I usually feed the snakes in their strike bins for a variety of reasons. But everyone once in a great while I either get rushed or by the time I get home from my two jobs I run out of time and end up feeding them in their cages. This happened this week due to an overbooked weekend and I didn’t want to make the snakes wait a whole week to eat so I feed them during the week when I was really too rushed to be able to do it properly. Although I removed all hides and usually remove the water dishes, this week I ended up with a couple of issues that I know were directly tied to feeding in their cages, so I won’t be lazy or try to take shortcuts again for a long time.
This time the grossness was a prey item that I _thought_ had been eaten, but I discovered yesterday that it had not. I had been smelling something funky for the past day or so, but my Tuesday – Thursday schedule is so crazy that I didn’t have to time to really investigate. I looked for poo, but didn’t see any and could not figure out if a cat had been naughty or what else the small was from. Well, come Saturday morning I had enough of it and got out the super bright flashlight to investigate (all my cages are lit, but sometimes the black cages make it hard to see corners unless everything comes out). That was when I discovered the prey item. I know the snake had grabbed it, but apparently the Monty (female BP) decided she was not interested and left it in her cage.
So gross! The only thing worse I have ever smelled was regurgitated rat. And this was a pretty close second.
Lesson learned. All snakes get fed in their strike boxes. If that means waiting an extra week so I can do it _right_ then so be it.