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Old 03-03-2007, 05:52 PM   #6
Jrgh17
Personally, I think it's simple numbers: There are hundreds of people who use aspen as substrate for their snakes, absolutely love it, and have never had a problem. There are two (that I know of) who say it can cause serious problems and should never be used.
If someone were able to show me a case in which a licensed vet performed an autopsy and found with 99.99% certainty that the animal's death was due to an impaction (in an animal which had been fed in an empty container since day 1 to show that the snake "licked up" the substrate), or a report of an aspen shaving getting caught in the cloaca causing infection/other damage, I would be willing to reconsider. In general though, I think snakes are too "well-built" to have such an hazardous natural flaw. Going along with what Droptines said, these animals have been around longer than humans have. In their natural environment, there's pieces of wood, bark, and rocks everywhere. It just sounds WAY too improbable without some sort of evidence.