Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had a quick question...

When I thaw our my Rats/Mice for my Ball Pythons, I do however dry them as much as possible with a paper towel and then feed them to my snakes...

Sometimes a couple of strings of Aspen will get stuck to the mouse after contriction and Its Hard To Tell If The Snake Eats The Rodent With Aspen On It?!?!

If He/she eats the rodent with a small bit of aspen.... Is this dangerous or can cause imapction or digestion problems, or is this normal and they can digest the substrate fine??

Thanks for your Help!!!!!
www.AtlantaBeardedDragons.com

Generally not. Keep in mind that snakes ingest leaves and other materials when they eat in the wild. There are exceptions for baby snakes of smaller species, but I wouldnt worry about it with a ball python.
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1.0 Albino American alligator, "Smoke"
1.1 American alligator,"Al Bite Ya & Molly"
1.1 Purple Albino Reticulated Pythons, "Gumbo & Abita"
0.1 Eastern Gaboon Viper, "Gabbie" Recently passed away at 24 years old
Help me find this snake!

A couple pieces here and there won't hurt anything. Their stomach acids digest bone...a few wood shavings is nothing.
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

Great! Thanks for the reassurance.
www.AtlantaBeardedDragons.com

I don't know why anyone would use aspen or any other wood chip style subsrate for any snake. It's not a hampster.

bedding for almost all snakes that do not require high humidity. It lacks any harmful/toxic properties (unlike evergreen-derived beddings like cedar), is great for spot-cleaning, and, as far as I can tell from using it with literally thousands of snakes over the last 25 years, completely harmless when ingested, I feed all of my large collection (several hundred snakes) on aspen with never a problem.

I started out keeping my snakes on newspaper, but aspen is so low-maintenance and convenient I would never go back. For some reason my incidence of egg-binding went down considerably after switching to aspen as well.

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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
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