Quote Originally Posted by Sonya610 View Post
If she has been on a balanced diet why is the diagnosis lack of B vitamins? Can the vets test and definitively say it must be due to lack of b vitamins and not brought on by an infection of some sort?
The truth is, there are many possible causes and conditions that can lead to the same symptoms, resembling B1 deficiency. A vet may be able to rule out B1 deficiency, and yet never find out what the alternative cause was. But at this point, it doesn't really matter. By the time these symptoms show up, there isn't much point in all the expense and vet visits because by the time you see symptoms this severe, the snake is usually already too far gone to recover.

And zombiekitty, I've had symptoms like that in concinnus too once before. This was a snake that had been fed a lot of salmon. Most salmon you can get at the store isn't even safe for human beings, let alone as a regular food for snakes. Mercury and PCB's are present in most salmon, at levels high enough to be considered unsafe for a human to eat more than a few ounces a month. Just think what that would do to a snake that is eating a lot of it. Only wild alaskan pink salmon has lowest levels of contaminants as far as salmon goes. Still, tilapia is a better choice if you're going to use grocery store fish. It has the lowest levels of contaminants of any fish I can find at the market. Most of the salmon is really bad. Loaded with PCB's and mercury. I see way too many snake keepers completely ignoring this fact. I avoid salmon altogether and feed my snakes mostly rodents but when I feed them fish, I use silversides or tilapia. Trout (farmed only) occasionally, because it has the same problem as salmon but not as bad.

Sorry about your snake dying Peter, but it's pointless to take the blame when it's quite possible it wasn't your fault at all.