Can garters get impaction of the gut from fur bearing rodents?

[Magnarock the 2nd]

Fed my male eastern a hopper the other day, because my corn didn't eat. A good sized meal for the fellow. Is impaction a risk feeding furry mice?

[infernalis]

I have been feeding my larger garters adult mice with fur for years and never had an impaction.

My medium size garters eat "fuzzy mice" or "hopper mice" again, no problems.

[guidofatherof5]

I've lost 2 adult garter to fur impaction. Keep in mind I don't know it the loss was do from the impaction or from some other cause. The impaction may have just been part of the bigger problem. I only feed pinkies now.

[ConcinusMan]

Rodent hair does provide indigestible material that tends to get very compacted in the digestive tract. Logically I would say that fully digested food is going to move along and pass through the digestive tract a little easier than wads of rodent hair. I wouldn't say hair is necessarily a direct cause of impaction but it certainly increases the risk. Garters aren't the only snake to get full of undigested hair and suffer an impaction made almost entirely of hair.

As a general rule hairy rodents won't hurt them but it's my opinion that if you can avoid giving them hair, you should. Most of my garters don't like the feel of it and drop hairy rodents anyway, but swallow pinkies just fine. Instead of a small adult mouse, a bunch of pinkies or a day old rat pup is a better choice but by all means, give them an adult mouse once in a while if you want to. I just think it's better not to load them up with hair regularly and tempt fate. If they'll take a naked rat pup instead, I give them that.

Also, if an adult mouse is frozen you can make a slit it it, and peel the skin right off, hair and all, like it's a piece of fruit. Then thaw and feed it to them. Not pretty or pleasant, but they get an adult rodent without all the hair.