BP missed strike and got stuck in carpet

Hi everyone. I just got my guy George 6 days ago. He hadn't eaten since 01/29, and he's a young about 5 months old. I decided to try a first feed with him, figuring he'll either take it or he won't. So I attempted a f/t, as I didn't want to change his diet and make that prolong his fast. So I had the f/t on the tongs and he went to strike inmediately, without hesitating. He missed, however, as the tongs didn't have enough grip on the rat. He ended up biting the carpet of his habitat, with the rat coiled up with him but not in his mouth. He then started to thrash as if he was stuck or maybe he thought he had the rat in his mouth. I'm not sure.

His thrashing allowed me to tong the rat again and move it . He let go of the carpet once he saw the rat, but now he won't strike again. He's just staring at it on the ground. I'm worried that he may have hurt himself strike the carpet, or that now he's too stressed out to eat.

I'm worried this will make him hard to feed next week when I try again. Thoughts?

I'd do away with the carpet you can use newspaper,paper towels as a substrate. Some other good substrates include shredded aspen, cypress mulch, Sani chips give him a week he should be fine

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Originally Posted by dwilliams

I'd do away with the carpet you can use newspaper,paper towels as a substrate. Some other good substrates include shredded aspen, cypress mulch, Sani chips give him a week he should be fine

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I had the Aspen for a bit but a friend who owns quite a few reptiles advised getting the carpet. I'm not much of a fan of it myself. I'll probably do a switch at the end of the month. I was actually able to get him to eat. I took the old rat put once he retreated to his hide, but I noticed he kept coming out and flicking his tongue like he was looking for food. So I decided, what the hell, I'll try one more. He went after the second with very little prompting. Again though, his first strike hit the carpet. I don't like the idea of him getting caught like that.

Ditch the carpet. :)

I tried it way back when. I quickly realized that it sucked. :mad:

Plus, IF substrate is going to be ingested, I'd rather it be organic than plastic.

There's better stuff for our snakes.

Also if it is in a tank, good luck with humidity! And you need a duplicate piece to replace the nasty one while cleaning and drying.

Yeah, ditch the carpet! I don't know any good keepers here who have a ton of ball pythons who use carpet. :s Only bad things to say about it.
He was probably thrashing due to being stuck on the carpet.

Aspen, paper towels, or newspaper as substrate..

Many years ago, I tried carpet as a substrate. Very briefly... basically until the first time it got peed on, and I realized that the pee spreads all over the place just like it would with paper towels, only the carpet is then really messy and difficult to clean. At the time I was of hoping to find something with the convenience of paper towels, but re-usable. I think I even used a sheet at one point. But eventually I decided that while it may be more environmentally sensitive to use something you can wash and re-use, it's much easier and involves you in less laundering of snake pee to just use something disposable. :P

Reptichip! But yeah carpet kinda sucks


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