bummed

[drache]

my fitchi male is dead
what looked like nothing worse than a bad shed, was just one of the symptoms of an infection in the lower intestine
sadly, by the time I realized it, it was too late for the little guy

[Charis]

So sorry to hear that!

[count dewclaw]

Sorry for your loss, Rhea.

[Stefan-A]

A real shame, Rhea.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

oh no! and I just got done PMing you back about the shed... so sorry, Rhea :(

[guidofatherof5]

That's terrible news. Sorry for your loss.

[sirtalis01]

sorry for your loss

[adamanteus]

Oh no, I'm sorry to hear that, Rhea.:(

[drache]

thanks for your empathy, and thanks Shannon (who offered me one of her babies, and I'm looking forward to meeting the little guy on Saturday)
can't even properly beat myself up over this, because it was just too subtle to see in a routine check, but I'm sad to have lost him

[Mommy2many]

I'm sorry to hear of your loss, Rhea.

[Charis]

That is very nice of Shannon, though!

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Rhea was very excited about the Fitchii, she really liked them! it saddened me to see that she lost her male so suddenly, so I'll be gifting her a baby male (and possibly a female too, if she wants a pair!) at the hamburg show on saturday! I just love my fitchii! I have 3.3 from Don, they are such CUTE little things!

[Snaky]

That's always said to hear :(
Sorry for the loss.

[drache]

Shannon is a nice snake person
she's like the St Martin of snake people
and I am in fact a little less bummed

[Snakers]

aww we hate losses sorry

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Shannon is a nice snake person
she's like the St Martin of snake people
and I am in fact a little less bummed

LOL
thanks Rhea

I am glad I made you feel somewhat better! see you tomorrow :D

[Loren]

Sorry to hear about your garter Rhea. Glad you are ready to get right back at it though :) Way to go Shannon :)

[drache]

that's not all . . .
one of my baby flames just died with a large swelling in the lung area which hadn't been there before
I've got nothing in the house right now that's sharp enough to cut open a baby, so I'll never know for sure what did it
the swelling had not been there the day before, and it felt hard, so I'm assuming either fluids in the lung, or a freakishly fast-growing tumour, or perhaps semi-regurgitated food from four days earlier? whatever . . .
there are two other babies in the same tank with no problems, even though one of them is small and a poor eater, but I've upped their heat a little - just in case; after all - two out of my three possible assumptions might have been caused by low temps
today I'm going to reassess temps in all the enclosures; I did it a couple of weeks ago when the weather changed, but it's been changing some more

[Mommy2many]

Rhea, sorry to hear of another loss.

[jitami]

I'm so sorry, Rhea :(

[mustang]

im sorry for urr loss...but hey atleast u know ur get new healthy snakes !!!!

[gregmonsta]

Sorry to hear that Rhea.

[drache]

im sorry for urr loss...but hey atleast u know ur get new healthy snakes !!!!
not planning on getting new snakes at this time
I like the ones I've got to stick around, and thankfully, for the most part they do

somehow it seems that the change of the season is often a bit iffy and tends bring out problems that were not apparent before
additionally there is the fact that the animals' behaviour is changing anyway because of their seasonal adjustment, so some changes just don't raise the kinds of flags they would in mid-season
either way - these were snakes I was really keeping an eye on because one of them was very new, and the other one of my two smallest babies, and I did not see this coming with either of them
it's the other one of my smallest babies I've been sort of concerned about

[Quibble]

Sorry for your loss. I really hope nothing else bad comes up, and that all is on the way to recovery and good health.

[ConcinusMan]

I keep seeing posts in which experienced keepers are getting all sorts of weird deaths. WTH? I've been lucky I guess. I lose a couple of babies every batch,(perhaps 3/25-50) but they usually die within 7-10 days of birth, or refuse to ever take their first meal within a month or so and die. Then after losing 1 or 2 of the smallest ones during their first winter rest, the remaining are always still doing well a year later in any case, but nope. No weird diseases or infections. If husbandry is not the issue I wonder if perhaps captive breeding is making some species more vulnerable to disease. I mean, many generations of captive breeding later, I'm seeing some snakes (not garters) where if 1/4 survive the first year under the best care, it's considered good.

