Impaction and Monitoring Poop
So your snake ate more than just a mouse...
The first step is to avoid letting your snake eat something that is not reptile safe. But I doubt you’ve been purposefully feeding your snake Q-tips or paper clips.
Usually an accident happens. Your Burmese snagged a glove off of you while you were feeding, or your Ball accidentally ate some of it’s substrate while eating it’s meal, or, in my most recent personal experience, my Hognose missed her mouse and got a nearby paper towel instead.
It’s a mistake that I regret happened, but luckily, there are steps you can take to try and avoid impaction. If your snake does have impacted intestines, you will need to go to a local reptile veterinary clinic and look into the surgery.
But before the vet bill, you need to be sure your snake is actually impacted!
An impacted snake is not going to poop or eat. They will look bloated too, and potentially act lethargic. It differs from snake to snake, but if your little friend is pooping, you’re likely in the clear.
In my experience, it is hard to tell if your snake has pooped in certain bedding. I have to search around for poop in aspen, and coconut fiber can be especially hard due to the similarity in color.
What I do is I change all the bedding to something where I can easily see and locate poop. Usually that is either paper towels or newspaper. Since I know my snake doesn’t actually enjoy eating paper towels, I decided to go with them since they hold humidity better in my opinion.
I cleaned the cage properly, using a mini-vac to get rid of all the dust left behind by the old bedding, and started to lay out some paper.
Once I have everything nicely covered, I start to spray the cage down evenly with distilled water. The goal is to keep the cage warm and humid to encourage the desired bowel movement. You should also give your snake a small meal if they haven’t eaten since the incident. It will encourage their bowels to move.
Next, I put in all the usual accessories. This includes water, some hides, a little base to a potted plant she likes to watch me from, and a humidity box.
Then I add the snake!
I also use the thermostat attached to the heat mat to increase the overall temperature of the enclosure. I only put it up 2 degrees, but it should be enough to encourage some business going down.
I’m not going to include a picture of poop, but the goal is to see where the business is going down. With this, I can see when it happens, and I can be sure it’s not old poop I missed when spot cleaning before her feeding.
Do not stress yourself out
My first reaction when this little monster ate the towel was to panic. I’d never had this happen before! I’d done what I could while it was happening, but she was adamant about not giving her “meal” up.
I’ve done research since this has happened, looking at forums and contacting other reptile keepers I know. Snakes are hardy animals, and one little mistake isn’t the end of the world.
For your own peace of mind, I’m going to link some of the forums I looked at, as well as adding this story by NBLADE (you can find the full thread here)
“Not that long ago i had an adult common boa female, pop the glass on her viv, now my rep room is secure so finding her was easy, but i defrost food overnight for the next day, this happened to be a night i was defrosting adult mice for baby retics the next day, this female boa ate a bag of 50 adult mice, plastic bag included. About a month later she passed out the remains of that bag, after digesting all the mice inside it, quite impressive really.”
[Link 1] [Link 2] [Link 3]
Worst Case Scenario
Your snake isn’t pooping and is showing other signs of impaction, it is sadly time to take your snake to the vet. Remember, with smaller things like a small bit of substrate, or a paper towel corner, this is highly unlikely, but you must always be prepared for a vet visit. One important thing is to be sure the vet you are going to can deal with exotic pets.
You can find out by googling for exotic pet vets, reptile vets, or just calling a local vet and asking over the phone. Once you take your snake into the clinic, the doctor will be able to come up with a solution to the problem. With impaction, the solution is likely surgery.
After any procedure, your animal will need to be on some medicine and will need to recover, so keep that in mind while your snake is healing.
How did it end for you and Button?
Besides Button being grumpy for a few days, because she couldn’t burrow like usual, Button was fine. She pooped and there were some undigested bits of paper towel, and she got her usual bedding back.
Snakes can digest animal bones, so even though it’s not healthy for them to eat things like paper towels, one little mistake is not the end of the world. Just monitor your snake’s behavior, their poop, and whether or not they look unusually bloated. Impaction can be a silent killer in reptiles, so do what you can to look out for your little friends.
Feel free to add any stories, suggestions, or corrections, but remember to do so politely. I not only researched for my own experience, but to make this post as accurate and informative as possible.