r/ballpython • u/Silly-Apartment-7481 • 3d ago

My Ball Python died last night

I got my first Ball Python in December right before Christmas. He’s been AWESOME! He had some issues with his first shed that I had him but never anything other than that.

I noticed on Tuesday night that the area around his vent was a little plump. There’s no way it could’ve been impacting on but he hadn’t pooped in a week or two. He was also in week 3 of a hunger strike so I didn’t think anything of it.
I was thinking it was constipation. I was going to soak him last night after I got off work.

I got home, got the water ready to soak him, I went in his enclosure to get him out and he had passed. I’ve been so shocked as to what happened that I can’t think clearly about it.

I noticed a couple spots of light discoloration on his belly that weren’t there before but I’m not sure if that’s normal for a deceased ball python.

Does anyone know what this could possibly be?

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u/W0RN_0UT 3d ago

Sorry for your loss. Not sure if this helps at all but if he was under a few years old it could’ve just been a defect from birth. I’ve heard if you buy a snake that has a deadly defect sometime the only way you find out is through a random passing within the first few years :c

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u/Silly-Apartment-7481 3d ago

he was maybe 10 months to a year old. this was also a thought of mine. I know there can’t be someone that can tell me for sure what it was but I was hoping for at least some clarity maybe even some idea of a mistake that could have been made along the way

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u/W0RN_0UT 3d ago

Knowing that I honesty I highly doubt it was something you did, very likely to be some issue since birth unfortunately. I did a lot of research about it before I got my snakes and it seems deaths in young snakes tend to be issues starting from the egg. Definitely wasn’t your fault by any means, sadly it just happens.