So I have a female sand boa and when she was 10g all the way to 25g I used to take her out of her tank to feed her, but now I’ve been feeding her in her tank (she’s over 40g now). When she pokes her head out for her f\t mouse she takes it and drags it under the substrate to eat it, could she swallow the substrate? She’s on shredded coco husk.
any animal has the potential of getting impacted, with that said sand boas were designed for this sort of behavior. I always fed mine in their enclosures that had sand/calcisand/shredded aspen etc and they never gave me a problem.
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Healthy animals very rarely get impacted, especially when kept on suitable substrate. I would move to a finer substrate myself, the coco husk certainly poses a higher risk than Lignocel or similarly fine substrates given the feeding behaviour of sand boas. I wouldn’t be too concerned but monitor the situation and if in doubt seek veterinary advice…
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Is the rodent dry or wet?
A dry rodent shouldn’t pick up much substrate whilst being eaten.
A wet one however would be bad news.
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I dry the rodents off after I thaw them out. I’m not sure what the substrates called, I’ll try and find the name.