Well in general, snakes are meant to eat larger prey items therefore having a very powerful stomach acid. If the piece of aspen is a small piece then no need to worry, if its a large piece then I would keep an eye out. Ruby, my boa has gotten some bedding on her rat and i just reach in and take it off. She is what I call puppy dog tame so it usually won't iritate her if I do it. Like they said earlier though, its best to feed on something like a piece of paper on in a seperate container if you want. Thats why I choose papertowels and news paper for smaller guys, they have a very hard time eating a whole piece of newspaper