Quote Originally Posted by cchardwick View Post
Actually that was one of my biggest problems with aspen, I had a few snakes get a mouth full when trying to strike their prey. I switched over to Reptichip and never had that happen again, it's a coconut husk substrate that comes in a block that expands when wet. Because of that I would never go back to aspen.

Personally I would never try to force feed a snake anything, especially using tongs. It can be a traumatic experience for the snake, especially if you don't do it right, and that alone can make them go off of food.

I've also never had luck just leaving a dead rodent in the cage with my ball pythons, I usually use tongs and just hang it in front of the snake for about 30 seconds. If he doesn't eat I'll try again in a day or two with small snakes, or for bigger snakes try the next week. I feed my hatchlings twice a week and my larger snakes once a week.
Ye I shouldn't have done it but I didn't even need to stick it in it just ate it as soon as it was near and now it seems to be eating fine and for coco husk I was reading up so post other users made and they had bad experiences with their python swallowing cocohusk to I was thing if using those flooring I seen some people use it's like green and like a carpet basically is it good or no, also I'm going to leave my my mice on top of my rock hide so no aspen gets to it I'm just wondering if it will travel from one side to the other to get its food it fed well the second time took the food as soon also left it there and can I watch it eat or will it get stressed out?