Not so healthy new snake

[Marla]

Uh oh. OK, so s/he finally constricted the mouse. Then, s/he hugged it for a few hours, and finally started to take it around 9 PM. 15 minutes later, it was spit out. No one's probably online to answer this right now, but I don't know whether to put it back in the cage and whether to put the mouse in, too, freeze it, give it to the cat, or what. Or should I leave them in the lidded tupperware box, and if I do, do I need to put anything else in with them?

Yikes! :shock:

[RPlank]

Surface temps are more important as far as the safety of your snake. If the UTH is too hot, your snake will burn itself trying to thermoregulate. Make sure that any surface your snake can touch on the bottom of the tank doesn't get above about 95 degrees F.
Did your snake get the mouse all the way down, and then regurge, or did it not swallow it all the way? Trash the mouse, or give it to the cat, don't save it. If it made it most or all of the way down before your snake rejected it, the stomach acid has probably damaged his/her esophagus. You need to wait at least two weeks to give any damage a chance to heal before feeding again. A safer bet is three weeks.
If Snyder didn't get it down all the way, and just backed off as he was swallowing, you can probably try again in a few days. I still wouldn't save that mouse, though. Something caused him/her to reject the food, so fix the underlying cause before you try to feed again. Were you watching him/her eat? Were there loud noises or lots of movement outside the feeding enclosure? Was he/she too cold? These are common causes of regurge/failure to finish feeding.
Good luck!

[Marla]

RPlank,
Thanks for the tip on temperatures and the info on the mouse. Since no one was on, I put Snyder and the mouse back into the cage and when s/he hadn't eaten it by the time I got up, I flushed it. This is the second mouse s/he's tried to swallow and given up before s/he got the entire thing inside the mouth, but the other was an adult. I'm definitely going to stop trying to feed for a couple of weeks, as this is too many attempts and I don't want to stress herp out too much.

I tried to keep the environment quiet, but with two kids, two adults, and two dogs in the house, there's going to be some noise. I kept everyone back from the container while Snyder was in there as much as I could. It may have gotten somewhat cold in there, but the ambient air temp was about 75F, so it wouldn't have dropped below that.

I finally got some pics so y'all can see what Snyder looks like, and I located a vet that handles reptiles just a few miles from here. I'm going to see about getting Snyder seen, hopefully tomorrow or Saturday.

[Jesús]

nice little baby you got there Marla
keep us post of what the vet tells you about your little bp.
PS. thanks for sharing those cute pics
Jesús

[Ken]

Have you considered a mouth injury or infection as the reason that killed prey is being partially swallowwed and then rejected? Maybe swallowing is painful. I'd book a vet trip, just in case.

Best wishes,

Ken

[Marla]

Thanks, Jesus, s/he is a real sweet snake, if not the healthiest ever. I'm glad I found my camera so I could take the pics to share!

Ken, I hadn't considered a mouth injury, though I have considered parasites. There's nothing visibly wrong with the mouth that I can see even during jaw adjustments, but obviously there could be something I can't see. Thanks for that suggestion. The vet was closed for New Year's today, but I'll try to make an appt. tomorrow.