Hi all, I’m new here to the forums. I wanted to ask if anyone here has had trouble with helping their snake poop in the past? My corn snake is unfortunately constipated and has been for around a month. I’ve been trying warm soaks and I haven’t fed him since he wont take it (and I dont want him to back up even more). Does anyone have other methods or advice that I could try? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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From the sound of it, this may not just be constipation. It is especially worrying that your snake won’t take food, since corns are usually always wanting food. It might be impaction. What kind of setup do you keep him in? What substrate and all that.
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Hi and welcome to the forums.
Does the Snake have room to swim when you soak it? Sometime the movement helps too.
Your right to ask in the forums, You will get lots of support.
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IF you’re CERTAIN it’s constipation/digestive impaction and not something else…
Try mineral oil. If you can get him to eat inject(large gage needle or small meat injector) the prey item w as much as you can get in it. If he won’t eat you can try tube feed injection straight in by mouth. Or lastly try the other way up cloaca to lubricate the way out. With any of these methods you may have to massage it out yourself.
I have a 9+ft coastal carpet that I’ve been having to do this for for the past year. NOT FUN! This is what my Herp specialist Vet recommended. He figures my girls issue is age related and losing digestive muscular/neurologic capabilities. So I’ll be doing this long term. I’ve had other friends in the hobby have to do this occasionally for some of theirs and they usually go back to normal once the initial impaction is cleared.
Check your humidity, low humidity can cause slight dehydration unnoticeable to your naked eye but can affect bodily functions.
That’s a little harder to offer a swim to than a corn snake. 
But yes, I have used oil too in the past, I preferred olive oil. Either end as you say, depending.
Got to be careful by mouth that it goes deep enough so it doesn’t end up in the lungs.
@emac13 (if your not experienced at this, probably better to get a specialist vet to do it.)
If they are feeding, I also find the method of defrosting the food item in water which gives maximum water and maximum hydration, that helps avoid dehydration complications in some snakes.
But we do not have this information, which could make all the differance.
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What makes you think its constipated? You mention its been less then a month. Has it eaten in the past month or did it stop eating recently? You seen poops in enclosure? Like some asked whats its temps, humidity, etc? If it has not been eating all month it might not have anything to poop. When you gently run the palm of your hands over the length of the snake can you feel any bumps or anything in it?
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Thank you everyone for all the replies! He is kept in a forty gallon with no substrate (before it was Aspen bedding, cleaned it all out as per vet recommendation). I soak him in a similar size bin with warm water just high enough for him to swin in and I try to massage his belly down to help move his blockage. He hasn’t gone to poop since I cleaned his enclosure which was about a month ago and he went off of food around the same time. Since then all I’ve cleaned were urine and urates but nothing solid. I can feel a bit of a lump as well in his bowel area that I’m almost 100% sure is causing him his issues.
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That’s a great idea I might give the oil a try (or rather ask my vet if they can do it for me).
Temps are around 80s almost constantly and humidity is around 40-50 percent. I’ve been spraying his tank constantly trying to get him rehydrated again.
Soaking is better than spraying to hydrate internally. Spraying is better to assist shedding. But if he’s already impacted from constipation even rehydration might not be able to help. You’ll probably need to manipulate it out and then keep hydration up to prevent future problems.
Handle the animal often especially after a warm soak since activity might help him poop. If nothing wirks and you still feel the blockage I’d say take to the vet…You don’t want old food in him rotting and causing him an infection of sorts.
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