My snake ate some dirt. should I be worried?

Question

I have a long-nosed snake, and as he struck for his food he got some dirt in his mouth and he swallowed it. should I be worried?

I work with snakes a lot, and i have quite a bit of experience, but this has never happened before.

Answer 1

That should clean him out real good.  Fish eat sand to clean themselves out.  Actually, I don't know what I'm talking about.

Answer 2

won't hurt the snake.  this too shall pass...eventually.  :)  

Answer 3

No You Shouldnt be worry since snake do get dirt in their mouth often

,In the wild the snakes eat rats which the look for food in drit so the snake will eat dirt as well with the rat

so they should be use to it...

Answer 4

This shouldn't be a problem at all, as snakes routinely ingest substrate and will either push it out their mouth after ingesting the meal or will pass if effortlessly.  However I will suggest a couple of things to prevent such worry in the future.

1) switch to a digestible subsrate such as coco-fibre.

2) feed in a seperate container like a large tupperware (I own some that are about the size of a 20 gallon tank suitable for feeding snakes smaller than 5 feet in size) that does not have any substrate in it.

3) if you insist on feeding inside it's housing tank, plave the frozen thawed prey on an area segregated from the substrate (such as on a plate or plastic lid from a tupperware).  If you feed live, best option is to feed it in a seperate container.

Answer 5

Snakes routinely swallow all types of debris while consuming their prey, both in nature and in captivity. Their stomach acids and enzymes make short work of just about anything you can think of.