I can't help wondering why?

[Maureen Collinson]

So many are happy to dismiss things like the fact that there is an announcement of a dying/dead reptile on here almost every day.

Many wish to believe that viruses are still rarely to blame, and are happier blaming it on, "one of those things". Its "genetic", and "it's in their genes", to quote some of you, and other than lots of members saying how sorry they are, and some suggesting pm's, each announcement goes by the board, just to be repeated again and again, with each time bringing the sad news of yet another death. Is this an accepted part of reptile keeping today????????? and if so please tell me why????????????????

Surely if so many breeders are producing stocks doomed to die because of bad genetics, you should be speaking up and asking very loud questions, in order to try to stop this situation from going on, and causing such death and destruction.

Surely you owe this to the reptile/s that have lost their lives,and to the reptiles of the future, not to allow this to continue unquestioned.

I really am puzzled by today's herpers. Able to accept so readily that which should be questioned and heavily researched in order to try to at least cut down the number of losses.

Mo. "sad"

[matty73]

I agree completely and i respect what your saying, i think it is about time someone brought this up, i hear about alot of "first time keepers" loosing there reptiles to genetic stuff and all of that, i agree with what your saying you do speak sense, so anyway why?

[Donz]

I totally agree, if any of my reps were to die I would want to know why for peace mind firstly especially as I have others. But also incase it was genetic or a birth defect, how else do we learn and prevent?

Unless you have a very old animal and death is obviously down to the fact they have come to the end of their life, I think it should be done out of necessity!!

I have insurance on all my animals which also pays out on death, so that way I can afford to pay for a PM!

[toyah]

Originally Posted by Maureen Collinson

Many wish to believe that viruses are still rarely to blame, and are happier blaming it on, "one of those things". Its "genetic", and "it's in their genes", to quote some of you, and other than lots of members saying how sorry they are, and some suggesting pm's, each announcement goes by the board, just to be repeated again and again, with each time bringing the sad news of yet another death. Is this an accepted part of reptile keeping today????????? and if so please tell me why????????????????

There was a thread recently, how many reptiles are owned by RFUK. 249 people answered, and between them they owned 3691 reptiles, an average of 14.82 each. Currently RFUK has 26,756 members - using that average, between us we look after around 396,612 animals. So with that many animals to be honest I would be really surprised if we didn't see posts about animals dying of whatever reason.

I do wish people would have PMs done in more cases - but yes, death must be an accepted part of reptile keeping, since they are not immortal animals. I'm not really sure how we could *not* accept it - how can I not accept someone else's animals dying for whatever reason? I can disagree with their husbandry or the treatment of the animal, but my views are not going to make a difference to their animal. And if they don't have a PM done, then uneducated guesses about "viruses" or "bad genes" (whatever that means) are pretty much irrelevant ...

[bladeblaster]

Originally Posted by toyah

There was a thread recently, how many reptiles are owned by RFUK. 249 people answered, and between them they owned 3691 reptiles, an average of 14.82 each. Currently RFUK has 26,756 members - using that average, between us we look after around 396,612 animals. So with that many animals to be honest I would be really surprised if we didn't see posts about animals dying of whatever reason.

I do wish people would have PMs done in more cases - but yes, death must be an accepted part of reptile keeping, since they are not immortal animals. I'm not really sure how we could *not* accept it - how can I not accept someone else's animals dying for whatever reason? I can disagree with their husbandry or the treatment of the animal, but my views are not going to make a difference to their animal. And if they don't have a PM done, then uneducated guesses about "viruses" or "bad genes" (whatever that means) are pretty much irrelevant ...

All very good points.

Personally if it was my animal I would get a PM done if the cause wasn't obvious.

[midori]

To be honest, how many people don't bother to seek proper veterinary care when the animal is alive? So why would they 'bother' when it is dead? I am sure people often also base it on the finacial value of the animal.

Personally, if any animal of mine died unexpctedly and wth an apparently unknown cause, be it cat, dog or snake, I would want a PM done so I could find out why if possible.

[madaboutreptiles]

Originally Posted by toyah

There was a thread recently, how many reptiles are owned by RFUK. 249 people answered, and between them they owned 3691 reptiles, an average of 14.82 each. Currently RFUK has 26,756 members - using that average, between us we look after around 396,612 animals. So with that many animals to be honest I would be really surprised if we didn't see posts about animals dying of whatever reason.

I do wish people would have PMs done in more cases - but yes, death must be an accepted part of reptile keeping, since they are not immortal animals. I'm not really sure how we could *not* accept it - how can I not accept someone else's animals dying for whatever reason? I can disagree with their husbandry or the treatment of the animal, but my views are not going to make a difference to their animal. And if they don't have a PM done, then uneducated guesses about "viruses" or "bad genes" (whatever that means) are pretty much irrelevant ...

I agree........it could also be the fact that more and more reptiles are being kept in the U.K so you are going to see far more deaths.....its the law of averages i guess

Another thing to bear in mind also......if a snake is born with a illness or internal deformity in the wild the chances are it will never feed. When we have difficult feeders we fuss over them...assist feed....even force feed.
I believe hatchling snakes do not feed because they have something wrong internally and in the wild would just die within weeks.

So maybe we should not try so hard with difficult feeders?

[essexchondro]

So many are happy to dismiss things like the fact that there is an announcement of a dying/dead reptile on here almost every day.

Many wish to believe that viruses are still rarely to blame, and are happier blaming it on, "one of those things". Its "genetic", and "it's in their genes", to quote some of you, and other than lots of members saying how sorry they are, and some suggesting pm's, each announcement goes by the board, just to be repeated again and again, with each time bringing the sad news of yet another death. Is this an accepted part of reptile keeping today????????? and if so please tell me why????????????????

