dead gravid boa - what to do - neonates?

[liquidleaf]

I just checked on my female Hog Island Boa, DeeDee, who was gravid, and saw that she didn't move when I opened the lid to her cage. I touched her - and found that she is dead.

She was fine this morning - I've been checking on her 3 and 4 times a day because she was near her due date. I went out to do a few errands and checked her when I returned.

:( I am horribly saddened, this was my first attempt at breeding.

Question - sounds gross but should I bother seeing if there were any viable young that were stuck? She had spread urates around the cage but there was no other fluid. She is still soft (no rigor - I think this happened only shortly before I got home), it feels like there is something hard right near her vent though. The rest of her "pregnancy" weight is soft, I feel no wriggling or anything. I just don't want to put her in the fridge (she will definitely be necropsied) if there is a possibility that there are living young still in there.

Please advise.......

Here is a picture of her as of a few minutes ago.
http://www.ophidiagems.com/images/DeeDee-Death1.jpg
I am completely devastated.

[denny_rimes]

Sorry to see that your gravid boa died. :(

Sadly, sometimes these things happen and there is nothing you can do about it. It is likdely that the babies did not make it either. The only thing you could do at this point is to cut the mother open ASAP to see if there are any viable neonates.

[Bushbaby]

I am so sorry to hear that.

I would cut her open asap (if you haven't already). You have nothing to loose if you do. Possibly she had a stuck slug?? I doubt any of the babies would be alive and if they are / were they probably wont live very long, but it's always worth a shot. Like I said, nothing to loose.

Good luck and sorry for your loss.

[liquidleaf]

Well, I took her to an emergency vet - they could find no heartbeats present at all, so if there are any viable babies, they are also gone as well. She'll go in for a necropsy with my normal herp vet on Monday and hopefully I'll learn what happened, though it seems from the hard lump near her vent that she was unable to pass a slug and died in the effort.

She will be missed... RIP DeeDee.... Thanks for the condolences.

[Bushbaby]

Sorry to hear that.

A friend of mine said that once someone had a gravid mole snake, and she was cut open 9 hours after she died and all her babies were still alive. Aparently all of them pulled through as well. So never say never :)

[liquidleaf]

Right - even though the vet originally told me over the phone that "if the mother is dead, then the babies are dead" - I could NOT put her in the refrigerator without having them check for live babies first. No way I could have lived with myself without checking. Now I want to buy a scalpel just in case I have to deal with this situation again. Thanks for the replies, and I'll post when I receive information from the necropsy next week.

[dberes]

First and foremost I am sorry to hear about the passing of your boa. Something to think about, and that is what the vet said. Is the vet a reptile vet? Most vets know very little about reptiles since they are in the exotics category. Vet school teach about 2 weeks or less in exotics and that is to cover ALL EXOTICS. Scary I know. Anyways, the point is your vet could be wrong, but I must say the odds that the babies are still alive are slim since the mother is their life support.

[liquidleaf]

I have a very good exotic vet who routinely assists at the reptile house at my local zoo. I found him by using one of the herp vet connection websites, back when my hog island male had a nose rub a few years ago.

He left a short message on my answering machine today (I have to call him back tomorrow) - he performed the necropsy today and he found absolutely no signs that DeeDee was pregnant (no slugs, no embryos). The cause of death was an intestinal abcess, where the intestine looped back on itself, which became infected. The infection and abcess caused the swelling, liquid, and hard spot within her abdomen that I felt after she died, that I thought was a stuck slug.

It's unfortunate because since I believed she might be pregnant, when I saw her lower half swell up in the past week or two, and her front half get a little skinny, I thought her "litter" was moving down and she was getting ready to give birth. Had I not thought she was pregnant, I would have known something was wrong... but since this was my first attempt at breeding, I was going by what I've read in a ton of places... including "the skinnier in the front half and fatter in the back half the female looks towards the end of pregnancy, the more likely she is carrying a good litter".... Plus I had not handled her lately (because of her "pregnancy") more than to move her briefly to clean her cage... arrrrrrrg.

What horrible timing... but I am glad she did not have a stuck baby or slug, and she would probably have developed this problem regardless if I bred her or not this season. I'll post more when I speak to the vet. I am very glad that I decided to have a necropsy done.

[liquidleaf]

Here is a more detailed explanation from the vet....

DeeDee was probably sick for about two weeks judging by the condition of her intestine and the condition of the rest of her body. The vet has not personally seen this condition in snakes before, but it is common in mammals. The intestine basically telescoped inward on itself, and the overlapped section developed an infected abscess. The abscess blocked the intestine and there was fecal matter built up behind it (which was the cause of the swelling). The kidneys, however, empty into the cloaca, and usually urates that are passed into the cloaca are then held there (or back up a bit into the intestine) until the snake defecates. I found tracks of pasty semiliquid urates in her cage when I found that she had died, so that explains why she could pass urates alone (I didn't know where urates get passed into the tract).

The vet also said that conditions like this usually happen fairly quickly, and that even had I recognized the signs, major surgery would have been required, and even if the surgery was successful, more than likely she would have had serious complications.

The vet said her fat reserves and other tissue health was very good (when I asked how long she might have been sick with this). Her intestines looked good above the abscess, that was the entire problem.

I also asked the vet if in his opinion, this was caused by breeding or by being off feed for breeding season. He said he did not know, because he has never seen this happen in a snake. I asked if in his opinion, if DeeDee was large enough to breed for a dwarf boa subspecies, and he said that she was definitely large enough to breed without problems, though he didn't see any signs of activity in her reproductive tract at all. He said that except for the abscess, she was in excellent health (makes me feel better), and that from her size and age, breeding would not have been an issue with her. (I know, the photo I took didn't have anything to show the snake's size in scale with anything else).

So what probably happened, according to the vet, was that when she last defecated, her intestine twisted and slid in on itself. He also let me know that in a potentially gravid boa (with slugs or with live babies), that when feeling their abdomen, you should feel individual round lumps, if the female will let you touch her. DeeDee's belly, when I felt it after she died, just had one large squishy area.

Hopefully this will help some people avoid this if this does happen more than freakishly rarely - and if you think something might be amiss with your gravid boa, see if you can feel bumps, because a large single swelling isn't normal. I think some boas' musculature might hide bumps, but DeeDee's swelling was so liquidy and located in one spot... I'm guessing that gravid boas have swelling that is more spread out over their back half.

[jadeboa]

This is such a devastating situation to be in...........I am truely sorry for your loss.
I am glad however, that you took her in for a necropsy to find out the truth behind her untimely demise.
At least knowing what happened makes it understandable and of no fault of your own.
She was a beautiful girl...........:(.............very sad.

[snkchrmr_420]

Sorry for your loss.