This post is about a baby Columbian boa in the Petco I work at that is having a terrible time. At some point the vet determined that it was infested with parasites. It is terribly weak; last week I handled it gently just to observe the poor thing, and I placed it back on his log afterwards, and a minute later the snake actually fell off the log... :( It regurgitated a meal and I'm not sure if it's eaten since. Yesterday, one of the associates doing the back room noticed he had a mouthful of substrate. Dry eco-earth! :( I ended up having to pull out the majority of the substrate with tweezers (he had not fully swallowed it, I think it was stuck anyways). He is so weak it's sad. Don't ask me why the eco-earth was dry in the first place!!! (Grr)
So here's the deal... before I tweezered the dirt out, his lower jaw looked swollen on one side. After I got most of the dirt away, it looked even more swollen on both sides. He's going to the vet tomorrow, but I was wondering if anyone had experience with eating substrate and impaction in snakes. I have dealt with it with bearded dragons but I have never seen a snake eat its substrate before. Why do you think he did that...?