• Posted 12/19/2024.
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    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
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    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Risks of owning pythons and boas?

B

Bright Scale

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I was just thinking about the second snake that I may get myself in a year or two, sometime after college is done with anyway. I particularly want a rubber boa or an Egyptian sand boa, but then I remembered that whole IBD business.

For the foreseeable future, I and all my animals (one male ball, one female/two unsexed tarantulas) live in one large room of a four-person apartment. So quarantining would be hard, since the disease is airborne. Just how prevalent is this disease? I know boas are likely to be asymptomatic carriers if they have it, which makes things even harder. I'd be getting the second snake from one of the "good guy certified" well-reviewed breeders, but even then I guess there's a risk, right?

Are there any particular other airborne health hazards the two types of snakes might give each other? If the risk to my first baby, Rorschach, is unavoidable, I just won't do it. He's the most important thing. :)
 
You may just want to wait until you have room to porperly quarentine. One RI that is basic and controlable for the ball python may kill a boa. IBD is serious, but from a "good guy" you should not have any problems. IBD is a disease too know, do some research and learn, things will be okay.
 
I have not ever heard of IBD in either sand or rubber boas. And even it's occurrence in Columbian or Central American boas is rare. Ask the thousands of people that visit this site how many of them have boas and how many have had a proven, correctly diagnosed case of IBD. It is not a common ailment and it is not something you should worry about without a reason.
 
evansnakes said:
I have not ever heard of IBD in either sand or rubber boas...It is not a common ailment and it is not something you should worry about without a reason.
Click to expand...

Ah. The way I was hearing people talk about it elsewhere, it sounded much more common and like way more boas were prone to carrying it. That's a big relief!

What about what junkyard said in the second reply, about RIs in one snake maybe killing the other? Rorschach's never had an RI in his life, and hopefully it'll stay that way, but you never know. :>poke2<:
 
If you have a sick snake you simply wash your hands after you go in it's cage before you touch another snake or cage and you stay consciencious about not transfering anything from cage to cage. Snakes don't often just die. Usually a respiratory infection in a snake will give you visable and audible symptoms and take time to progress. In fact it typically incubates in the animal for weeks before you even realize they have it at all, much like in humans or any other animals. AND, repsiratory infections are VERY treatable. Increased temps and good humidity will level things out and antibiotics will solve the problem. Everyone who keeps and breeds any number of snakes will tell you that it happens. Especially when you cool snakes for cycling. So you take it in stride and solve the problem. People who freak out over mites, repsiratory infections, etc., are unrealistic and very much a novice. Those who do this every day realize that they are just things that are going to happen and you do everything you can to avoid it and then fix it when it does happen.
 
you definitely dont want anything from a sick snake coming into contact with anything else in your collection. with proper temps and husbandry, an RI isnt generally something to worry about either. use proper sanitation between cages to prevent any transfer of bacteria, etc. also if youre going to get a sand or rubber boa, never use crushed walnut for substrate. it causes health problems. scott [email protected]
 
My vet did some work on a biopsy test for IBD and said that 50% of the boas they tested had it. Now I don't know how random his sample was (where these symptomatic boas or a bunch from pet stores). I'm also not sure if it's been demonstrated to spread airborne, he blamed lax mite control for the worldwide spread of IBD in boas. I suppose it also certainly doesn't help that they can live with it long enough to spread it to breeding partners and even offspring. He also indicated they don't know where it originated from in the wild but it is not known in wild boa populations (i.e. if you could somehow get imports before they go through mite infested facilities you might actually be better off than cb as far as IBD goes).
 
Randy, that is a very misleading statement and I will tell you why. 1) To do a liver biopsy on a snake it must be just recently deceased or sent to the lab live where they will euthenize it. 2) In all the time I have been around this business I know of only one breeder who sent off a bunch of his animals to be killed and tested to confirm or dispell that he had an issue in his collection. 3) the cost of the procedure and testing along with the added cost of the shipping involved makes it a rather expensive procedure and the only places in the country that have proven able to do the work needed correctly has been a couple large labs that I beleive are University labs if I recall correctly in California and/or Florida. Not just any vet can do the procedure and not just any vet is capable of correctly diagnosing the results. SO what you have in the end is only animals that are very very likely to have the infection are biopsied, so it then leads that the percentages of the positive results from the procedure will be skewed greatly in percentage toward a positive outcome as snakes either suspected or known to not have the infection will never be tested.
 
thats why i was wondering if it was a published study. ive only heard of the lab in florida that does the testing. those results seem very high and i would hope the sampling of specimens would be accurately documented to come to those kind of conclusions. ive been good. how are things with you evan? scott [email protected]
 
evensnakes,

The sample was testing to validate a live biopsy test he was working on but you are right, it might not have been a random sample so that's why I mentioned that possibility. I did get the idea that he thought IBD was extremely common in "Columbian" boa collections. A lot of his work is published including several books so if I see him again I'll ask if the IBD results are published somewhere. I guess us ball python people are lucky that balls die within a few months with IBD.
 
Roger Klingenberg. Let us know what you find. I seem to remember a picture of the exposed organ being tested in the live biopsy method in some sort of glossy pamphlet at his office (this was a few years ago). Maybe it was only a paper for other vets but I guess that's a sort of publishing so maybe you can find it.
 
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