• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Fingers Crossed!

S

Sierra0101

New member
Joined
Apr 17, 2012
Messages
384
Reaction score
4
Points
0
Location
Ellenville NY USA
I am keeping my fingers crossed in hopes that my accidental breeding ends in a success.

I have a normal female 100% Het Sharp. Back in November, she a Jungle male I used to have before he died of unknown causes escaped from their cages somehow and I found them the next morning locked up. I was not intending to breed this female as I weighed her and she was less than 7.5 lbs back then.

I weigh each of my animals on the first week of each month for records and on December 1, 2012 she was 7.32 lbs. Since then, she has eaten twice (medium rats) and I weighed her earlier this morning and she is now 8.64 lbs EMPTY.

Now, either she is brewing up some babies to continue on my Jungle's family tree or she magically and unexplainably gained over a pound in the last month.

I have some pictures of her if anybody is interested but I can't post them because I am on my tablet. If anyone would care to see, please email me and I can send some photos and you can post them up. Any opinions also?
 
Not to be a prick, but I think that maybe you should iron out your practices before putting too much thought into bringing a bunch of offspring into the same picture. Pine substrate; a death from "unknown causes", which was quite possibly due to the pine substrate; multiple escapees at one time: these aren't exactly good signs. Everyone seems to want to be the next big breeder. Seems that an alarming amount of them are jumping in half-cocked.
 
I only had one snake on pine and that's because she didn't do well on newspaper, but she's back on newspaper now and doing fine. His death was more than likely caused by ingesting substrate. That's why I got her off of it to prevent that from happening again. I took the female to a vet just to be safe and she is fine.

It was feeding night the night they escaped and I had a friend do the feedings since I was sick and she didn't close them up properly. That was the only escape incident I've had in the entire time I've owned snakes.

I don't take offence to your comment. I don't think you are a prick. Advice is always welcomed. Thank you.
 
Dan,

Thoughts on rodents on pine being fed to snakes? I know a TON of rodent breeders use pine (obviously getting pine/resin etc on the rodents). Would you recommend a washing of the rodents before feed to prevent any potential issue? I've been thinking about this recently, what your OP. I'd think the majority of the issue is minimal, but still should be a cause of concern?
 
Thomas,
I breed my own rodents for my snakes and they are kept on pine. I've been breeding rodents and keeping snakes for years and the rodents have always been kept on pine shavings and I've never had an issue feeding them to my animals.
 
I do know that cedar is toxic to snakes and I know a person who used to keep their rodents on it and had a few snakes die. It took until the 5th snake died for him to do research and have necropsies done to realize it was from feeding the snakes rodents who had traces of cedar on them. It wasn't as soon as he fed the snakes. I guess it built up and eventually proved to be fatal. This was all before I knew him or I would have told him that that was a very bad idea.
 
Although I've known that pine=bad for a long time, that aspect is something I've never really any thought into. I have to assume that I've fed countless feeders that were raised on pine. As far as I know, I've never suffered any consequences from it. For safety's sake, I'd think that those who breed their own rodents should avoid using pine, no matter how cost-effective it may be. For those who consistently get their feeders from the same supplier, it'd probably be worth the time to find out what substrate the breeders use.

If you know for a fact that they use pine, it probably wouldn't hurt to take steps to counteract any possible toxic contamination from the pine oil, no matter how negligible it may be. After all, removing variables is part of our job as reptile keepers. That may end up being a big pain in the ass for those who go through hundreds of feeders a week, though. Thanks for bringing it up. As I said, for some reason, it never really entered my mind before. Ostensibly, since snakes are dying left and right, it'd seem that it's not particularly dangerous. But it's definitely something to be aware of.
 
Pine bedding is usually kiln dried, so it makes it safe, from what i have read. Please feel free to correct me, if otherwise. I am not googling it at this very moment. I keep my mice on aspen with colored bits of soft cottony bedding.
 
hi i herd that yall dont keep mice on pine.. is there any negetive side affects of keeping them on clay kitty litter?
 
