Woo hoo! Greatest news @shadowspiderjack! So glad she is in great shape too! You may need to revamp your method of feeding her going forward? 
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She also weighed in at aeound 480g. Shes quite a big girl lol. Ill probably change her substrate to avoid this in the future. I might also try and get an apprenticeship at that vet so i can get some more experience myself! The last college I applied to decided to remove the course entirely. Once I get back home ill make sure to give Ember a nice bath!
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Sounds like you’ve got the best possible outcome out of all of this! I’ve seen bedding issues with breeding males before (it can get stuck on the hemipenes and retracted back in with them, causing irritation/infection) so I’m not entirely surprised. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the particle size of the bedding that’s the issue. I have used Aspen Bed, but I ended up switching to Premium Horse Bedding from the same company (both are made by American Excelsior Company). The only difference in the products is the fiber size, you might think of trying the same if you can find the stuff. Just make sure if you get the horse bedding, it’s from the proper company OR is a 100% Aspen product.
Edit: I should also mention, if the bedding was intact in the vent area and not soggy, it likely wasn’t ingested. When snakes pass waste, the anal plate lifts and the tissues of the area are temporarily exposed, and the bedding can stick to the tissue and get pulled in & stuck, much like the hemipene issue I noted.
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Yeah ive heard of that issue in males. Also from what I saw the bedding wasnt soggy so I guess it wasnt diguested but must have just gotten stup up there then.
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That’s one of the issues with something like a wood fiber bedding. Smaller pieces can get stuck to mucous membranes and cause issues. Usually snakes can pass wood fiber from the digestive system easily, as the wood swells & softens when exposed to moisture. However when dry fibers get stuck to delicate tissues such as the cloaca, it’s much easier for them to cause damage, because they’re sharp. The ability of wood to absorb moisture is also what makes pieces hard for the animal or a caretaker to remove on their own, sticks quite well.
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Deiced to get a few more pics of pebbles and bambam.
Since pebbles has now had 2 sheds are they showing any signs of being RF or is it still a bit too early to tell?
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That’s awesome news! Glad nothing serious for ya! My corns, kings, and pines also did prefer aspen bedding. But the only time I had mites was after I bought a bag of aspen at a reptile pet store, so I switched to paper towels for the treatment of course and after just kept them on paper. My ball pythons used to be on cypress, but they did occasionally get some stuck in the mouth when trying to eat and a male did get one stuck and caused a prolapse with 1 hemi so I decided to put them on paper too. I have been substrate free for years now. Not as nice looking, and I do have to spray water for bp shedding but no issues with substrate anymore!
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It probably helps a lot with cleaning not having any bedding. Ill still check over embers enclosure just incase she bleeds again. Hopefully shouldn’t be the case though since the vet managed to remove the bedding that was stuck and told me to give her a daily bath for a week to help remove anything that might be stuck.
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Wow, so many positive things going on today! Very glad that you were able to get Ember seen and treated. She shouldn’t have any long term issues from that. It’s good that you’re keeping her on paper towels until she has healed. She won’t pick up any further irritants that way.
Where/on what is she being fed? Some feed corns in a separate bin. Most corns do fine with it, though not all species are suitable for feeding this way. Some feed in the normal enclosure but with a barrier between the prey and the bedding such as newspaper, cardboard, a plate.
This helps prevent ingestion of substrate.
I think you’re into something, @noodlehaus. I do use the fine aspen with hatchlings but only for the first few months. After that I switch to larger aspen shavings. I get the big bags from the farm supply store, right by the horse bedding.
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Shes fed in her enclosure in aspen as the bedding. I dont tend to move any of my snakes to a seperate enclosure or bin for feeding.
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Good to see nice pics of growing babies. Pebbles is really beautiful. I love her tesselated markings! Bambam is adorsble, as always.
Great question. RF can begin to show quite early but I am always hesitant to call it so soon. I personally find it challenging to determine if an Amel baby is RF. Belly pics may help, but it may just be too soon. @solarserpents, what do you think?
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Pebbles also only has belly checkers around the neck due to being a tessera. I think its quite cute!
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Tessera bellies have such crazily varied possibilities! They’re fun.
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I don’t think I’m seeing red factor, but it can be pretty hard to tell at such a young age, and with tessera, and with only two hatchlings. It’s easier when there are a bunch that you can compare. I also look at belly checkers to help determine red factor, but the red that creeps in does take a while to show itself. I just took this picture the other day of my yearling red factor amel (not tessera though) to show someone what the red factor looks like in the checkers.
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That looks pretty similar to the sunglow amel I have in my collection. Ill make sure to get a picture of his belly tomorrow.
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Ill be feeding both pebbles and bambam today! Ill try just a regular warmed pinky for pebbles and maybe the same for bambam. They happily ate the tail when it was in their mouth which was from a regular mouse so its worth a try going back to step 1!
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Definitely a great example of a sunglow! And could be red factor too, I wouldn’t be surprised.
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I might try and breed him to my normal next breeding season then. That would be the best way to tell!
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Just offered them both food. Pebbles is still a bit too shy to eat in front of me but when I was putting bambam into the smaller tub I saw that pebbles was already eating. Hopefully bambam starts eating too!
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