Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello all.
my mexican black eats like a champ. there is one question i have, i have him with aspen shavings in his tank and feed him in there is this fine or should he be takkeing out? everyone i have talked to say its fine. but then again when i had my cornsnake a few yearsago, everyone told me to always take him out of him tank.
any help is great.
thanks
eric

You can feed him in the tank. Just lay the food item on a large papertowl, or somthing. If he still drags it off the towl, put down more to cover a greater floor space. Just depends on how large a snake we're talking about. You can also take him out and feed if you want. No harm in that, unless you have a ton of snakes, then that could become a pain.

Steve

The only problem I've heard of relating to feeding on a aspen shaving, sand, etc. substrate is the possibility for ingestion of the substrate. Also, this could possibly make the snake begin to think every time the vivarium is opened by you, it's feeding time, which could possibly trigger an aggressive action towards you, especially your pinky.

There are at least 2 good reasons to feed outside the tank. The first reason is to prevent your snake from accidentily ingesting some of the substrate. AThe paper towel idea mentioned above only reduces the chance of this.
The second reason to feed outside of the tank is so your snake does not begin to associate the lid coming off and a hand going into the tank with feeding time. The feeding response triggered by taking off the lid may cause the snake to bite you when you go to handle them.
I put my snakes into a rubbermaid container with the mouse already in it, and do not remove them for about 30 minutes after they have finished the meal.

Greg