Warning graphic fotos of dead and cut up snake for post mortem. Very pic heavy

[cooljules]

Ok, first of all, fotos of the snake minutes after it died yesterday..

We chilled it until today. i used sharp scissors, scalpel and tweezers etc LG took fotos.....




















The foto below is what we belived to be a broken back injury some time ago


PLEASE DO NOT REPLY UNTIL I SAY SO....IM UPLOADING AND ADDING MORE DESCRIPTIONS STEP BY STEP.....THANKS CJ AND LG

[cooljules]

2ND LOT OF FOTOS...

tools i used....



I was told to cut from the vent upwards....the snake was cold but easy to snip open, i just was careful to get under the skin


i was using a 200w bulb above me head....


I used the scalpel to slit the thin layer of underskin...around the large lump without damaging or slicing through owt i should



The lump wanting to come out but i didnt want to seperate it if it was attached to owt else

I slowly worked it loose, cutting and inner skin i had too



This is further towards the head where i cut


It was quite easy to do

snipping the bones was easy



intestines still in the inner layers.



back down to the lump



i carefully removed the lump from the body....



now i had to remove the outer skin.....


measurement you can see the size


i cut the lenth as i wanted to see slowly bit by bit how the lump was connected, and where...

[cooljules]

the main lump, to the lower right is where it seems to come from, i was looking for how it was connected etc.


Belive these 2 are ovaries? as we was told it was a sexed 100% female





acc to info i found on the web, the long things are kidneys


more fotos of the lump as i worked around it


As you can see, its not one big lump, but smaller bits next to it




I worked my way up the body again....


This was the what looked like the broken back....


looking from inside, bang in the middle is the kinked section, but looking at it inside out, you cant make out the kink(much)

again hard to see, but look a little to the right and you see how its not straight


and again


the heart (we think!!)


heart on my thumb

[cooljules]

We had a couple of breaks for coffee and fags (me) and none of us were nautious etc..just needed a rest. (LG says she felt nautious)

We cut upto the head, i wanted to look at some other things and not just focus on the lump...


under the snakes just behind the head


another organ



back to the lump....
it looked a lot like roe (my fave at the chippy, but wont be having again i think!!!)


about to go into it...


It felt soft, not much resistance to the blade, and no sudden solidness (like you get cutting into liver etc)


sliced open..


and again



taking off a segment

the segment

a bit blury...soz


removed it here from the body


but here where it was connected....


it seems seperate to the long gray thing, which seemed to goto the anus (i go there later!)

[cooljules]

back to while it was att. and fotos showing around it etc.....


measured...but you can see to the LEFT of the main lump, 2 smaller lumps..same material and you can see the anus and faecal matter etc coming out


there i hold the blade tip, you can see brown bits, they are BEFORE the lump, is the same passage tract.


and again here


the top is towards the head....i hadnt cut into it yet

here you can see the lump pulled away, but still connected, and good view of the internal organs

you can see the large lump, and a lower smaller one

removing thin skin layers to get access (top is towards head)

Here is the same composition of stuff as the big lump, but directly above it (towards the main body) is faeces etc

more lumpy stuff, but i just on purpose slit to allow the yellow stuff which looks like urates etc

more of the yellow stuff coming out

again to get a judgement of size etc

ignore the woolly jumper! i was working in cold area


Lorna said they should call me Dexter from the tv show...but he does it to alive things (and a serial killer!...but i wouldnt hurt a weetabix or frosite!)

[cooljules]

LG taking fotos.....she did say she found it facinating!


I worked as carefully as i could, im used to making plastic models etc so good with my hands

Here trying to open everything to get a idea of the passage etc

more of the big lump material and feaces at both ends

showing what the lump was attached too

i slit open what we think was the rectum cos poo (smelly) came out..



This snake wasnt ours, it came on sunday, yesterday and died within 30 minutes of it getting here....

he told us, it had not eaten for months, lump got bigger.....and when he tried to feed it, it regurged...he had seen the lump grow for months, see it lose a hell of a lot of weight etc etc.

thats all the fotos....

popping the snake in the fridge, will bury in the neglected animal burial place tomoz in the garden...but if anyone knows who and where i can send the lump to be analized....

we learnt a lot from doing this....just wished he'd taken it to a vet MONTHS ago when he know something was wrong...

any comments welcome...ta
CJ&LG

[Athravan]

I have only witnessed a few veterinary post mortems and none of them were cancer or impaction based, but the ovaries don't look right to me. The lump almost certainly looks like a tumour, whether it's cancerous or not a biopsy would be needed but a tumour is classed as any abnormal mass or swelling of tissue, caused by unctonrolled growth of cells. It looks malignant as it looks like it is branching off into smaller tumours and spreading. Tumours are more common in older animals and as I think you said in the other thread he had her over 10 years, this certainly adds a contributing factor of age.

It looks like the tumour was blocking the large intestine/colon, which would have meant when her last meal was eaten the faeces couldn't be passed, she would have been constipated, uncomfortable, possibly in pain and it could well have begun to rot. It could have been a blockage that killed her or could have been the tumour or could have been something else, really hard to say.. the small intestine looks really twisted in one of the pics to me as well.

If ever there was a snake that needed a veterinary exam it is this one. It obviously was in very poor condition, how it's back was broken so badly god only knows, whether it lost weight due to starvation or an internal problem is hard to say but no one can say that the owner couldn't notice the deteroriation, this didn't happen overnight and is one of the worse cases I think of cruelty by leaving this untreated I have seen in a snake.

I know there are a few vet students and even a vet or two on here so hopefully some of those can confirm with more detail.

[shell2909]

i found this really fascinating, and hope you find out what the lump is. its not everyday you see something like that. shame the last owners didnt take it to the vets

[cornmorphs]

had to close the thread while i removed th posts inbetween the pics..
so anyone whose posts i removed, sorry abot that, feel free to add them again..
will now open

[Nebbz]

wow looks like its a malignant lump of some kind. that poor snake

thankyou for the pictures i found that highly interesting!