Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So I posted earlier about a "sneezing snake" and after a little investigation I think I've determined the cause of the problem and thought you all might like to know. After asking around and talking to experienced corn snake owners they told me that they suspected that the Aspen bedding that I was using as a substrate had dust in it and that was the root of the sneezing. After removing the bedding I noticed that there was a considerable amount of dust that had settled to the bottom of that tank (where Lyell liked to dig around and sometimes chill for a while). I've put him in some plain old newspaper and his sneezes have stopped or gotten so light that I can't hear them anymore. Hopefully they're gone for good!

If this really is the cause is there anyone out there who can suggest a nice substrate that wont cause this problem but doesn't look like I own a snake who is very upset at current events? Or perhaps a way that I can remove the dust from the bedding? I'm a fan of the more natural looking substrates that he can dig around in. I like to think he prefers those as well. = )

Lizard Litter, which is made by ESU Reptile. It seems to work very well. It is supposed to be "Bacteria and Parasite free, easily digestible, nontoxic, ultra absorbent, and ideal for tropical, forest, and desert habitats." I don't know how true all of this is, but I still wouldn't feed on the bedding, even though it does say "easily digestible" as well as "nontoxic." So far, it seems to work pretty well. (I'm new at this too--- just got my corn about a week before Christmas 2003) Good Luck!!!
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***** Brandon *****

0.0.1 White's Tree Frog
1.0 Creamsicle Cornsnake
corn_snake_dude@yahoo.com

I've used aspen for over a year, and carefresh for a year before that. None of my snakes have been sneezing. Could be that you bought some particular dusty aspen maybe? I don't know what else to reccomend, Bark blends are bad (toxic) and probably as dusty as aspen, and CareFresh is a little dustier than aspen, but my snakes still had no problems with that either, I just quit using it because it's too expensive. Maybe your snake is hypersensative to dust, in which case I guess I would just use newspaper or paper towels. Not as natural, but maybe when the snake is older the aspen won't be a problem anymore.
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Dianne
AKA IcedGoddess
1.2 Cornsnakes
1.3 Cats
1.0 Pionus parrot
0.1 Child
IcedGoddess Creations
Castle Serpents

After reading the posts here, and Don's comments about pine being so dangerous, I switched from fir bark to aspen a few weeks ago. I'm not happy because my snakes are developing problems.

The worst is that my gopher has developed little pockets of clear fluid, pockets of infection in between her scales all along her body. I discovered it about 5 days ago. I've since put her on newspaper, given her a couple of hydrogen peroxide baths and some rub downs with snake oil or neosporin but she's losing scales right and left. She's in bad shape. If she doesn't start showing improvement in the next couple days, I'm going to put her on baytril. I'm really starting to worry that I'll lose her.

This is one of those situations where I have to say the best advice is, if it works for you, don't change it. Like that other saying...if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

>>So I posted earlier about a "sneezing snake" and after a I've been using aspen for a long long time.
Aspen is one of the most dust free "natural" substrates you can get.
I seriously doubt aspen shavings caused the problem.
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Remember, My posts are MY opinion only!
Jimmy (draybar)

I switched to newspaper for the last two weeks and the problem has cleared up. When I took the aspen out I noticed a LOT of dust on the bottom. I think that I might have gotten a bad batch of aspen shavings. I'm going to attempt to put him back on aspen sometime next week or so and keep a close eye on the amount of dust. I don't keeping him on newspaper, and I'm fairley certain that Lyell doesn't like it eighter. I'll let you all know how it goes if you're interested!