• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Will changing substrate stress my snake out

jnky

jnky

New member
As most of you know I got my snake 4 days ago and bought a complete setup which included crushed maize substrate. After joining this forum I quickly realised that I preferably needed to be using Aspen.
I ran down to the pet store which had to order me some, which is in now.

My question is :- will the substrate change stress my snake out and will I have to give her some more time to adjust ?
Also should I feed her before I change the substrate she ate 1 pinky 5 days ago and is about 16" long and roughly 15mm in diameter
(I havent fed her yet but she looks like she should be on fuzzy's anyways)
Or will none of the above bother her at all ?
 
I use paper towels as a substrate, so I change it pretty often :crazy02:
Just change it and don't worry too much, corns aren't as fragile to setup changes as some snakes. Put snake back to tank and feed her 2/3 days later.
This can be important if you have hatchling that hasn't eaten 1st meal yet ( I got one, was refusing to eat for 3 months ), but if snakes eats and grows I assume substrate change won't be too big for her.
 
any change in a cage will cause the snake to be more active in checking out the new smells/textures etc. Even cleaning of a cage and making no changes will notably increase the tongue flick rate once the snake is returned to the cage.

I assume you are not feeding in the cage as you want to avoid ingestion of substrate with the food. What I would do is change the substrate while the snake is in the feeding tub, and then when you put her back into her cage after eating it will be on the new aspen. For her it will be a bit like being put into a new cage. Then just leave her alone for a few days to adjust to the new surroundings and to digest her meal. Make sure the cage is not in a high traffic area, or where it will get affected by lots of vibrations from noise or equipment.

If you are very concerned about doing both at once, then do as sojkas suggests and change the substrate and feed her 2-3 days later.
 
I'm with Skye on this one; simply change the substrate while you're feeding the snake, and let it be for a few days. Corns are more resilient than we give them credit for - and the added benefit of changing to the aspen over the corncob pellets will be to allow your snake to burrow into the substrate while it digests its meal.
regards,
jazz
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top