problems with my snakes..

[ithloss74]

at this time i find myself wondering what the hell has happened.... 2 seperate incidents that have resulted with sick or dead snakes...

1st issue happened about 5 months ago my son got to the cage and opened the door to the enclosure of my jungle pythons....the female escaped and couldnt be found ...5 months later we find her frozen next to the car in the frost outside...she had turned yellow to white, and was as solid as a rock.. i thought for sure she was dead, until i saw her tongue... we quickly bathed her in luke warm water for approx 20 mins and that got her goin a little, we then isolated her off in the box from the heat lite with a cloth and a heat pad to warm her up slowly..... this was all about 2 weeks ago and she is still goin but wont eat and isnt looking the best ive asked a few friends but they said there is not alot more you can do, im j ust wondering if there is??

the other problem i had was with my cape yorks... about 3 weeks ago i went away for 7 days i fed them before i left everything was fine...after being home for 2 days i went to vlean the box and feed them again...but i found on the floor of the enclosure a half digested rat on the floor, i thought this aint right and when i looked for the snakes i found the male inside his rock looking rather docile ( he is usually quite aggressive when putting your hand into the box, once out he is like a little kitten) but what disturbed me the most was the female was dead behind the rock....after that the male seemed to be rather distant and died 2 days later no warning whatsoever.... the enclosure temperature hasnt changed but it has been very cold the last couple months getting to below 5 degrees im not sure if this couldve been the cause or not, but my friend who breeds snakkes says he has lost 7 this year to the cold....

anyway if anyone has any ideas id love to hear them
thanks

 

[mungus]

Sounds like your enclosure temps must be to low for the snakes to properly digest their food.
If you feeding in winter, you really need the heat to be up there 24/7.
So sorry for your loss.
I really dont understand how your mate can loose 7 snakes to the cold...........
just turn / adjust the heating accordingly.

 

[pythrulz]

sorry to hear about your ptoblems where the cape yorks bellys black at all just up the heat you can easy check if the snakes are to hot when there enclosers to cold there food doesnt digest and rots in there stomach i guess it poisons the snakes and they die but your mate loosing 7 snakes is doing something drasticly wrong

 

[Colin]

losing 7 snakes "to the cold" doesnt sound right to me.. he either has totally wrong setups or has some disease problem like OPMV or something else.. 7 snakes dont just "die" in a short period of time for no reason.. just my opinion..

 

[ithloss74]

yeah not sure...the temps on my enclosure are working fine they are sitting at 18-19 during the night and around 28 during the day, which was what is required for them so i was told by the reptile shop and going over various web sites... the humidity i keep up by placing the water tray under the heat lamp and couple times a day i spray the enclosure walls with water....

either way not happy at all...had them for just over 5 years now...they were my 1st snakes

 

[waruikazi]

Your temps are about 5 degrees too cold. Healthy animals will survive at lower temps but if they are sick for whatever reason the low temps could push them over the edge. I would ask your neighbours if you had a blackout at any time during your holiday, that could account for the regurge and death but i would also be going to the vet for a check up on your animals. I'm actually really suprised you haven't done so already.

 

[JAS101]

yeah not sure...the temps on my enclosure are working fine they are sitting at 18-19 during the night and around 28 during the day, which was what is required for them so i was told by the reptile shop and going over various web sites... the humidity i keep up by placing the water tray under the heat lamp and couple times a day i spray the enclosure walls with water....

either way not happy at all...had them for just over 5 years now...they were my 1st snakes

i think spraying the enclosure walls a couple of times a day is a little extreme. where about are u ?

 

[mungus]

yeah not sure...the temps on my enclosure are working fine they are sitting at 18-19 during the night and around 28 during the day, which was what is required for them so i was told by the reptile shop and going over various web sites... the humidity i keep up by placing the water tray under the heat lamp and couple times a day i spray the enclosure walls with water....

either way not happy at all...had them for just over 5 years now...they were my 1st snakes

Those temps are way out mate.
30-33 deg. in the hot spot.
24 degree's in the cool spot.
The above temps should operate 24/7 if your feeding in winter.
Why you feeding your adults in Winter ??
Dont you cool them ??.........you dont have to breed your reptiles to justify cooling them.
[/COLOR]

 

[J-A-X]

wholeheartedly agree with waruikazi, its too cold, all of mine have a hot spot of 34-35c - 24 / 7 and ambient room temp outside the hot zone

 

[FAY]

Yep, temps too cold. Half digested food, the other half would of rotted in it's stomach.

