Whenever my baby eats, she often ends up getting bits of her substrate in her mouth. The substrate is a concern for me because I don’t want her to get sick from it, but I’m also worried about accidentally hurting her while attempting to remove it. Can someone please provide me with some guidance on how to handle this situation?
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My best recommendation would be to not use Forest floor bedding 
. There’s just better options that would result in the same amount of humidity retention, but also stop the chance of substance attaching to the rodent. I recommend a brand of cocoa chip called Reptichip. Also make sure the prey item is dried off before feeding .
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It shouldn’t be an issue. The same thing happens in the wild. No need to worry.
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Do you mean eco earth?
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What do you mean dried off? also getting a different substrate isn’t an option for me as of right now.
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Oh, I was assuming it was from Petco. Where they call it Forest floor bedding.
Edit* Logan is right 
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So what you could do is use a paper towel to dry the rodent off. Wait, how are you thawing the rodent?
Also, the use of a feeding plate could help as well. And that would be just a plate or one of the snakes hides, flipped over after the animal initially strikes and coils
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I shall win this debate 
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I’ve never had any issues with them eating a small amount of substrate, but if you’re worried you can put down a paper plate or some cardboard and thaw the rat in a plastic bag so it stays dry
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she only eats live
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You did, I just checked it 
Thank you, Logan 
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Do you feed f/t? If so, you can try putting a plate or a piece of cardboard under her once she grabs the prey (or put the cardboard/plate down first and then dangle the feeder over it). Some snakes will eat wherever they strike, so that would give her a hard surface to eat on so substrate won’t stick to the feeder. It would be more challenging if she eats live, though you could still try maneuvering her over a hard surface once she’s constricting it.
Long-term, it might be easiest to just swap out for different substrate. If you use the large chunks of coco husk, those pieces are too big to stick to feeders or get swallowed accidentally.
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So after the rodent is dead, then I would recommend you use the plate method
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i cant do that
she kills it then eats it
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Yes, but you can pick her up while she’s still coiled after the rat is dead. She will not let go if you do it fast and gently.
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If you don’t want to switch substrates to the chunks, then I guess just leave the situation as it is. I would be more worried about rodent injuries than I am about small amounts of substrate
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It shouldn’t make her sick to eat some unless it somehow gets stuck and built up in her mouth for a long time to where she can’t eat or it starts rotting.
If it looks like it’s causing a lot of discomfort over a long time - I had success getting some shed that was really stuck in my ball python’s teeth using one of those silicone tip “swab” things with a pointed tip. Just know that to get things out of a ball python’s mouth you have to push it in toward their throats first because of how their teeth hook onto stuff. And she’s really not going to like you doing this, so I’d recommend seeing if she can deal with it on her own first.
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she has a tendency to bite the glass after feeding (i always supervise the feedings) so i am very confident that she will bite me. I’ve had her 3 years and never once has she EVER bitten anybody. id prefer to keep it that way
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OK, then my best suggestion to you would just keep it the way it is. The small amount of substrate that she ingest is not going to cause an issue long-term if she’s not just getting constant amounts lodged and stuck.
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Put the plate down as she starts eating then take it out in the morning when she isn’t expecting more food
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