Corn Snake Cannot Swallow -- Help

[2013Vet]

Hi,

I have a very small corn snake; I'm unsure of his age as he came to me as a rescue. He's always been a great eater, but today he's having serious problems. I fed him a pinkie about 1.5 hours ago, and he immediately took and began to swallow it feet first. Now, it's basically balled up in his mouth. He cannot close his mouth, and despite working like crazy, cannot get it to go down his throat. I'm really unsure what I should do at this point, but I'm getting extremely worried. This can't be good for him, right? I thought he would just spit it up if he couldn't get it down, but he's still sitting there with it in his mouth and trying very hard to swallow.

Any urgent advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[RobbiesCornField]

The only advice I can think of would be an emergency vet visit.
The only thing you can really do besides that is wait it out.

[danielle]

That is weird just pull it out maybe it is too big though I can't imagine a snake having an issue with a pink. Does his throat or neck look cave in? I would remove it to avoid choking.

[2013Vet]

Thank you so much for your replies. When I posted I hadn't checked on him in 10-15 minutes, hoping that he would get it down if I wasn't standing over him watching. Well I just checked, and he got it down. Yay!

I don't think it was too big, he's eaten bigger pinkies before, head first, and never had a problem.

[gelshark]

i fed my corn a mouse once where the hips of the mouse looked like they were spread open as wide as they could be, so once the snake got to that point it kept attempting to get its jaws around the hips/hind legs of the blasted mouse
he was struggling and prolly would have downed it eventually on its own, but i just kinda pinched the legs closed a little so that it could get its jaws past that point and then she finished it up just fine - sometimes they eat something that tricks them up a little, but i think for the most part they know what they're doing

[JustineNYC]

FYI- Sometimes when they struggle, they will take a rest. I have seen mine do this many times, usually when I bumped them up and usually when they were younger.

They aren't choking.

My ghost had a pinkie in her mouth for a long time, could not get her mouth around the arms, and the more she swallowed, the more stuck it became. She was fine eventually....but in the midst of this, they will sit real still for a bit, they aren't choking, they are resting.

[bitsy]

Bear in mind that the opening to the windpipe in a Corn is in the floor of their mouth and not in the throat as in most mammals. Generally when they eat, they have no problems breathing as their airway isn't blocked by food in the mouth or throat.