Aspen bedding in snakes mouth?

[cchardwick]

So my ball pythons are getting a bit bigger, they are in an ARS rack system, and I'm finding that some of them are getting aspen bedding in their mouths when they try to eat mice. Some haven't eaten the mouse when I open up the tray just a little while after feeding and they have a mouth full of aspen bedding! Tonight I actually had to pick one up and take a big flake of bedding out of his mouth, he wasn't happy about that. I've had others that are trying to get the bedding out by yawning, with the poor FK mouse sitting right next to the snake waiting to be eaten. I'm thinking that this substrate is not very good for ball pythons, seems to be working just fine for my king snakes... Any suggestions on moving to another type of bedding? Looking for something cost effective. I tried a cypress mulch but it started stinking real bad, not sure where I can get a clean supply, and not sure if that's much better... I like the idea of using just paper but not sure how to keep the humidity up since we live in a very low humidity climate? Obviously taking all 17 snakes out to eat in separate containers is not an option LOL. I have a 20 tray rack system, it's a combo of an ARS 7030 and ARS 8018, so I need quite a bit of bedding on a regular basis to fill all these tubs.