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Misc topics

Organ calcification death
Aberrant specimens

Organ calcification causes death

One of my male White-Lipped Pythons (»Fred«) died on 27th of March 2001 apparently because of an Pseudomonas / Klebsiella- infection. The thing is, that the snake was treated medically for two weeks with antibiotics (Gentamicin , 8mg/kg body mass). The respiration infection locked much better then, and I was sure the snake would be cured. After all, mucus still came out of his mouth, labial pits and the nostrils, and he died slightly after two weeks of treatment.
Because I wasn’t really sure about what killed him, I took the dead snake body to my vet for dissection. After opening the body, my vet recognized that some organs (heart and liver) were calcified and mentioned that this would be the true reason for the death. Although the antibiotics seemed to have work, the calcified organs seemed to have failed.

I bought 2,1 White-Lipped Pythons on 26th of February 2001 and he was one of them. To me, it was not unusual that after moving to a new home, the snake would start showing signs of an respiration infection for a couple of days. I had seen this before in other White-Lipped Pythons after they had been stressed by moving, so I didn’t treat him medically right away. But actually, the signs of infection didn’t stop after a couple of days, so I decided to treat him medically.
I consulted my vet and he gave me antibiotics (Gentamicin) in the evening of the 8th February. A few days later, on 11th of February, “Fred” looked much better, was active, and made a healthier impression to me. The maintenance conditions in the terrarium were ok (28 to 34°C at daytime, humidity at 70%; 22-24°C at night time and a humidity level of 70 to 80%). The python was not fed for the time I had him, and for sure, I have never given any of my snakes vitamins in any form, except of those prey had consumed with normal rodent food! On the 16th of March, I recognized Fred showing signs of an respiration infection again, and so I contacted my vet again and had a swab done:

Bacteria found:

1. Pseudomonas aeruginosa

2. Klebsiella oxytoca

Antibiotics	1	2
Penicilin G	R	R
Ampicillin	R	R
Tetracycline	S	R
Gentamicin	S	S
Neomycin	S	S
Polymyxin	S	S
Enroflorxazin (Baytril)	R	R
And others....

The bacteria found were sensible (S) to Gentamicin, so that I was sure to cure Fred! I kept on giving him Gentamicin intramuscularly (8mg/kg body mass) in the following days but he didn't stop sliming, although he was still active. On the 27th of March, I saw him laying there uncoiled and with a »smooth« behaviour witch is actually unusual for White-Lipped Pythons, when grabbing at them or doing something in the terrarium. To stabilize the metabolism, I increased temperature at night. The next morning, I found him dead and took the body to my vet to let him examine the the snake.

Dr. Opiela, my vet, found the liver and heart totally calcified. These pictures show what we found :

Figure 22: Calcified liver of the White-Lipped Python. Note the white dots in the tissue (red arrows). These are the results of calcification.

Figure 23: Closeup of the calcified tissue of the liver.

A calcification occurs after the snake had been given an overdose of vitamin D3. My vet told me that this could happen with only a single overdose but, it would take time to look like this!

The question we’ve asked ourselves was about the pharmakinetic availability of the antibiotics in the damaged organs? My vet took samples and tested if there were any bacteria present in the organs, but there were not! The sample was negative, so that the conclusion can be drawn that the python died because of weakness caused by the damaged heart and liver instead of the respiration infection.