Here's the story. I woke up yesterday morning to turn the snake lights on. I noticed my male hypo water snake in the pond. Thinking nothing, I left for work. When I returned home... I noticed he was STILL in th pond, in the exact same position. He was curled in a U with his head resting on a rock out of the water. Little did I know... he was dead!!! I never would have though in a million years he would be dead, but he was!!! He looked perfectly alive and alert. Anyways... I got this snake from Scott Felzer at the daytona show last august. Shortly after checking him out in the truck I noticed a part of his abdomen was rather swollen and puffy. Very soft to the touch. I was worried, so i had the vet check him out and the vet said it was just some fatty tissue buildup. I know Scott feeds pretty much all rodents and that this snake was eating them. I switched him onto a diet of fish, with only the occasional rodent... which he grew less and less fond of as he realized how much he likes fish. The puffy spot never really went away, it got a bit smaller because he trimmed down once he started eating fish. But it was still there ever after almost 9 months. He stopped eating 3 weeks ago before I found him dead yesterday. I was too curious to resist opening him up to finally find out for sure what the heck that bulge was.

Indeed, this does appear to be fatty tissue, but there is WAY more of it than any snake should have, especially in the area of the bulge. I was very surprised to see that it extended further than just the bulging spot. It was wrapped and entangled all around the organs and i had to move it aside to see any of them.

In short, I have always worried that an all rodent diet is too fatty and rich for snakes that normally feed almost exclusively on aquatic and invertebrate prey. Now, opening up this snake pretty much confirms it, at least for me. I know that many many of these snakes are seemingly doing fine on an all rodent diet, but i think this here is an example of why rodents are not always the optimal prey item.

Scott, this is in NO way directed at you or criticizing your husbandry. You raise hundreds of snakes each year and produce some of the best animals out there. You do a great job with your snakes and you are a master of breeding thamnophis. I will probably buy from you every single year, for... ever! I have garters/water snakes myself that once ate rodents only and none of them seem to be any worse for wear.

But, this snake is an example of why I strongly feel that a highly varied diet with rodents only as a portion of it is best. I am not saying that the rodents did it for sure either, this could be some kind of tumor, or hormone malfuction that caused him to store too much fat. I just wanted to post this find for all to see, and to be wary that we may be unknowlingly shaving years off our snake's lives with too many fatty rodents.

WARNING the following photos are GRAPHIC.
sorry for the terrible background... and I didn't have any straight pins!! I basically did this underneath the deck of our house, on an old board, with gloves and X-acto knives.

here is the snake. He is actually dead in this picture... stiff as a board. hard to believe isnt it???


Here is the bottom view. You can see the area that was puffy in the last third of his body.



Here is the view of the whole snake freshly cut open. You can see just how much fatty tissue there is... especially in the area the bulge was located.



Here is the snake after much of the fatty tissue has been cut away to reveal the organs. The organs are stretched out a bit so that they can be seen.

and finally, a closeup of the swollen area where the bulk of the tissue was.