The pine bedding I use is kiln-dried. It's not as cheap as regular pine, but it's worth it to take one step closer to keeping your animals safe, even if it's just the feeders being kept on it.
 
Mooing Tricycle said:
Pine bedding is usually kiln dried, so it makes it safe, from what i have read.
Click to expand...
I think kiln-drying is most effective at removing water. If you can still detect that pine smell afterwards, the aromatic oils are still present. One analogy I can think of is this: Picture a dry stretch of roadway. It doesn't appear that there's any oil on the surface. However, after a bit of rain you can clearly see rainbow effect of the dried oil that was on the surface.
 
It was something I randomly thought of knowing that specific substrates are bad for our herps. I agree that those types of variables need to be eliminated or controlled to insure healthy animals! Hopefully this is food for thought for people that again, may not have specifically thought of this scenario. Thanks for all the responses. Gave me some things to think about.
 
From this...
Sierra0101 said:
I am keeping my fingers crossed in hopes that my accidental breeding ends in a success....

...escaped from their cages somehow....
Click to expand...
...to this.
Sierra0101 said:
It was feeding night the night they escaped and I had a friend do the feedings since I was sick and she didn't close them up properly.
Click to expand...
Interesting how that indefinite "somehow" was quickly explained away in much more definite terms, when I brought it up. I think I also have to call :icon_bs: on the idea that there was anything "accidental" about the breeding attempt. After all, if someone were to click This Link, they'd see posts that depict someone that appears to be in an all-fired rush to breed. They'd also see you admitting to intentionally putting your jungle with a female (this one, methinks), shortly after receiving him (no quarantine?), supposedly just "to see if they got along".

As I dislike infractions, I'm trying not to touch too heavily on your well-documented lack of honesty or credibility, while simply trying to point out that you seem to be getting seriously ahead of yourself. Especially if I'm correct in my belief that you put an animal at risk by intentionally breeding a female that you obviously believe may be on the small side. As was pointed out in your "wife's" thread, it might be wise to slow down and think things over. If not for your own sense of legitimacy; maybe for the sake of the animals. Their well-being should come before profit. There may not be any single right way to do things; but there are definitely wrong ways, and I have to say that you seem to gravitate in that direction.
 
Pine can be deadly, is it always? Maybe not, but to me it's not worth the risk, why not just use Aspen or Cypress, works just as good, safe and cypress is great at holding humidity.
 
I do not have a wife. We had planned on getting married but that never happened. We are no longer together. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't bring that up again because it is personal.

It was not intentional. I would never EVER try to breed my animals before they were ready & I don't appreciate the accusation.

To clarify..It was feeding night. I was sick. I had a friend do feedings because of this. I was not there. Just because I know how they escaped (not closing up properly) does not mean I know HOW they got out.

To clarify the other situation about the ball pythons..the Banded male was in quarantine at another friends facility that I frequented often. I purchased the male, and brought him home and after him being in quarantine for 4 months, I didn't think it was necessary to repeat the process.

It seems you are so quick to jump to conclusions without hearing the whole story first. Its okay though. I have "grown up" and can keep my anger controlled now.
 
I remember when that happened, you did tell us it was your wife, not fiance, why lie about something like that?

And wasn't that banded male first advertized as a pastel or a YB?
 
Re: Feeder substrate

I'm not 100% sure on mice and rats as I don't currently raise my own feeders, but I've owned guineas for the last six or so years and am familiar with some of the goings-on in the small animal world. Pine and cedar are generally avoided, and there is an ongoing debate around pine and it's effects on small animals (article list here).

Both CavyCages and the AFRMA have good lists of small animal substrates here and here if you're looking for alternative bedding options.

I started out using aspen and Carefresh with my guineas, and then switched to fleece a few years ago. It's super cost effective and the animals loved it, though it requires a little more maintenance. I'm not sure how well that set up would work for other rodents and it probably isn't a good option for anyone with a lot of feeders (or feeders in general), but it is an alternative if you want to avoid substrate entirely.
 
Back
Top