Snake death

[Toke Eskildsen]

A friend is a teacher in Florida and she had a small saltmarsh water snake (Nerodia)
and it just up and died. She said it had been eating fine, hasn't been handled too much and it lived in a tank with a filter and clean water with plenty of "minnows". I gave it a look-over and there was no obvious sign of trauma or pathology, it wasn't too thin or anything - though it did apparently grab a piece of vegetation just before it died.
Anyone have any ideas on why it expired? I know this is totally vague but it seemed completely healthy and I thought someone might have some experience with this.

[montrose420]

Not 100% true, although studies aim to prove both sides of the issue (that a goldfish diet kills garters, and that it doesn't).
product."

If you read this carefully, you'll see that the problem was feeding frozen fish, in which the thiaminase concentrates (so I'm told). Heating is supposed to destroy it like this guy says.

There are other garter breeders who feed primarily minnows and goldfish and have no problems through Nth-generations of offspring. My garter subsisted on "primarily minnows and goldfish" for almost 8 years with none of the symptoms mentioned. Many others can corroborate.

[Miken]

i know that if garters are fed on a diet primarily of feeder minnows and feeder goldfish, they develop thiamene deficiency and die. i dont know if that happens with other snakes that eat what garters eat or not but perhaps it could be a possibilty of why the snake died.

i got these paragraphs from Alan Francis' gartersnake site
http://www.gartersnake.co.uk/

"Keepers should be aware that there is evidence that some garter snakes are predisposed to thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency. This is thought to occur if they are fed an exclusive diet of oily fish, which are rich in an enzyme called thiaminase. This enzyme will destroy thiamine, so even if vitamin supplement is added to the diet or drinking water, it will still be destroyed. The manifestations of this deficiency are of loss of co-ordination, head waving, balance disturbance, anorexia, weakness, and finally convulsions and death. I have known animals showing the early stages of symptoms to make a full recovery with a change of diet.

There are herpetologists who do not believe in the phenomenon of dietary-induced thiamine-deficiency in garter snakes. I do believe in it, and have had snakes die of these exact symptoms in my early days of snake-keeping in the 1970s, when the easiest (and cheapest!) diet was whitebait, a goldfish-sized fish sold for the human market. These are eaten whole (by humans and garter snakes!). They are sold frozen in packet of 1 lb (450g). The thiaminase can be destroyed by heating the fish in hot water at
180 deg F (80 deg C) for 5 mins, but this results in a very messy product."

[Scereyaha]

Actually, that very article also mentions that it is only oily fish that cause this and that he feeds his snakes on mostly fish with no issue. The possibility for death would depend on the kind of fish. Also some snakes hunt primarily in water and would naturally have a diet high in fish. Water snakes can be identified by the number of lungs they have (2 instead of one) Where I live the garters are only found near water and eat alot of fish allong with frogs insects and mice.

[reptileguy3]

Note: This is a very old thread.

[mayadog]

My vet charges $10 for a necropsy on a deceased animal less than 5 lbs. With a necropsy you can be sure exactly what you did wrong.