Surely if so many breeders are producing stocks doomed to die because of bad genetics, you should be speaking up and asking very loud questions, in order to try to stop this situation from going on, and causing such death and destruction.

Surely you owe this to the reptile/s that have lost their lives,and to the reptiles of the future, not to allow this to continue unquestioned.

I really am puzzled by today's herpers. Able to accept so readily that which should be questioned and heavily researched in order to try to at least cut down the number of losses.

Mo. "sad"

Mo, I'm really not that convinced this is anything particularly new to the hobby or anything to do with the attitudes or keeping ability of "today's herepers".

There are two very important factors that distinguish the hobby of 2009 with, say, the hobby as it was in 1989. The first is the size of the hobby and the second is the internet/world wide web.

If the hobby in 2009 is much bigger than it was in 1989 then we should expect to see a lot more animals becoming ill and/or dieing, and now that we have internet forums etc we can communicate with each other much more effectively and talk about things that would have gone unknown/unspoken (or at least much less talked about on a community basis) twenty years ago.

I'm just guessing here, but I bet that if we looked at the number of reptiles that die every year as a percentage of the total number of animals being kept, that percentage wouldn't be wildly different to what it was 10, 15, 20 years ago etc etc. In fact, given that 20 years ago the number of WC's in the hobby, as a percentage of total number of animals in the hobby, would have been much higher than it is today, I think the mortality rate may have actually be higher back then than it is today.

We've made massive advancements in husbandry on a great many species over the last two decades. In my opinion those advancements, and the lives saved because of them, would far out-weigh any deaths caused by breeders producing stock with bad genetics.

(Not quite sure what you mean by the comment "Surely if so many breeders are producing stocks doomed to die because of bad genetics..". Can you explain what animals you're talking about).

Stuart

[Crownan]

Its the same where something more serious crops up, like a number of CF royals allegedly dying, in more than one persons hands, or cases of supposed IBD cropping up, people saying oh yes, will get PM done, oh yes, HAVE got PMs done, but NONE of the information is ever followed up or shared with the community, and it all gets swept under the carpet and no one seems to question it further!

Im sure everyone remembers the big CF royal 'scandal' last year................where is even ONE set of PM results or test results or even pictures or ANTYHING? There isnt, it was swept under the carpet and everyone chooses to just let it slide.

If any of my reptiles dies, for seemingly no reason, I would not hesitate in getting PMs done, for the sake of my collection and anyone elses for that matter.

I dont understand how people can just let things go unexplained.

[Athravan]

I don't know about genetic weaknesses - even going 10 years back when importing was still pretty rare privately from a certain big breeder in the USA there were rumours about genetic faults and large hearts in corn snakes - animals of certain morphs that were more likely to just "drop dead" than others, but I certainly never saw any scientific proof of this, nor experienced any problems first hand.

I generally produce between 300 - 500 corn snake hatchlings a year, not big on a worldwide scale by any measure, but aside from a very small percentage of stubborn non feeders that don't make it - I don't think I have ever had a young snake just "drop dead" for no reason, nor any reports from my customers that they've had random unknown deaths.

I don't know about other people but sometimes lately I get tired of recommending a post mortem time and time again. People don't generally post mortem their pets. If your budgie drops dead - do you PM it? If your hamster drops dead - do you PM it? Of course people don't. Do they question their own care? Nope.. they usually put it down to age, or random chance or just accept that that's how it is. I have to be honest I had 6 hamsters as a child and all of course eventually died and it was never questioned "why". So how do pet keepers know that it's important to do a PM (costing £40-100 depending on where you go and tests) on an animal that's already dead? People don't realise that a corn snake can realistically be expected to live 15+ years and it dying beforehand IS an oddity that should be explored.

Most people won't see any justification for that cost and when you think about it can you blame them? If these are people with one or two snakes as pets for themselves or their kids, even most vets won't say you need to get a PM done on every family pet that dies.

As for how many posts there are about them dying here, well I just don't know, and although I will continue to recommend that people post mortem their snakes - it is usually too late - usually it is posted more than 24 hours after the death, the body has not been preserved, or has been disposed of, or the person has no experienced reptile vet who can make a quick appointment for a PM, vets sometimes saying come in next week - well that's no good with a dead animal.

Or a post made here last week where the animal was taken to a vet and a deadly, contagious disease diagnosed without ANY tests being done at all just because "it looked like it could be". What good is a PM or a vet if that vet is not experienced and willing to actually do a full exploratory diagnosis?

So many factors into why deaths go unchallenged, none of them necessary "right", but just reasons as to why it is as it is. I must have recommended a PM hundreds of times in my lifetime and to be honest no one ever came back to me and said I got the PM done this is what it showed.

Perhaps also, faith in the PM is failing. I do have a good reptile vet who fortunately I have not had to call on too many times because of deaths - but twice in the last 10 years I have had an adult corn snake (of unknown age so I could not say if they were old or not) die and had a PM done immediately for the answer to come back "inconclusive", I think this is not uncommon. The vet can find no viable reason as to why the animal died - no parasites, no diseases, no tumours, no enlarged organs, nothing.... the vet can only assume they passed away peacefully for an unknown natural reason and the thought of spending £40-100 on a dead snake.. for no answer, puts a lot of people off, but it's just the risk you have to take to be reassured that whilst you don't know what killed it, you do know it was nothing contagious and nothing you could have spotted and taken action against. I do this because I have a collection to worry about - but if someone only had one snake, how can you force the justification on them?

Anyway, no real answers to the question here, just my usual ramblings that are too long