bozo,

i don't think the fasting is the problem--a healthy snake could go a couple months without feeding and without difficulty. Your problem is the ingesting of sand. As soon as you see sand in its mouth, remove it from the sand (which you've done) and do your best to clean out its mouth & throat. It MAY be that your snake's about to shed; but a more likely explanation for it rubbing the corner of its mouth, the morning after you observed its mouth full of sand, is that it senses the foreign matter and is trying to get rid of it. Maybe have a friend help you. Get a little bottle that could spray water; use a toothpick to open its mouth; sweep out any sand you can see, gently, and spray some water in to try to flush out more sand. Do this with the head held DOWN, so anything that's flushed is flushed OUT of the mouth, not down the throat. And as advised in another post, you might need to see a vet to deal with any impaction that's taking place. As you're going thru the mouth-cleaning process, be gentle, and remember the snake's teeth curve back into the mouth so as you're trying to push stuff out of the mouth, you're moving against the teeth. And take your time: it doesn't all have to be swept out in one or two swipes. If you get a little each time, you're making progress, and you're helping.

Good luck!

terry





>>I have a 1 year old mexican milk snake. Recently he has been very picky with what he eats. Its now been about 2 weeks since the last feeding. I gave him a small mouse yesterday and he killed it, but did not eat it. Today I put in 2 fuzzys, neither of which he has touched. I did notice that he has sand in his mouth and he keeps sticking head into the sand with his mouth open. Is this normal? How long can he go without eatting? Any help would be great, thanks!

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