Cause for concern?

[snakehill]

Hey John! You forgot to tell Jesse to shaddup!

[EasternGirl]

Lol John....um...do you think I seem like the type of woman that does dishes??? You come and do the dishes for me mister! Now!!!

[RedSidedSPR]

I feed with hemostats, on reptibark. Never had a problem, as the pieces are to big to really stick to food.

[EasternGirl]

Most of the pieces are big...but there are small pieces too...shavings and stuff. She doesn't usually take her food and drag it away. She was sitting on top of her log eating from the hemostats and then all of the sudden she took a piece and drug it off over to the other side of her tank into the wood. I have no idea what that was about.

[RedSidedSPR]

Mine has no small shavings or anything.. My snakes can drag the food through it without a problem.

Your snake will probably be fine, though, if it wasn't much

[EasternGirl]

She seems perfectly fine right now and she is a pretty big girl. Steve told me to watch her poop for a few days...fun!

[ConcinusMan]

You said "ecofresh" but I'm going to assume you meant "ecoearth". I've had snakes swallow that before and it passes fine. As far as small pieces of bark go, that can be dangerous, but as was stated earlier, it usually falls off in the process of swallowing. Even if it doesn't, if the piece is small enough, it could be passed. Luckily, neither of those two substrates swells after being swallowed. The snake would have to swallow a piece just big enough to block the intestine, without noticing. They will usually notice a piece that size and wipe it off or knock it off the food while swallowing. Any pieces of bark small enough that the snake doesn't notice, will usually pass through. Don't worry too much about it Marnie. I've had it happen to me too and nothing became of it. I can tell you that worrying won't help. Chances are good that you'll worry for nothing. We should avoid letting them swallow substrate, but just because she did this time, doesn't mean she's doomed.

[EasternGirl]

Thanks Richard....and yes, I meant ecoearth .

[RedSidedSPR]

Ecoearth is MUCH safer to ingest. In fact, if it's small, it's usually not a problem at all.