Crap!! What just happened!!@!$@#

[AkHerps]

Holy crap, I feel like I just had a heart attack. For those of you who don't know who Petrie is, he is my little hatchling who hasn't eaten for the two months I had him, and finally had his first meal last week. He hasn't moved since then, I checked on him once, he seemed fine, nice and warm, just not active. It was a week tonight, so I thought, let's see. Got the same size small mouse, threw it in with him, he nailed it within a minute! Awesome! All is well! No....all went really bad. He got the mouse down, but had a crap load of trouble with the, and I'm going to be graphic, mouse balls and back feet.

But he got it down, then, he starts freaking out. He's waving his face in the air, smacking it into things, he is going insane. I look at his jaws, which are almost down his throat and twisted over eachother. His windpipe is hanging out one corner and he's flailing around, trying to yawn but can't at all. I start freaking out, I run upstairs and get the son of the family I live with, wake him up, it's 3:30am here. We give it 10 minutes, he's still freaking out, he's going really limp and getting really tired and basically hardly moving. We stuck on some latex gloves, and I very, very carefully, pushed the jaws out of his throat, and untwisted them, and he yawned and realigned them.

What just happened!!!#!!@#@!$ He is weak and tired right now, he didn't throw up the mouse on us, and he's right about to shed, his eyes are completely clouded over.

But again, what the heck just happened!!! It was the same size as his first mouse which he ate just fine, but the first was a female. I know, I can't get fuzzy's and hopper's, but these are small mice, they are the size of him at the thickest part. I'm not feeding him full adults, these are still basically baby's, just past the hopper stage by a couple weeks.

How do I prevent this, he was freaking out really hardcore and I don't want him going through that again!!

Thanks for any and all help!!

[CamStatic]

Wow, I've never heard of anything like that.
Try feeding it smaller mice? Since he had troubles with the last part of swallowing?

[sho220]

Wow...that's pretty crazy. Good job on helping him out. Lots of people start hatchlings out on small mice. I've started most of mine out on them and never have had a problem. It may just be a fluke thing??? It was probably the last thing on your mind but I wish you had snapped a pic. I'm having touble picturing what you described. Give him time to recover and digest and try again. If you can, try to pick out the smallest mice. Both "pet stores" I go to for mice are good about picking out the small ones when I ask.

[Brstin2flames]

Omg!! That's insane...I haven't had any problems like that with my young BP. You did a great job figuring out what to do, I don't know if I would have been able to think clearly in that situation! I would have been so scared for my little guy!

[twan]

WOW that's crazy good jumping right in there in the heat of the moment.

[tiny_tiger60978]

Congrats on helping him out, but sorry BOTH of yall had to go though that...Hope it was just a fluke and he's alright!

[AkHerps]

Basically....try and picture both his bottom jaws, literally bent into his throat on the inside, so he has no bottom half of his face basically. And then, on top of being down his throat, they were twisted together! It pretty much looked like he...swallowed his own jaws. I really hope this was just a fluke thing.

He came out later this morning and got a big long drink of water, his face looks okay, no swelling that I can see.

I had just told my friend how happy I was that everything was going good with him too, eating his 2nd straight meal and about to shed, and then, gfhdgoufdgodfgh he eats himself! T_T

Thanks for the support!

[wolfy-hound]

Sounds like one or more teeth hung up on the mouse and when he was swallowing the mouse, his jaws were going down as well. Because the jaws are so flexible, they can indeed twist in on themselves in crazy ways. Without seeing it happen, that's my best guess.

Since you supervised the feeding, you were there to correct the issue. It was probably a weird fluke, but just supervise his feedings to make sure.

[AkHerps]

Thanks, that's what I kind of thought, that his teeth got hung up on the mouse's..privates or back feet, something like that, it started happening around the "testicle" area..so I'm sticking with small females and I hope this doesn't happen again!!

I've been supervising them, just in case, I'm glad I was!

I can't wait to see him after he sheds, with one meal in he was already looking healthier, with two I'm sure he's going to start looking back to a normal baby soon

[mpkeelee]

its feeding night and u got me all worried now! good thing u were there to save the lil guy/gal. i have had mine get their jaws bent out and down like the were sad or something. then they rub their face on the tub for a lil bit and they are fine. but nothing like what u described