i personally feed my snakes(23), in their cages, i feel it stresses the animal into not eating, especially the ones that rely (in my opionion) on motion to catch their prey, like my water pythons, macklott pythons, olive pythons, white lipped python and my indian python, i use aspen bedding and have not had any problems with it as far as impaction or any other problems, also with the amount of snakes as well as the limited amount of space i am working with i feel it is safer for both the snake and myself, but i could be wrong, lol