Quote:
Originally Posted by aSnakeLovinBabe
I watch my garters, both adults and babies VERY closely during feeding time. I us corn cob bedding and that stuff definately does not digest. it does not even soften a bit if its soaked in water for days. even though I generally feed all my baby garters while they are in my hand... sometimes the ones who know they are about to get fed get overly ambitious and decide tog rab a piece of corn cob and start to swallow it. upon seeing this I promptly grab them behind the head making sure i apply enough pressure so that they cant swallow it any more (they are so used to being fed this way that picking them up doesnt scare them te least), I then take a small pair of tweezers i have jsut for this reason and i take it out! On two occassions i have opened their cage to see one with a lump in its belly. knowing that that piece of corn cob is NOT going to come out the back end, I do the only thing I can. I induce regurgitation by VERY GENTLY massaging the little lump up through the neck and usually they spit it out on their own. other than that, I don't really have too many problems.
Now if an adult garter eats a piece... it realy doesnt bother him/her because it passes. to help things along I syringe a bit of water into the snakes mouth to make sure that the corn cob's trip is a smoothe one. My snakes are REALLY used to consistent almost daily handling so they don't stress one bit when things like this happen.
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Wow....I haven't heard of anyone using corn cob for bedding snakes in forever.....pretty much just for the examples you gave. That and I find it's really dusty, rots when it gets wet and I just really don't like the smell of it (that might be from working with it for YEARS while managing a pet store, we used it for the birds....and I hated cleaning up after the birds...LOL).