Progression Thread - Levi the Snow

Aww, what a little cutie! Good to see she's eating well!

I love Levi! Gorgeous little snakey.

You have a pretty snake cinabunbun

Ahhh, thank you everyone n-n; I'll have to take more pictures soon. Right now I dunno why but she has a very small piece of wood in her mouth :\ Not sure if I have to go to the Vet for her, it didn't get removed while she ate on Sunday.

Originally Posted by cinnabunbun

Ahhh, thank you everyone n-n; I'll have to take more pictures soon. Right now I dunno why but she has a very small piece of wood in her mouth :\ Not sure if I have to go to the Vet for her, it didn't get removed while she ate on Sunday.

This sounds strange. Is she struggling to remove it, like scraping her face along the sides or the floor of the viv? If you can and feel comfortable doing so, try to gently grasp & remove it, if it looks like it can just be a piece of aspen or substrate (why do you think it's wood?).

Does anyone know why she shouldn't try to remove it? I can't fathom that it would be harmful to try to remove gently, but would rather think that a stuck piece of aspen could be worse.

Originally Posted by axis1

This sounds strange. Is she struggling to remove it, like scraping her face along the sides or the floor of the viv? If you can and feel comfortable doing so, try to gently grasp & remove it, if it looks like it can just be a piece of aspen or substrate (why do you think it's wood?).

Does anyone know why she shouldn't try to remove it? I can't fathom that it would be harmful to try to remove gently, but would rather think that a stuck piece of aspen could be worse.

Doesn't seem to bother her none. It's a very small flake Sort of like when you get a piece of green or rice on your lips or teeth.

Originally Posted by cinnabunbun

Doesn't seem to bother her none. It's a very small flake Sort of like when you get a piece of green or rice on your lips or teeth.

Is it possible to gently snag it with your fingertips? Something really small, if it's a foreign object, can cause HUGE problems if it remains in the wrong place, like in the corner of your snake's mouth. If not, I would just keep a very close eye on that! You don't want any foreign object, regardless of its size, to be stuck anywhere in your snake's mouth for any significant period of time, especially long enough to cause any bruising!

Just my opinion. But I hope it's nothing really serious!

Originally Posted by axis1

Is it possible to gently snag it with your fingertips? Something really small, if it's a foreign object, can cause HUGE problems if it remains in the wrong place, like in the corner of your snake's mouth. If not, I would just keep a very close eye on that! You don't want any foreign object, regardless of its size, to be stuck anywhere in your snake's mouth for any significant period of time, especially long enough to cause any bruising!

Just my opinion. But I hope it's nothing really serious!

She's really hard to keep still, especially with the fact that she's deep in the blue right now. A friend of mines suggested to hit up the Vet to have it removed. I'm worried because I want to get it out, but she's going to get upset at me because she's pretty much blindsighted from the shedding procc, and think she's under attack.

Originally Posted by cinnabunbun

She's really hard to keep still, especially with the fact that she's deep in the blue right now. A friend of mines suggested to hit up the Vet to have it removed. I'm worried because I want to get it out, but she's going to get upset at me because she's pretty much blindsighted from the shedding procc, and think she's under attack.

I would just be gentle and make some type of effort to remove it, especially if it will take you longer than a few hours for her to see a vet (if you have one at your beck & call, by ALL means have one take a look!). But in this case, time may be of the essence.

Maybe just try, very gently, to remove it. You may be pleasantly surprised at how easy it might be to remove (might have to be patient if her head is moving). Remember, besides for simply dragging the side of their faces along the ground or scraping it against the side of the walls of the viv, they don't have any digits to GRASP a foreign object with. So it MIGHT be stuck in a place that just may be difficult for them to dislodge it from.

Is it possible to snap a picture of? Although I doubt it would result in any suggestions which would differ from the one I am making. I'm just curious as to exactly WHERE this thing is. Is it large enough to cause Levi's mouth to be open, even slightly?

I've experienced 'foreign object stuck in mouth' twice, once with a false water cobra and once with a Kenyan sand boa. Both times were when the darned idiots freaked out at someone walking past them unexpectedly and open-mouth lunged into the substrate (which at the time was a recycled paper product I was trying out - turns out it's horrid stuff, do not use!). Result: snakes with nasty paper stuck on their gums, which quickly swelled up as it absorbed the snake spit. Neither snakes seemed bothered by it, but I didn't want to leave it there in case it lead to problems down the line.

Both times I put my brave face on, held the snake still with one hand and pulled the offending substrate out with the other (tweezers for the KSB, fingers for the falsie). The falsie was good as gold and hardly wriggled at all, but the KSB complained bitterly. I just took on a "gotta' be cruel to be kind" attitude and held him still despite him releasing rather unpleasant fluids onto me from his rear end.

I wouldn't bother with the vets unless you really can't bring yourself to hold her still enough - the trip will stress her out in and of itself, and when you get there the vet will just pull it out by hand anyway, in much the same way I described, they'll just dither less in the doing of it. In fact, if I hadn't seen the vet [s]manhandle[/s] firmly manipulate the dear falsie to get his mouth open when we thought he had an RI (he didn't) I wouldn't have been brave enough to get the substrate out by hand as I'd have been too afraid of hurting him... In the end I was probably far gentler than the vet would have been!

NOTE: I have no complaint about the vet; she didn't hurt him and she gave him a thorough check over before concluding there was nothing wrong with him, it just looked rough when she pried his mouth open.