sudden death of my ball python

Question
hello i had a royal python we brought him from a reptile shop at 6months old in febuary sadly he passed away very sudden. when we first brought him he was a bit nervous but he soon got used to his new envioment and started coming out of his shell. he was about 2 foot when we got him and grew to about 3 foot, he always had clean water, checked for mites. temp always made sure it was in an enivoment of 80degrees, he had a hiding place large enough water bowl,he was a fussy eater, only eating every fornight on rat fluffs.in april we went away and took him back to the pet shop we brought him from as we were going away for a week, they checked him over and asked for all his details ie, eating, how he had his viv we picked him up they said he was doing well didnt eat tho! but thought it might of been because of his move again. just before he passed away he just finished shedding, after we noticed he passed away and buried him we decided to look up any course it could of been and we looked up on one fo ur replys to another person and you meantioned about IBD. we checked him their were no mites on him or in viv/waterbowl, we noticed he was bubbling from the mouth acouple of times, we noticed he was stargazing at the heat lamp hizzing loudly then normal.
p.s should the shop noticed anything when we put him in their as they know he was a fussy eater from the start  

Answer
Hi Hannah,

IBD is not very common in pythons but can occasionally happen.

Your mention of foaming at the mouth sounds like a respiratory infection. When you brought your snake to the pet store for your vacation the temperature and or humidity could have been greatly different from your setup.

The only sure way would be to have an autopsy done by a vet familiar with herps.

Hope this helps.
Eric Rovegno