We would not feed any snakes in those temps....except diamonds.

 

[dickyknee]

I would not be spraying any cage walls with water twice a day either , not even a green needs that much spraying .

 

[J-A-X]

you say you've had them 5 years, so you've gone through winters before, so whats changed,?? have you moved ? or moved the snakes to another area of the house.

 

[ithloss74]

we have moved house recently ..approximately 7 months ago...we have moved from a country town in n/e victoria to danky old melbourne where yeah its alot colder than we were... other than that nothing else has changed still do things the same same routines with them....but ill definately take things on board and raise temps though thanks for the help guys....

 

[Pythoninfinite]

Although temps are a bit cool, and you probably shouldn't be feeding in the extremes of winter (or summer for that matter), I'd be leaning towards Colin's suggestion that there is more going on here than simple inappropriate temps. The losses your friend has experienced would sound alarm bells to me - snakes that are kept too cool usually get noticeably sick for quite a while before dying, and are then treated and recover. Low temps reduce the effectiveness of a snake's immune system, but they don't die suddenly from cold-induced illness. To lose 7 indicates a very serious problem to me, and if you have had contact with animals from that collection, you may very well have introduced a nasty such as OPMV into you own snakes.

Jamie

 

[J-A-X]

i'd say the move has upset the 'normal' temp gradient, they had in Vic, the small increase in Vic ambient degrees may have been enough to not cause a problem, in chilly melbourne bump up the temps and stop the spraying as has been suggested and things should slowly improve, diagnosing illness in reptiles isn't easy, they have such a slow metabolism that it takes a long time for problems to show, and a long time to fix,and Jamie also has a valid point with the potential disease theory, good luck,

 

[zuesowns]

Why are you keeping the humidity that high - do they have trouble shedding? if not then don't bother - if they have hot and cold, the python will choose it's own temp

 

[ithloss74]

just want to thank everyone for the feedback that they have given its all bee taken on aboard and will be put into use asap...ive already bumped the temps up and its all running fine..hopefully this will create a better Environment for them to be in....Its always hard starting out and i guess having a little bit of incorrect info from people has caused more harm than good...Though im sure the longer i continue with this the more knowledge i will obtain..thanks everyone for the help i will continue to monitor them and see how it goes over the next couple weeks and keep u posted....Hopefully the female jungle will pull through from the hypothermia, she is moving alot more lately though which is a good sign. and ive put the keys out of reach of the kids so they cant open the doors to the enclosure, even though it is his, lol ...


ps..luckily i havent had contact with my friend for a few years only on the phone as of late but ill let him know about it...he carries Venomous species and milks them for some company for anti-venoms...he has quite a significant amount of snakes quite a large shed in the back of his house... kinda little freaky seeing that many poisonous snakes in one spot lol...think ill stick to the pythons personally

 

[Pythoninfinite]

One of the things you should be aware of is that cooling a snake, as yours has been during his escape, causes significant changes to the biochemistry of the animal. After a significant cooling, it's not just a matter of increasing the temperature and everything returns to normal immediately. Some of the internal biological processes involve significant hormonal and metabolic changes, which in nature reflect the time of brumation, and this is normally a process that plays out over months. It can be sped up to a limited extent, but will mess with the reptile's metabolism, and while the immune system is depressed, it may be subjected to infective organisms that develop more quickly than the animal's immune response can deal with.

If the snake does survive, be very careful to watch for signs of respiratory distress, if they show - off to the vet immediately.

Snakes are surprisingly tolerant of extremes of cold - it's rarely cold per se that kills them - cold with a draught, or damp (wet) cold will knock them off quite fast, but if they're tucked away in a comfortable, draught-free hide box and left undisturbed (this is VERY important) they can cope with surprising ease.

Jamie