Problem with Aspen, anyone else????

[Kaorte]

Not quite. They can swallow paper towels. Believe me. A few years ago I caught one of my hatchling het clown females with about 90% of a sheet down. Got to her just before she finished the last little bit. I have also seen a green tree python hatching die from swallowing a paper towel.

I actually had a nightmare that my snake was eating paper towel. Strange!

I have never actually heard of a ball python eat paper towels. usually they are smart enough to let go...maybe not!

[WingedWolfPsion]

Second that--I 'rescued' a paper towel from the throat of a hatchling ball python as well, he had about a third of it down. They can be a good substrate, but you have to WATCH it. I wouldn't call it safe.

[Kaorte]

Second that--I 'rescued' a paper towel from the throat of a hatchling ball python as well, he had about a third of it down. They can be a good substrate, but you have to WATCH it. I wouldn't call it safe.

Driving in a car isn't always "safe" but that doesn't keep us from driving cars

Nothing is completely "safe" but sometimes, the benefits outweigh the risks.

[Twisted Reptiles]

We switched to shredded aspen about 6 months ago. Since then we've had 3 different snakes develop RI's. We've switched back to paper and will not to aspen again. Is it the primary cause? I can't say for sure. But we never had problems before the switch and it was very finely shaved and I'm convinced was a contributor to these RI's. If it is the aspen, I'm sure its a result of how this particular brand we buy is produced. I'll be even more convinced when its been a few months and we don't have any more instances of RIs (PLEASE!).

[Skiploder]

Been feeding snakes on shredded wood substrate for along time. No RIs and I've seen a lot of wood ingested, yet had zero problems.

It's one of the fantabulous forum conventional wisdom tidbits that holds almost no water - the dreaded gut impaction from ingestion of substrate.

Everyone casts dire warnings about it and makes a big fuss, yet no one has ever really documented or had an issue with it. Even vets rarely (if ever) see it.