Wont Swallow, Getting Concerned.

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Snakeluvver2

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I left two feeder fish in my gts's water bowel today at about 4.
I always put in one large fish and one thats about the size he had last time.
At about 5 i looked into the click clack to find him and the large fish having an epic battle, at first i didnt take any notice of the size of the feeder fish. My initial thoughts were if it's too big it wont go for it or it will drop it when it realizes. It's now about quarter to nine and the fish has been in the same spot since 6, the feeder fish is all in his mouth but it is not moving further down its body. Starting to be reallly concerned now:S
 
i did this rescently with one of mine, just chucked it in before it got too big. took her hours to get it down but she did it eventually (could actually see the fish through her skin). im sure she'lll regurge if its too big. put her in a warm place and dissapear for a little while. if its still in the same place in 1 hr let me know. nicG and dottyback and mattsnake also have experience with GTS and most likely have had this issue before also
 
sometimes it looks like my coastal falls asleep on the job, so i go up and give her a touch to make sure she isnt dead and she jumps up as she gets a bit of a fright out of it, then she goes back to swallowing. try giving it a touch on the tail
 
thanks for the info syeph will be in contact regardless telling you how it goes
 
Hey man had no success last night. It was trying to regurgitate it but to no avail. I rang up Everything Reptiles in Manly run by Simon and he picked it up from work this morning. Waiting on a phonecall or a text or anything really.
Thanks for the help dude glad to see im not the only that this has happened too
 
Wow, that sounds a bit serious. I was sure he'd get it down overnight! My ex fed my stimmy the wrong size rat pup once, and it took him a couple of hours, but eventually he got it down.... Let us know how it goes today with Simon.
 
So i got it too simon this morning he gladly took it and had a look at it.
I got a call about 2 oclock this afternoon saying "this fish is well and truly stuck"
He tried flushing it out with water, he ask permission to manovoure the fish to see if we could slide it down knowing it might
severely hurt it.
The last option was to pull the fish out which would basically kill it full stop. The dorsal fin of the fish has got on the inside of the fish.

So my options right now are.
Let it go to sleep in the freezer.
Wait one more night and see what happens
Or pull the fish out and hope for the best.

Right now im going for wait one more night and see what happens, hopefully it will slide it down seeing as we got it down a tad this afternoon.
I'm going back up to simons tomorrow as well.

Looks pretty grim atm.
 
so you cant try gently pushing it down its throat into the gut? maybe a bit of olive oil will help? good luck mate
 
If it were in my care, pushing the feeder animal in further would have never, ever, been an option... i would have got some scissors and cut the fish down.... removing any material possible to reduce the bulk of the feed, as usually what they can get into their mouth is large enough to be consumed, they get stuck trying to get the wider parts, such as the abdominal section. So my advice is, chop up the fish if you can, if there is any of the fish visible, lop it off with scissors, and try to pull out the organs from within the abdominal cavity of the fish.
 
If I were you, I'd send it to a vet or something before I decided to euthanize it in the freezer...jmo though... I hate putting down animals without exploring as many options as possible first...

Goodluck..
 
hey Ihaveherps.
Not the right situation the tail was just barely out. I could only just cut the tail fins if i tried that.

Spana Spamload
We tried pushing it down its gut.
Unless you meant putting something down its throat and pushing that way?
What you use?
Olive Oil in a syringe?
 
Not good news, mate :(

I agree, waiting overnight is probably the best thing you can do.

I thought of cutting the fish up, too. If that can't work, what about sucking some of the fish guts out with a syringe? (though it's probably more the size of the fish frame that's in the way). Any way to break the frame of the fish so it crumples a bit? cod liver/castor oil in a non-needled syringe around the frame of the fish? I would think it might be better to try to get the fish out than in...

I don't know, I'm sure you and simon have thought of a bunch of stuff - but don't give up yet! And don't stick him in the freezer - if they can go for months and months without food, maybe he can get through this for a few more days until you figure it out.

BEST OF LUCK
 
Jannico I am sorry to hear about your snake. Have you heard how he is doing tonight. I am trying to imagine how a feeder fish could get stuck in a snakes mouth must be bigger than the ones I used to feed to my oscar. Good luck with it all and I hope that you don't put him in the freezer surely there are other things to try.
 
yer its more the frame of the fish and the dorsal fin that's caught. I'm going to see what i can do tomorrow.
 
honestly, if i was in fear of losing my animal i would attempt to open the mouth with the scissors then chop up what would be assumed to be its anal duct.... to get access to the gut.... anal duct leads to the digestive tract.... and if your careful, though a dirty job, you could possibly strip the whole digestive track via the fishes ***.

mods, foul words were all necessary for info, Colin, be smart about this post.
 
couldnt a vet knock him out and cut the fish out?

there was a vet in the US that removed an electric blanket from a boa that acidentally ate it along with it rabbit,....surely its an option.
 
couldnt a vet knock him out and cut the fish out?

there was a vet in the US that removed an electric blanket from a boa that acidentally ate it along with it rabbit,....surely its an option.


certainly is an option.................... theres plenty a vet could do to save the snake but you cnat drag them to the clinic
 
have you tryed syringing the gut contents from the fish to reduce the size of the fish? good luck, hope your snake makes it
 
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