Quote Originally Posted by bearhart View Post
Seriously, though, this raises a good question for me. I've always been a bit hazy on exactly how compaction occurs. When I first heard of it, it was this kind of spooky thing that might as well have been "kooties". After some more reading and experience with snakes, I've reasoned that they must have to consume some significant amount of non-digestable material and attain some sort of "critical mass" to become dangerously blocked up.

what I'm still not sure of is about how much material that is and whether or not it is cumulative. I would tend to think that, for compaction to occur, the snake would have to consume some large amount of bedding in one meal. My reasoning is that, if the amount is too small to create a blockage, it will be passed through even if it is non-digestable. What is scarier to me is that thought that perhaps compaction occurs as a buildiup.

Can anybody shed more light on this?
Well with the repti-bark it took one piece caught in the throat and it killed the snake before they realized something was wrong .So its not always the amount that is fatal.