Enlarged Heart...?

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

My little male albino redsided passed away this morning. I knew it was coming, for a while now I have known -something- was wrong with him. He and the female have always eaten large meals but he never really grew.. only a little bit. It got to the point where the female is 3 times his size and 2 weeks ago, he went off feed and his pupils seemed fixated... and he just was kind of "there", but not all there.

So last night I went through my 09's and I noticed he had a pronounced swelling in his upper body. I held him up to the light, as i do with my albino snakes and realized it was where his heart was supposed to be. Only, I could not see his heart beating. This was weird to me as you can always see it in the albinos. I pulled all my other albino 09's out and held them up to the light, no swelling, and their hearts were very clearly beating away. I palpated the area and I could feel the swelling in the area. His pupils were still constricted and he seemed a bit weak. I put him back knowing that in the morning I would probably have to put him down. well I got up this morning and he was dead. So I pulled him out to examine him, the swelling was no longer as visible but it was still there enough for me to take some pictures. Last night it was larger than this, large enough to really freak me out!

Just to be sure it was his heart and not something else I did open him up to examine it. It was his heart, nothing else was there, just a swollen heart. Does anyone know what the heck this is about? His heart wasn't always swollen and sticking out like this... but he did never really grow...

[gregmonsta]

Never seen anything like it

[drache]

no, me neither

[ssssnakeluvr]

thats sad... no idea what caused it either, have never seen it. could be a genetic abnormality.

[Stefan-A]

thats sad... no idea what caused it either, have never seen it. could be a genetic abnormality.

Could be, it's known to be genetic in some pets. Then again, it could just be developmental.

[ScimitarX]

we had a male pine snake that we had to put down in the end with something similar. he had a huge lump in that same area. the vet wasnt sure what it was, he tried to drain the lump at one point but the needle was filled blood.

[guidofatherof5]

Sorry to hear about your loss.

[Mommy2many]

Sorry to hear of your loss, Shannon. I guess everyone can have heart disease.