Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I shot some pictures while Eddie was eating lunch in his new home. Normally he does not eat on substrate and I was pulling pieces of it out of his mouth with feeder tongs as he was eating. When he was done, he still had one piece on his lip and pushed it out with his tongue. Some of these are fuzzy, sorry. My Sony Cybershot can't stand up to Doug's Canon. ^_^

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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Black Cat (Shadowfax)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)
1.0 Tennessee Walking Horse (Durango)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

Holly,

Eddie sure looks happy in his new digs. And I mean "digs" literally, because aspen provides great opportunity for burrowing, which I'm sure that you know most snakes love.

I agree that feeding on substrate is not a good practice -- I hate hassling the snakes by trying to pick out pieces of stuff they shouldn't be swallowing. I use opaque empty plastic tubs as feeding "dens". It also lowers the chances that the snakes will mistake a hand moving in from above as approaching food items.

Good luck!

Tom

Actually, he burrowed better in his old tank, which has a mixture of ground coconut husk, sphagnum moss, peat moss, organic soil (don't laugh ), and orchid bark. He has quite an array of tunnels through the substrate in the old tank, but I'm not putting him back in there until he's a little bigger. Oh, and the substrate in the old tank is deep enough for the plants that are growing in it, roughly 4-5 inches deep, above the rock drainage layer.
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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Black Cat (Shadowfax)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)
1.0 Tennessee Walking Horse (Durango)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

Yeah Holly,....if you do as the other poster "Tom" suggested with lowering a fairly big plastic container into the enclosure with a prey item in it, you won't run the huge risk of it always swollowing a bunch of Aspen,......as I'm sure you already know, this can be quite a potentially serious thing for the snake.

Make sure the container is big enough, so that when the snake grabs the prey, it doesn't immediately pull it from the container, and will usually stay feeding within the container.

~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Normally, that's how I feed him, but I was actually in kind of a rush and didn't want to go through the process of "pick up Eddie, wash off snake pee, run Eddie gently through bathtowel, throw bathtowel into laundry basket, carry him to plastic tank, wash off musk, run Eddie gently through bathtowel, throw another bathtowel into laundry basket, put him in tank, thaw fuzzy, wait on fuzzy to thaw, feed Eddie, wait until mouse was at least halfway down his body, put him back in new home, wash musk out of plastic tank, double-check that new home lid is secure, double-check that thermostat in cage is working properly, then head to class" I cut out a few steps to save time, but it's not a normal practice at all.

He didn't end up ingesting any of the aspen, I watched him closely. ^_^
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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Black Cat (Shadowfax)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)
1.0 Tennessee Walking Horse (Durango)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

Holly,..from your very involved description, it's a good thing you don't have a huge collection, or your laundry chores, water bill, and electric bill would be ASTRONOMICAL!..LOL!(funnin' of course!)

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

n/p
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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Black Cat (Shadowfax)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)
1.0 Tennessee Walking Horse (Durango)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)