[drache]

I get "weird deaths" at the rate of a couple per year - usually this time of year
and I'm pretty sure that the only weird thing about them is that I didn't see them coming, because in retrospect they can usually be explained, if "there were tumours" or some such thing is a good enough explanation
as a medical practitioner myself, I need to say that humans get weird stuff too
living beings are not machines and not at this time absolutely fixable, although some humans like to think so
my animals get excellent veterinary care when they need it, and I've learned a lot from my most excellent vet - including the fact when one has a lot of animals, sooner or later one of them will get sick or die
when my beardie died in spring I had this one panicky half hour where I was obsessing over all of them dying some day and the amount of grief was unbearable - it's good thing it doesn't happen all at once like my mind was seeing it

[guidofatherof5]

It's the unexplained deaths that disturb me the most. As close as some of us get to our animals it can be overwhelming to lose one.
My neighbor brought me a beautiful red phase radix. It looked and checked out fine but within a week it was dead. No explaination, no visable trama. Nothing but a lifeless snake in the enclosure.

[drache]

I always figure that they would be explainable, if I took the time to do a full autopsy and blood panel, but frankly - it doesn't help with the loss

[guidofatherof5]

I've always wanted to get some blood panels done on a few of my snakes just to get a healthy baseline established. When I asked my Vet. about it he said the biggest problem is getting the amount of blood need. Since most garters are small it could be dangerous taking the required amount.

[drache]

that's the biggest problem with baby garter care - they're so small that not only is it harder to spot a problem, but also sometimes when one does, it's not possible to treat like one would in an adult

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

I keep seeing posts in which experienced keepers are getting all sorts of weird deaths. WTH? I've been lucky I guess. I lose a couple of babies every batch,(perhaps 3/25-50) but they usually die within 7-10 days of birth, or refuse to ever take their first meal within a month or so and die. Then after losing 1 or 2 of the smallest ones during their first winter rest, the remaining are always still doing well a year later in any case, but nope. No weird diseases or infections. If husbandry is not the issue I wonder if perhaps captive breeding is making some species more vulnerable to disease. I mean, many generations of captive breeding later, I'm seeing some snakes (not garters) where if 1/4 survive the first year under the best care, it's considered good.

Some keepers could possibly have something in their collections that they don't know about and it may claim a few of their young animals every now and then and they may think nothing of it, seeing as part of the failure to thrive thing that happens with some babies every now and then. I have 3 or 4 of deaths over the course of my 7 years of snake-having that I would not even be able to begin to explain. Only one of them though, was a snake I actually raised from a baby, and did not get elsewhere when it was already at least partially grown. and that was my beloved female graybanded kingsnake. She reached sexual maturity after a few years of tender loving care, I coupled her with a male and a week or two later, I found her curled up perfectly under her hide, but dead. You want to talk about heartbroken?! I had no idea she was even dead until I touched her to pick her up, she was stiff! If I have a death I usually will see it coming, either with a baby that refuses food from the start, or only eats enough to get by. Or in the very few times I have had a snake get sick, and taken to the vet, sometimes they simply did not respond to treatment. Rhea's male fitchii that passed away had only been in her care for a week or so, so it's really tough to say what would have caused it. I also had a freak event where I had a huge litter of easterns born from a rescued mama. out of 50, 16 were stillborn. I turned mama and her offspring loose down by the creek as soon as they were born. and held onto 5 or 6 that I thought were neat with nice red for kicks. Within 2 weeks, all of them were dead, even though they had begun eating on my standard food items immediately.

[ConcinusMan]

Thanks for the input. It's helping me to see a bigger picture.

I once collected a gravid female concinnus from one of my local hotspots for large specimins. It was really a bit early in the spring/season for them to be out and about, but they were forced from their dens early by a severe rise in the water table and were really easy to find since they were concentrated on higher ground.(Spring 1997, after the infamous FEB 1996 WA floods)

Apparently, this female had retained her young through the winter, and gave birth in spring of 1997. She looked to be very old(although not more than 2/3 maximum size for her species) and not very healthy.

She gave birth to 18 stillborns. Some of them were clearly decayed. She died several days later. It was a harshly cold winter followed by extreme flooding though.