If you’re not aware of Nidovirus please do yourself a favor and learn about it. There really isn’t a whole lot of information on it other than it’s a virus that there is no antibiotics for, it spreads fast and can unfortunately kill your snake or collection. Usually, the virus starts with a respiratory infection but there are other symptoms as well. Veterinarians don’t have much information because they’re learning as they see it. So far it seems to be affecting Ball and Carpet Pythons.
I recently purchased eight ball pythons, received them all the same day from different breeders and put them in quarantine. The all looked healthy and had good weight but one of them had a respiratory infection which I started to treat immediately. I decided to take it to my vet because I didn’t like the way it was responding to the treatment. My vet advised me to get the snake tested for the Nidovirus and unfortunately a week later the test came back positive. I didn’t want to take any chances infecting the other snakes in quarantine so had the snake euthanized. The other quarantined snakes were all tested today to the tune of $900 and I’m hoping they were not infected.
Sorry for the long rant especially this being my first post, but this is a serious problem. Especially for those of us that love, keep, and breed these impressive animals. I’ve been breeding reptiles for over 20 years and at times when buying new stock respiratory infections, mites and other issues are present and most of us handle the issue. But I have never had to put down a snake for a sickness that kills and spreads that there is no cure for.
Please let me know if any of you have experienced the same (hopefully not) and how you plan to sell and buy with this risk in place.
I just recently acquired three ball pythons, a normal, a Spider het pied, and a OD pastel het pied; the first two are females, both very overweight and the last an underweight male. Both the het pieds had respiratory infections and my vet thought since the antibiotics weren’t really helping that it could be nidovirus, luckily after three long weeks I find out the test came back negative, but the male unfortunately has passed away bc he was so thin; I was syringe feeding him and administering a different kind of antibiotic from the vet. That was just really scary for me bc I have 12 ball pythons and I love my animals and have poured so much time and money into them.
I knew that this mainly affected boas but I didn’t know much about the effects with ball pythons. This is very useful information that everybody should read.
I am sorry for your loss, thank you for sharing. I had not heard of this in ball pythons, even though it’s a sad story is useful to know about.
I know you said it’s early days with knowledge about Nidovirus but are there certain symptoms / signs to look out for (other then just your snake seeming unwell) or where it is likely to come from or prevention techniques?
I’m inquiring info on Nidovirus from breeders I know both domestic and overseas but not much has come back. There are a few breeders discussing issues they’ve had on social media outlets. All I can say from my experience and the conversations I’ve had with our vet (which has treated other cases) most indications seem to start with respiratory problems. The problem with that is most respiratory infections are being treated with several injection treatments usually lasting about 27 days. Unfortunately, if your snake has the virus the rest of your collection is probably being infected. The only thing we can do right now is to learn as latest info comes in, question people you’re buying from if animal has been tested and ask for proof (vet bill or lab results), quarantine everything new or that seems ill and disinfect everything with a good disinfectant like F10 or diluted bleach.
There is some great info on Nido that’s easily digested in podcast format. I would suggest everyone listen Snakes And Stogies Episode 54. You might recognize one of the guests from this forum.
I will say that there is a lot of info out there, it is just that most of it is bad or uninformed.
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There are no viruses that are treated for with antibiotics. Antibiotics are used to treat bacteria and protists
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We actually have next to no real data on infectious spread, everything out there is supposition/speculation
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It infects and manifests clinical symptoms in many more species than this. There are representative cases across pretty much every python species as well as instances in colubrids, vipers, and boas. There are also turtle and lizard variants
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This is one of the issues I noted above regarding misinformation. An animal that tests positive is not necessarily an animal destined to die, and yet euthanasia seems to be the automatic ‘go to’ anytime someone gets a positive animal.
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I think you are mixing up pathogens here. Serpentovirus has primarily been an issue for (but not exclusive to) pythons. The disease most know for infecting boas is IBD
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As Ball notes vvv
THP/S&S have done a few podcasts on this topic. MPR had a full panel discussion on it at one of the SE CarpetFests and that is also available online
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I highly recommend FishHead and the work that Pia has done
RAV is another option that I have heard recommended
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The bottom, and probably most important, line when it comes to serpentovirus is that the research on it is still very much in its infancy and that research has been vastly outpaced by the ease of testing. Add to the fact that this hobby, all to frequently dangerously overconfident of its understanding of science, has little to no grounding in the fields of virology, infections diseases, or epidemiology. Intelligent caution should be the route taken here. I strongly advocate testing and quarantine and increased hygiene and tight(er) biosecurity measures. I do not advocate scorched earth policies
I was going to say why don’t you just post a list of all the podcasts on it since you’re on all of them
I would guess most of the readers here weren’t involved in the hobby back when Port City Pet was Port City Pythons. Joe is probably the most visible example in the hobby of someone who pretty much lost his entire collection to Nido. @t_h_wyman would know better but if I recall correctly it was a morelia variant that he was fighting.
I don’t think the importance of biosecurity can be stressed enough when buying new animals.
I mean… Thomas was already nice enough to have them all compiled so…
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Joe is one of them. Pia and Cody would be another. Mike Curtin got hit hard too.
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This is still one of the unknows, but based on the info out there and my interpretation of it as someone in the field, I suspect that there are two major variants of serpentovirus that are problematic in the hobby. One seems to balls harder and the other hits Morelia harder
I thought IBD was caused by nidovirus, or is it caused by arenavirus. I remember there being concerns about nido for boas.
What would you normally treat viruses with? Some kind of antiviral medication? I’m assuming people have already tried looking for treatment. Would it be worth trying to treat an infected animal for experimentation purposes? Since the animal would likely be euthanized anyways I think it would be ethical.
I had no idea. You don’t learn until you have a big collection, bio security is tough. Quarantine for most of us peons is going knock out mites, and show us any blatant issues. Anything big is probably going to slide right by. And once it’s in the room, good luck trying to slow or stop anything aggressive. Even if we know every possible vector, it would still be a huge task to control them all.
I worked with production birds before reptiles. The reptile hobby is lucky there aren’t more issues. Almost anything galliformes get is fast and mean.
IBD is a pseudo-arena. Or maybe proto-arena. Regardless, totally different branch of viruses than serpentovirus
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Vaccines or anti-virals. The prior are significantly more effective than the latter
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Not to any scientific level, though I know some people that have experimented on their own animals (not something I recommend)
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If set up as a valid scientific study, I see no issue in doing something like this. The problem is that there are no labs really doing research into this on that level. Not to mention I am not sure an IACUC would have the first clue how to set the guide-lines on it
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Pia and Cody’s outbreak was fairly well known within the chondro circles. And they have been very open sharing the information
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More and more I am leaning toward six month or longer Q time for anything I pick up. And I am trying to figure out a way that I can have a room for import animals I am working with. They will stay there permanently but any offspring I manage to generate will be able to transfer to the more centralized collection
Are those because the virus hasn’t fully established in the body? I thought that if the virus is already prevalent in large numbers, like nidovirus, the vaccines don’t help. Or do they tell the body to start making antibodies and that the virus is harmful before the body would normally figure that out itself.
Different for each situation. With rabies, it is about getting the body to kick in to high gear before the virus can establish. With chickenpox, you get the vaccine to help prevent the virus from reactivating later in life as shingles
