There are many, many snakes that can and will pass through your hands as a reptile owner. There are very, very few with whom you will form a strong bond.

For me, Topaz, the first Brazilian Rainbow I ever brought home, and one of the reasons I got into this as a business, was one of those snakes. She was gorgeous…



...but, far more important than that, she had everything you could ever want in a pet snake.

She was friendly to a fault, the perfect ambassador for a species often faulted for being “nippy.” One of my friends uses crutches to get around, and whenever she came over to visit, would always want to hold Topaz -- and the worst Topaz ever did was handcuff my friend to her crutch with a roll of curious, friendly snake.

She was poseable, almost like she was partly made of Play-Doh. Ever since she saw a baby, she always settled for pictures when asked. You could even rearrange her slightly and she would hold that pose for you without complaint.

To the best of my memory, she never bit anyone.

So I was excited -- thrilled, in fact -- to breed her for the first time this year, so that I could share those glittering qualities with the world.

Unfortunately, Topaz began having health problems -- small, at first -- this past quarter.

In early July, she developed a small patch of off-color dry scales on her forehead. I put her in quarantine immediately, just for safety’s sake -- meaning, handle last and detox afterward -- and had a vet look at her soon after (as well as give her a general physical due to her being gravid). He said it was probably a skin issue, and to treat the area with betadine and Animax (effective against both bacterial and fungal outbreaks), and it should heal fine; she otherwise looked great.

Time passed, and other than that one issue, Topaz acted fine for a gravid boa.

On August 29, however, she lost her litter. She had great trouble with the delivery, struggling to pass some of the slugs especially. She sniffed through the pile of dead babies and slugs at the end, and I’d never seen her look so tired and sad. Later that night, she looked like she might have a retained slug, and I worried about that for days -- the lump thankfully went away almost right away, but I ran all the tests and exercises people advised anyway.

On September 4, I fed Topaz her first post-delivery meal -- a small rat, one size down from her usual meal to be careful -- which she took after a slight hesitation. All seemed stable.

On September 14, I had the vet look at her again -- costly for just her head and a slug check, but worth it for my favorite snake. The head had no changes, and he said to stop treatment and wait for a shed to heal it. He could find no retained slugs…which made me feel better. At least I could feed her more now.

That night, however, she refused her traditional meal of frozen/thawed. She had previously done this only five times in her life -- three of them in deep pregnancy.

The next night, when holding her to check up on her, she was attentive to me as always, raising her head right up to mine and watching my every move. However, upon putting her back in her viv, she had trouble staying upright.

I made a lot of calls/e-mails that night.

The first vet offered a third housecall, but seeing as he’d held her and missed any problems just 24 hours ago, I now wanted a second opinion. (Please note I’m not saying anything negative about this vet, I just wasn’t taking chances.)

So, that Saturday (September 17), I rose at dawn to rush Topaz over an hour away to the best reptile vet in the Los Angeles region. The vet was very gracious to see her as a walk-in. He looked her over, but could not find anything specifically wrong: weight was good, mouth looked clean, etc. He said we could treat with Baytril…but it would only be a guess. Instead, he suggested a blood test and skin biopsy, and so I broke out my wallet again. When I got her back from the poking and prodding, she was energetic, actively moving around her box trying to escape. As I later updated my notes for the evening, I realized that today was her fourth birthday…and all I’d given her was a painful vet trip.

On Monday, September 19, I got the bloodwork results…but although a few readings were slightly off, nothing caused the vet alarm. He said we should wait for the biopsy results.

On Tuesday, September 20, she refused a second meal of frozen/thawed.

On Wednesday, September 21, I upped the offer to live mice. The store had only tiny ones though, really hoppers…but you take what you can get. To my immense relief, soon after dropping the first one in, my big girl came to life!!! She hunted it down -- not an easy coordination task the way hoppers jump -- killed it, and ate it. I put two more in. She killed both, but only ate one. I tried gently lifting the remaining body to her face, but she again refused. I tried one more live. She killed this one, too, but again did not eat. Not many calories, I guess, but at least she moved and hunted fine. Again, I felt a bit better.

