Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I thought i should say something in here too. Please help!!! any advice greatly appreciated.

I was taking a close look at my sidewinder when I noticed that the substrate that i have been using, crushed walnut, has become lodged into each of the two heat sensing pits. SO I checked out my mojave green and she has the same problem. Now what do you do to get these "boogers" out without spending a couple of days in the hospital??? Please help, thanks in advance

You can probably use the same technique that I use to take off eye caps on highly aggressive elapids (and other venomous herps). This same technique is used for administering meds and other things along those lines. I simply will tube the snake using the appropriate diameter and once restrained I will allow the snake to slowly make its way to the end until just the tip of the nose/head is protruding from the tube (while always having control with both tube and snake firmly in hand). If you have a second person, they can use long forcep/tweezers to extract the lodged substrate. The key is to work slowly, gently but be firm. We had to take some stuck eye caps off our king cobra last week and this technique worked flawlessly. I suppose a good head dunk in water might dislodge it but that could put a lot of undue stress on the animal (and a wet snake is not an easy thing to control).

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
Lake Forest, IL

>>I thought i should say something in here too. Please help!!! any advice greatly appreciated.
>>
>>I was taking a close look at my sidewinder when I noticed that the substrate that i have been using, crushed walnut, has become lodged into each of the two heat sensing pits. SO I checked out my mojave green and she has the same problem. Now what do you do to get these "boogers" out without spending a couple of days in the hospital??? Please help, thanks in advance
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

Good reason to stick with old-fashioned black & white newspaper for cage substrate!!

Scott Ballard

Absolutely Scott, I'll preach it again and again....newspaper is always the ultimate snake bedding (no matter if it is a desert dweller, tropical dweller and everything in between). In fact, I have often wondered what kind of response I would get if I just used paper for all of my public displays! Boy that sure would make life easy....maybe I'll try it. Rob

>>Good reason to stick with old-fashioned black & white newspaper for cage substrate!!
>>
>>Scott Ballard
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL