Unable to realign jaws after feeding

[Kethis]

Hello, I am new to snakes. I just fed my 2 foot long normal morph ball python for the second time and am wondering if somethings wrong.

The guy at the animal store (local one, the place to go for reptiles) sold me jumbo mice based on her large girth (larger than similar length ball pythons at the store, which is odd since she was a rescue who had just gotten over a nasty abscess on her midsection). She ate the first one 2 weeks ago, and while she had difficulty figuring out how to fit into her mouth (she tried to swallow it sideways, at first...) she ultimately had no trouble getting it down.

This attempt however she (actual gender unknown) couldnt get the prey down so I had to cut the mouse in half laterally (along the axial plane) after she gave up. While I was cutting the mouse, I noticed her standing vertically with about her front third pointed directly upwards. She was "yawning" repeatedly. One half of her jaw would move and then the other. She had full mobility of both but they didnt move together.

This behavior continued for several minutes after she successfully ate the top (small) half of the mouse I fed her. As I was signing up here to ask what to do, she had just put her head back into her hole and was moving in. I did not see her 'fix' the problem.

She was also rapidly trembling left-right the whole time, and contorting her neck/upper torso occasionally.

Is this something I need to do something about, or just wait till tomorrow to see if shes okay? (how do I tell?)

Also, I am afraid she might have gotten substrate in her mouth (after defrosting there was blood on the mouse's head which a got covered in substrate). If so, I need to remove it to prevent a RI, yes? How do I do this? (usually look such things up on my own, but am very busy atm)

[stevepoppers]

They may take a while to swallow, but they should get through it. How long did you wait before interfering? Actually, checking which plane you're talking about, you should not have had to cut at all. They know what they can swallow and won't kill something too large and if they can eat the first half, they can eat the second.

They don't always move the jaws together and they are actually very flexible. Did you take the mouse out of her mouse to cut? Was she moving her jaws right then left while trying to eat the mouse? That's how they get them down.

Substrate in the mouth is 99.99% of the time not a problem. You can check if you think some might be stuck in there, but they can pass some really big (food size) chunks w/o problem.

The thing that worries me is the "rapid trembling" and "contorting". Was the contorting just to position the mouse maybe? That would be normal. Most of this could be normal except for the trembling and if the jaw adjusting did go on for a long while after she swallowed.

I really think you should have just stayed away and let her eat her mouse.