Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For the second time I have just had to remove bedding from my blood pythons mouth, I came back from vacation to find that my male Sumatrans mouth looked funny after checking it out he had a good amount of coco mulch stuck in his gum line which was making his mouth swell and inflamed, this happened before when they were on aspen so i switched them to newspaper. Does anyone else have this kind of problem with their Bloods? Should I just put them on AstroTurf or something? Is they're any reason they keep ingesting substrate. It doesn't seem Like he has a R.I. Infection, and I don't think he has mouth rot just some inflammation due to the substrate.
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Ricky

If kept on any kind of particulate bedding, pretty much any snake will ingest a little bit of substrate. However, if your snake is well-hydrated, coco fiber shouldn't pose any problems to a blood python.

I have found that if you use a fiber type substrate it will build up in the lips (especially the corner of the mouth) as the snake tries to burry itself in the substrate. I too had to remove it periodically with a q-tip.
If you can keep the humidity up with just newspaper as a substrate, that is best. I ended up using coco chips for subrate because they still hold moisture but are too big to get stuck in the lip area. Problem was solved.
Nick

Ok thats good to know I'm not the only one that has had that problem with a blood. I figured it happend when they were burrowing I'll try out some larger chips.
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Ricky