Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my Eastern has a clogged nose and he's coming up on a shed. sometimes i see him opening his mouth to get air. he's doing fine otherwise. he ate a big fuzzy last night. i have him on aspen. should i put him on a different substrate or will he be okay? is there anything i can do to help him? thanks!

greg

Generally any sign of repiratory distress in not a good thing. In my limited experience it almost always requires veterinary intervention but it could be environmental. One thing I took to long ago was to give my animals something to hide in even if they are in a sweater box with deep shavings. Some breeders seem to feel the shavings themselves provide shelter however I feel that alternate cover keeps them from borrowing too much and lessens exposure to the fine particals of bedding found in the lower layers that I imagine could irritate an animals repiratory system.