Dalek ate Fir bark! Pictures...

or maybe at least put the food in a dish or on a saucer if you HAVE to put it in the viv so that way its not sitting in the bedding

Ouch! That looks really painful. I would definitely get it checked out by a vet if I were you...hopefully everything turns out okay.

I also second the suggestions of either feeding in a separate bin, or putting something between the substrate and the mouse. You could use the lid from something like a cream cheese container or something similar - a paper towel would probably work too.

Well I ended up gently rubbing her neck a bit and the item easily rotated in her neck so it was more in line but still there. Now this may not have been the best move but I then offered her a large pinky mouse and she gulped it down quick seemingly taking the bark down with it. I figured the bark would digest and pass more easily if it was in the lower intestine. Here are some pics of her now. I will keep you all up to date how she does over the next few days.

I would not have done that. A piece of bark that big could cause her to become seriously impacted. It's not going to digest!

She really needs to get to the vet and you really need to keep an eye on her.

Wayne

What your snake now has in its intestines is called a "foreign body". Snakes are not going to be able to digest large chunks of wood, and there is a good chance that that will either block outflow from the stomach, or lodge in the intestines and create a blockage there.

Ok, now DEFINITELY take her to a vet. Snake's stomach acid isn't meant for fibrous things... I foudn this out the hard way when Mouse pooped out a nice, long, perfectly intact piece of aspen. I worry most about it causing an impaction (imagine if you got really, REALLY super bad constipation, that would not possibly ease up without a doctor's help) and secondly about it slicing her intestines to ribbons. Go to an emergency vet if you must.

YOU FED HER?! Why not just put her in the freezer now, that piece of bark will most likely go straight down and kill her! It WILL NOT get digested, it will either obstruct the intestines or rupture them.

Go. To. The. Vet. NOW! This is an emergency.

Originally Posted by ceduke

YOU FED HER?! Why not just put her in the freezer now, that piece of bark will most likely go straight down and kill her! It WILL NOT get digested, it will either obstruct the intestines or rupture them.

Go. To. The. Vet. NOW! This is an emergency.

That's a bit harsh... He's new and he thought it would help. I'm not at ALL defending what he did and he'd better be at the vet or driving there now if he wants to keep this girl, but I think yelling and telling him he'd be better off freezing her is a little scary and intimidating for a new member who's likely already grinding his teeth down with worry about his pet... and I say this with full knowledge of the irony.

He was told to go to the vet. He chose to ignore that advice and push a giant foreign body down his pet's gut. As a vet tech and a pet owner, I find that appalling.

Weren't you recently sending new members nasty PMs about how they chose to title their threads? Now you're telling me not to be mean to someone who probably just killed their snake by not following advice given. Huh.

However, typically when an animal has something stuck in its throat, you don't try to get it farther down the animal. :/ There is a more than decent chance, from the apparent size of that foreign body that it can cause an impaction, which is fatal unless surgically removed. If the object had been left alone, a vet could have potentially sedated the snake, and removed it without invasive surgery.