Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ive had all racks switched over to shaved aspen in the last year because its easy to clean and allows for burrowing. The other day I checked on my 20" bloods and one was doing the drippy mouth gape. I checked his mouth only to find a ton of aspen wedged into his mouth like splinters. I do not feed in there enclosures and never have so the only thing i can think of is he yawned while burrowed and got a mouth full of small shavings. I cleaned out as much as possible two days ago and checked agian today and removed a few loose slivers. Looks like the puss is going away and he should be ok. But needless to say all my racks are back with newspaper.
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Ricky

lots of everything im not gonna list it

Ok, first and foremost, you could have easily preented this and still used aspen. Aspen is among the best of substrates for terrestrail snakes. There are 2 types of aspen: there is a shredded form, like you have, which is the bad kind and is in small peices, and the flake form. The flake form is the way to go and is the same as the Zoo Med snake aspen. The flake kind cannot get in the mouth or nostrils and is GREAT for snakes. Second, just feed all your snakes in a separate feeding box. It will prevent substate ingestion and teaches them that the opening of the cages does not mean food, and they wont expect food every time you open it. I suggest switch back to aspen, THE FLAKED KIND, and use a feeding box. Cheers and good luck with the snakes!