The story of the aspen chip and Heather Wong

[dsirkle]

Since I have had my ball pythons I had never experienced a problem until tonight. The care of my snakes had been easy as can be. Good appetites, good sheds, easy to switch to f/t, good growth etc. Well tonight I fed my snakes and I saw that my Mojave seemed to not finish swallowing his rat. To my horror I saw that he had an aspen chip stuck in his mouth (separate tub feeders are allowed to say "I told you so!" at this point). I didn't know for sure what to do so I observed him for a while hoping that he would be able to dislodge it himself. He was traveling around his cage trying to spit it out with no success. I was afraid to go to bed with him in that condition in the event that it would get stuck in his throat and choke him to death and I was afraid to try to remove it because I was afraid of the snake getting hurt from struggling while I tried to subdue it. I emailed Heather of WWW.Heathersherps.com and asked her what I should do. She promptly responded with instructions on how to hold the snake while sitting in a chair subduing the body under my arm and firmly grasping just behind the head and removing the chip with a Qtip. I was reluctant to try this because it seemed to me that this would require at least 3 hands. She offered me encouragement to do it and it worked like a charm. I am very grateful to Heather for her help. Some may see the moral of the story as "Don't feed on aspen" , but I think that it is "You can always count on Heather when the chips are down".

[reptile3]

wow, scary. Glad Heather Wong helped you

[Gloryhound]

Heather had a long nite last night. She was up fretting with us over a Fedex screw up last night. Fedex delayed the delivery of a snake coming to us from her. Needless to say she is just as worried about the snakes well being as we are. Hopefully it will be here this morning and hopefully it will be all right. She has been very supportive throughout the ordeal. Hopefully the big girl survives 36+ hours in transit going through areas were last night the temps were down into the teens. Had the wife try getting the quarantine tank to maintain a humidity of 50% as we don't want to put her into a higher humidity for a day or so as we don't want her sucking in a lot of humidity until she warms up a bit, but also don't want her to dehydrate on us. Also calling the vet to make an appointment as soon as possible to get her checked out to make sure she didn't pick up anything from the stress of the trip. Is all we can really do at this point. The experience of dealing with Heather as been great and we would definately deal with her again. The shipping with Fedex is what sucks. I think we will go with Delta Dash from now on.

[OhBalls]

Heather rocks.....her attention to detail is remarkable.....her patience is outstanding......

she's good people

happy your snake is now resting comfortably....scarey thing !!

prayers for the 'in transit'

[dsirkle]

Glory Hound, I wish the best for your new arrival. Unfortunately shipper errors will always occasionally occur as human error can never be totally eliminated. In your case though it sounds like things could have gone much worse.

[West Coast Jungle]

Glad to hear the aspen chip problem was cured. I only use newspaper because of that possibility. Heather is in it for the animals and I think that is pretty obvious.

Hope the lost snake gets to you safe, very scary

[LadyOhh]

Wow, Dale. I didn't expect this kind of accolade for helping a friend!

THANKS!

And yes, I just got off the phone with Shandra, and the snake is alive, albeit sluggish and probably stressed out.

Shipping is always a touchy thing, especially when you can't do anything in transit....

Thank you guys for being so sweet, and I hope that BOTH instances go to show that problems do arise, and that things are not as simple as they seem.

I am really glad it all worked out.

[cassandra]

You rock Heather!

And yes, I just got off the phone with Shandra, and the snake is alive, albeit sluggish and probably stressed out.

Whew! Glad to hear that...

[starmom]

This is the type of care that a good and conscientious breeder provides! Yea Heather for continuing to keep the bar set so high for herp care and breeder availability~ even after the sale! You rock!!

[Gloryhound]

Yes sorry I didn't get back earlier, but I am working out of town and for some reason work doesn't like me surfing around here when actual work needs done.

The snake did arrive alive. From the description my wife gave she was really cold to the touch and not moving much. My daughter spotted her flick her tongue a couple of times , so my wife put her in a room temperature pillow case and stuck it under her shirt to try getting it to warmed up as quickly and safely as possible. After about 15-20 minutes of this we put her back in her quarantine enclosure and she started snooping around and checking out her new digs.

The wife has made a Vet appointment for tomorrow at 10:00 AM. We will get her fully checked out tomorrow and make sure she is 100%! Wife will make sure the blazer is good and warm before she takes her down to it and hopefully the vet visit will be short enough that the blazer doesn't cool down to much.