On Saturday, September 24, the biopsy results came in. They had found nothing communicable. In the vet’s words: “Got good news/bad news for you with the histopathology that came in today. The good news that there was no pathological changes noted in the epidermis or dermis, no evidence of inflammation, neoplasia or infectious agents. The bad news is no causes for the skin changes were found. This means you don't have to be worried about your other snakes.”

On the evening of Sunday, September 25, I wrote the second vet again, asking what else I could do for my girl. I did not get a response. (Again, I assign no blame: vets are busy, and I assume the message got lost in the crush of daily mail.)

Over the next week, there was no other change in Topaz’s condition, for better or for worse. I prepped to feed her some live mice again, this time finding three fat and juicy rodents for the next evening.

On Friday, September 30, during my regular monthly weigh-ins, I tackled Topaz last, right before I was to feed her. When I opened her viv, however, I noticed her -- head at the door of her hide -- suddenly open her mouth, and just leave it there. There was no foam or saliva…but this was not a normal yawn. A minute passed, then three, and finally I reached in to gently touch her head. She reacted by closing her mouth and just looking at me.

On Saturday, October 1, I took her to the vet, fully expecting the worst -- probably, having to put her down. This was a third vet, as the other two were closed that weekend. Unfortunately, he was too busy to see her -- 10:30AM the next morning was the best they could do. I took my girl home and gently placed her back in her viv. She barely budged in her hide the entire trip.

By the next morning, she was already gone.

***

Soon after, I gently packed her up, and took her on one last car ride, right back to the vet for a necropsy. I spoke with the vet at length, then left her with a very sympathetic office staff, who said the vet would call around 4PM.

In the meantime, I settled down to deal with the aftermath. Thankfully, communicable or not, she had been on strict quarantine for months, so I only had to deal with her immediate viv. Over the course of two hours, I followed a ruthless, take-no-chances scorched earth routine: I emptied her viv of all disposables, bagged them, and removed them from the apartment, along with the newspaper I laid down on the floor to catch any stray moss. The odd scrap of shed made me stop several times thinking of her. I set the furniture to soak in bleach solution. The classic rock channel, left on to try and distract me, did not help: Blue Oyster Cult weighed in with “The Reaper.” The viv itself was scrubbed with an even stronger bleach solution, and I allowed the chemical film to sit. Kansas upped the audio with “Dust in the Wind.” I then went back and cleaned again with mint disinfectant, which was also allowed to sit. The music now was less invasive; either that, or I’d stopped registering. Finally, I cleaned the viv doors a third time, now using Chlorhexidine to remove any residue of the stronger chemicals.

I then cleaned my hands with arms and bleach and took a long shower.

At 4:10PM, the vet called with the necropsy results.

Topaz had died from pneumonia -- hidden away in her lower respiratory tract, deep enough that two other vets had not suspected a thing. The current vet, in fact, was amazed that she had not died a week ago. My poor, brave girl, hanging on to the bitter end, waiting for me to fix things for her like I always had.

The vet continued, rattling off technical details. She had a bit of extra liquid around her heart, but that could be a result of the RI. She did indeed have a retained slug (also missed by two vets), but it was not giving her any problems. The odd scales were surface issues only -- he had checked under them, and all was normal. Everything else was fine.

But details like those are black and white, not the vibrant oranges and reds that I remember her by.

Looking through her care notes now, I find myself second-guessing. I see once where I had once noticed a gentle wheeze in July 2010. I’d checked myself her and found nothing; and even asked an herp sitter, watching the place while I was out of town, to check too. She wrote to me via e-mail “No issues with Topaz. Did not hear any whistling or gurgling; did not see any bubbling from the nostrils.” Or, when I’d given her several betadine baths to treat the scale issues, and she had gotten a tiny bit nervous on the last one in August 2011 -- had she inhaled something then? I’d looked carefully, several times, and seen no signs at all.

All of which, I guess, is moot. She leaves me, if far too early, at least after four wonderful years, by my records having vanquished 146 rodents, filled 373 lines of Excel with care notes, and gifted me with dozens on dozens of amazingly colorful photos.

May 2011 (43 Months)


April 2009 (18 Months)


November 2007 (Baby)


Topaz, my beautiful, posable, always-a-sweetheart snake, I’m so sorry that I failed you in the end. You will always be the one living gem that I wanted to share.


Cliff Earle
Living Gems Reptiles: premium Brazilian Rainbow Boas from a disease-tested facility