Blue Tongue Ate a Wood Chip

[zarbidac]

Hello, I have forest floor bedding, and I just saw my blue tongue eating a wood chip, and he seems to have ingested it, I wasn't able to get to him quick enough. Why would he do this? I fed him yesterday, and this one piece he seemed to have picked up as if it were food. There was no actual food near it. Should I be worried, will he be able to pass it? How do I get him to not eat them at all, should I change the substrate? They are rather large pieces of wood chips. He is about 9 months old and a northern.

[splashy07]

It more than likely will not be a problem, I've seen it so many times that I now place mats under their food bowls to prevent them dropping food into the substrate, but it still happens. I've seen many instances where they wipe their mouth off on whatever after eating, and a piece of wood that has been scented with food .... well, you know what happens next. With some of the foods they consume in the wild I think they could digest a brick.
If he shows any signs of being uncomfortable, stops eating, becomes bound up, etc I'd then seek professional advice.
One of my eastern females who'd eat all day if you let her tried to eat a painted on decoration on a ceramic log and screwed up her mouth for about a month. I had to place that piece of furniture in another's cage who is not as adventurous.

[zarbidac]

Thank you! That makes me feel better. Until very recently, he had a small bowl to eat from, and on the occasion I fed him raspberries, he would drag them around on the ground, so I think that may be why. I recently got him a shallow large dish to eat from and he hasn't dragged anything out, so I'm hoping this will solve the issue.

[40colby]

I saw a post on the BTS care page under the heading "Letting your bluey roam" with a picture of a small camera strap that a blue tongue ate when it escaped under that persons couch. She had no idea it was missing until the skink passed it when it went to the bathroom. The skink was fine afterwards. The only thing I'd add is that the bark may have jagged edges which could cause some cuts and bleeding in the bowels? I'm not a doctor, but just a guess of a worst case scenario. This happened to my skink a couple of years ago when I tried him out on a new dog food and within a week he's pooping blood. I stopped that new dog food and it cleared up in a week or two. My guess is that the new dog food (which was billed as being more natural to the point you could see the pieces of chicken and veggies through the plastic container) was probably not processed as fine as the regular food I've been using and had a small piece of bone that cut my skink on the way through. He's been fine in that respect ever since. Hope that helps.

[splashy07]

Just another reason for my distaste of the free roaming situations.