Caution to some of my fellow snake keepers

[Jim Smith]

Like many people here, I like to keep my snakes in "display" cages with several hides and plastic plants etc. In one of my cages for one of my female BRBs, I had plastic plants that were like a vine with plastic chain links about 1/2 x 1 long used to connect sections of the vine together. I would wrap the vine around part of a hide to give the snake more privacy. I was on a business trip this week, but before I went, I made sure that all the water bowls were cleaned with fresh water and that my "babies" had been fed. About two days into my trip, I called my wife to check in and chat and she mentioned that she found an odd looking "deposit" in one of the cages. She described it to me over the phone and it sounded like a partially digested rat, but did not smell very badly so I didn't think it was a regurged rat which would have really concerned me. When I got home, I noticed that the snake had done a lot of rearranging the hides, etc. (I call it gardening), but this was a bit excessive. When I took her out, I quickly saw that she had somehow managed to get her head through one of these links and work it about 1/3 that way down her body where it got stuck, constricting her. This snake is a yearling BRB, large enough to eat small rats, so I couldn't imagine this being a risk to her. I quickly removed the constricting plastic chain link from her and other than a few scales looking a bit dented she is fine. I then removed and threw away all of the plastic vine plants. I wanted to post this so that other people who may be using similarly constructed plastic plants to take them out of their enclosures and dispose of them. This is one of those hidden hazards that when they pop up, you ask yourself why you didn't see that risk before you almost had a tragedy. I hope that this posting helps someone prevent just such a tragedy.