Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've had my burm for about a yeah and half now. She is 9ft long, she sheds in one piece, temps are perfect, she eats without any problems, humidity is perfect.

I'm worried about her eating in the pine shavings. I noticed that when she was opening her mouth, to readjust her jaw after feeding, that she had some pine shavings in her mouth. Is that safe for her to injest?

How do I fix this problem without taking her out of her cage to eat if it is a real problem.

Thanks in advance.

Well, we are back to the ol' pine shaving thing again...lol. As far as the pine goes, many in here will advise pine is the evil to end all evils. I don't use pine anymore, but when I did I personally had no problems, but others have. I use cypress and aspen now.

Anyway, back to the question at hand. When I did use pine, my burm would always ingest some of the shavings but would spit most of them out. I can even remember reaching in her mouth and carefully removing some at one time, however, this is a VERY trusting burm and I wouldn't do it to any of my other burms and they are all very docile.

I kept her on pine from the time she was about 6' until she was 15+'. I watered her, fed her and kept her full time in there.

She has never had a problem and as long as its not a big mouthful, I wouldn't be to concerned.

That's why I prefer newspaper. Ingesting small pieces probably won't hurt, however, big splinters can cause all kinds of problems (even death). Plus, the smaller pieces can get caught in the gumline of the mouth causing infection and I have treated many burms whose owners kept them on various types of wood shavings. Some burms are also prone to resp. ailments from the dust they inhale caused by the shavings. Personally, I would ditch the shavings and go with paper. But, if you insist on shavings, I would just cover the top layer with newspaper and feed the snake on top and once h/she's done, take the paper off. Hope this helps. Rob Carmichael

Rob's right, if chips get lodged in the gumline, or worse swallowed, they can truely cause problems none of us want. I used newspaper with my Ball Pythons for years. It's a much easier clean than all the rest. My preference is indoor/outdoor carpet. For cleaning,I replace the soiled one with a clean one and just run them through the wash. I don't have a large collection, so it's a pretty easy task.