certain amount is stored in the gall bladder. The presence of fats or oils in the stomach stimulates the liver to make and release bile, including what is in the gall bladder so that lipid digestion can get rolling straight away.

For the OP to recognise blood at the mouth it likely quite red and has come from the front end of the snake. Digested blood has an almost black colour to it. It may also be from a damaged liver via the gall duct.

Problems with the digestive tract are usually not acute unless there is blockage – which should be able to be felt. But organs like the kidneys, liver and lungs are critical and problems there can result in rapid declines. This was the thinking behind my previous post’.

Pressure on the human gall bladder when vomiting can cause bile to be brought up as we involve our diaphragm and inflated lungs as well as our stomach muscles. I don’t know if snakes can exert pressure to achieve the same effect.

Blue

Thanks mate for the clarification, a lot of what I have learnt today via my own research but thank you for the your post. I have had a lot of experience with digested blood with having stomach ulcers on and off since 19 years of age. I would imagine though with the rapid death of the animal you are probably right with assuming that there may have been an internal organ failure of some sort but we are no closer to finding the cause without an autopsy as has been stated. I think discussions like these though are very important and may help other people including myself if I ever have major issues like these.

 

[hulloosenator]

not being rude...... but...... how do you tell when your snake is grumpy ???????

 

[andynic07]

Mine usually don't talk to me.
I pictured that it would be in a defensive position, maybe not grumpy as such but not it's usual temperament and not likely to like to be handled.

 

[Bluetongue1]

Glad it helps Andy. The digestive processes are rather interesting. Did you come across "chylomicrons"? The release acid in the stomach is often incorrectly believed to start breaking down food on its own. It’s actual job is activate the digestive enzymes, which have to be produced in an inactive form so they do not digest the cells that produce them. At the same time, stomach acid kills most bacteria ingested with the food.

I should have added that a perforation of the bowel can result in rapid decline due to resulting septicaemia. Just one more option to roll with the rest of the dice. As you say, this is why you want at least some basic blood work ups and a visual inspection of the internal organs. Even if it does not give you an exact cause, it can certainly eliminate a lot of possibilities.

Cheers,
Mike

 

[andynic07]

Thanks Mike, I did not get that far into my research today as my mate popped over and insisted I had six or so beers with him and then the natural progression was to scotch. It is amazing how complex some things are that we simplify to make understanding and explaining easier. I take it that once the enzymes are activated by the acid that the food is the main target so that the cells that produce them don't get digested but what makes the food the main focus?

Thanks
Andy

 

[Bluetongue1]

Andy, The cells that make up the lining of the digestive tube include goblet cells, so named because of their shape, which produce mucous. The mucous produced covers the lining cells protecting them from self-digestion. These cells are also geared to readily replace themselves when damaged. The products of digestion are carried by chemicals that are able to go through the protective mucous layer. This is why most regurgitated food items are “slimy” – they are coated in mucous. I have a preference for Bourbon myself. Brandy and OP dark rum are also appreciated on the very rare occasion I am offered access to them these days.

Blue

 

[rum.pig]

not being rude...... but...... how do you tell when your snake is grumpy ???????

This snake never would strike at me until he knew there was food but they day before his feed he was hissing and striking when I walked past his cage.
The blood was red not the dark red you were talking about Blue, My guess to the blood was a mouth injury. Thank you Blue for some very informative posts.
As for the pine shavings there was not smell and as said before it was meant to be safe for pets.

 

[17galz]

The mouse

Sorry for your loss :cry: but did you watch it eat the mouse. It might have swallowed it the wrong way (pretty much impossible but might have happened) or a claw might have gotten caught in his mouth and torn down his throat as he swallowed (hence the throwing up and blood). Then bacteria might have gotten into the wound from the mouse or saliva and since it was so close to the head and vital organs e.g. brain... you get where i'm going.