Getting food out of their mouth

[abcat1993]

Hey guys, I haven't been here in a long time because of school and such, but I was wondering how you are supposed to get food out of a garter's mouth. I ask this because I was feeding mine today and he jumped out of his container before I had the chance to close it, got substrate all over it (which is what killed one of my garters before, so I'm pretty sensitive about it), then wouldn't let go of it when I tried to get it out of his mouth.
Eventually I ended up picking all of the little pieces of substrate off and putting him back into the separate enclosure (which was extremely hard because the worm was extra wet and slimy from a previous attempt to get all the substrate off).

[adamanteus]

Matt, a quick rinse in clean water (of the snakes head complete with food item) will wash away all adherent substrate bits, without the need to remove the food from the snakes mouth.

[abcat1993]

But what if there is food already far enough into it's mouth to make that not work. Also, that would have been kind of hard because my snake will musk on me if I touch him, and the tongs I was using just kept sliding off of the worm, making it fall in the substrate again, defeating the purpose.
At first I thought that waving something that had a strong scent, like vinegar or something alcoholic, would make him drop it, but I was afraid to do that in case I got some on him or it was bad for them or something.

[drache]

obviously this is a bit past the event, which sounds like it was stressful
at this point I suggest you avoid this kind of stress in the future by feeding the snake on newspaper or some other non-attaching substrate

[KITKAT]

What type of feeding chamber are you using?

I use an empty five gallon bucket that is too tall for the babies to jump out of... and wash it between "customers".

In the case of my adults, I put them in a sweater box and close it, then wait for them to settle down, before introducing the food item.

[abcat1993]

I have one of those "critter keepers" or something, basically just a 1 gallon plastic container with a lid that snaps down. The problem was that he didn't go all the way into the box so I couldn't close the lid and didn't feel like being sprayed with musk. I guess next time I will just have to deal with the stuff and pick him up.

[KITKAT]

Originally Posted by abcat1993

I have one of those "critter keepers" or something, basically just a 1 gallon plastic container with a lid that snaps down. The problem was that he didn't go all the way into the box so I couldn't close the lid and didn't feel like being sprayed with musk. I guess next time I will just have to deal with the stuff and pick him up.

Get some latex exam gloves. Then, the more you handle, the less he will (eventually) musk.

Also, if budget is a problem, one feeding chamber I have used in past is a gallon water jug or milk jug, thoroughly cleaned out. Once you get the tail and body in the mouth of the jug, the baby snake just drops by gravity... and since the jug has shoulders, the snake can't climb out. After the snake eats, you can hold the jug upended gently on a slope, above the viv and the snake will slide out into the substrate.