Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Eas some of it when they are eating their mouse?

Yes, it might. Depending on the snake, I either feed them out of their cage or on a piece of cardboard in their cage.
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Eryx - All the fun of a boa in a convient pocket size!

I've been using aspen bedding since 1977, when Dr. Glenn Slemmer came and made a presentation to the Herp Department at the Dallas Zoo and told us about the stuff. I'm sure I've used several semi-truck loads of the stuff and I've kept dozens and dozens of species on aspen, thousands of snakes.

Now it might be possible for a snake to somehow ingest aspen so that it is harmful, but over the years I've seen snakes eat handfuls of the stuff and I've never seen a single problem result.

Aspen itself is so innocuous that the sawdust byproduct is used as "inert filler" in cheap pet foods, or so I've been told by a saleman of the American Excelsior Corporation--the people who create and market the stuff.

There are snakes that don't do well on aspen. Young Burmese pythons, for example, often push in the corners of their cages and cram aspen into the cormers of their mouths. No biggie--just pull the aspen out with tweezers or a toothpick, and then change the substrate for that particular snake to something else. But most snakes (and most ball pythons)will do great on aspen.

We feed snakes on aspen (and "in aspen," in the case of our sandboas) and we don't worry about them consuming some along with dinner.

Each week I rplace with new news paper. Do replace each week?
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RicK @ BbI

Ball Boutique,Inc.
The home of the singing snakes!

Why would he replace aspen every week? You replace the substrate as needed, not on some weird-a$$ pre-determined schedule. If its dirty in 2 days, replace it in 2 days. If there's no "action" for 2 weeks, then don't replace it for 2 weeks. Its called observing your animals and acting accordingly. Forumals suck for animal-keeping.

I keep 95% of my Ball Pythons on Aspen bedding. I have also adopted the rule of cleaning the substrate whenever the animal defecates or urinates in the enclosure. All of my animals enclosures are inspected daily for these "natural" occurring things. They all seem to be very happy with it and it sure beats the weekly breakdown of EVERY single unit.

Bryan Kollwitz

219 743 3337