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As many of you know my biak Rose(my first chondro) had been going through some difficult times over the past 8-9 months and today I finally decided enough was
enough and euthanized her. She bit a pair of metal hemostats during feeding back in late September, got mouth rot and never really recovered well from it. She
produced 3 nice size clutches, but only ever had 1 fertile egg. That egg hatched a very small runt that didn't make it too long. While I don't have any
progeny to show for her 10 years with me, I have gained immeasurable experience from having her in my collection and that in it's own right is enough for
me. She is, and I think will always be, my favorite chondro...
R.I.P ROSE
**EDIT**
I did a quick home necropsy on this girl tonight. It was kind of hard at first, but my inner biologist started to rear it's head and I really got into it. There is lot's to be learned just from poking and proding the inside of these animals we keep.
It turns out there were greater forces that mouth rot at work here. I had suspected that this girl had a couple retained eggs around December/January when she started losing weight and I saw a small lump about 3-4 inches from her vent. I talked to numerous keepers and breeders here and most told me she would have probably died by Dec/Jan if she had retained eggs(She laid a clutch of 16 slugs in July 2007). So I kind of dismissed it, thinking maybe it was nothing, maybe my mind playing tricks on me. I did think it was odd that she had a clutch of only 16 this time, but had previously laid clutches of 30 and 28 in season's prior. Well, this necropsy kind of confirms all of my suspicions to date. I discovered 13 retained eggs which can be seen in the photos. The most interesting thing for me about this, is according to most of the people I talked to she should have been dead months ago due to this. However she lived just shy of 12 months with the retained eggs and probably would have gone a few more months easily if I had not euthanized her. Anyways, take it for what it's worth. I think some will find this very interesting...
-Brian
R.I.P ROSE
**EDIT**
I did a quick home necropsy on this girl tonight. It was kind of hard at first, but my inner biologist started to rear it's head and I really got into it. There is lot's to be learned just from poking and proding the inside of these animals we keep.
It turns out there were greater forces that mouth rot at work here. I had suspected that this girl had a couple retained eggs around December/January when she started losing weight and I saw a small lump about 3-4 inches from her vent. I talked to numerous keepers and breeders here and most told me she would have probably died by Dec/Jan if she had retained eggs(She laid a clutch of 16 slugs in July 2007). So I kind of dismissed it, thinking maybe it was nothing, maybe my mind playing tricks on me. I did think it was odd that she had a clutch of only 16 this time, but had previously laid clutches of 30 and 28 in season's prior. Well, this necropsy kind of confirms all of my suspicions to date. I discovered 13 retained eggs which can be seen in the photos. The most interesting thing for me about this, is according to most of the people I talked to she should have been dead months ago due to this. However she lived just shy of 12 months with the retained eggs and probably would have gone a few more months easily if I had not euthanized her. Anyways, take it for what it's worth. I think some will find this very interesting...
-Brian
