So we changed the substrate...

and we look at Zoey's tank to see this:

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z...r/DSC00980.jpg

just a little peek...
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z...r/DSC00997.jpg

Yes it's carefresh, but we thoroughly dusted it out and checked her [and our male even though he wasn't under his substrate] every day for a week to check for signs of an RI and that was about two weeks ago and they're both still breathing well.

Man, thats alot of substrate. I would get real sick of changing all of that and of buying all that bedding. Another thing is you should have two identical hides on each side. The reason they are burrowing is because they dont have a hide on that side, and their trying to cool/heat themselves on that side.

Is there a reason you use carefresh over say aspen, papertowles, contractors paper, newspaper or the industrial paper towels? I've never used carefresh but yes I have heard of it being dusty. Just keep checking on them consistently. Herps, especially snakes, will keep from showing symptoms until the infection or whatever illness is pretty far set it. It takes a real keen eye to spot anything before, and usually it really is impossible.

You know I often wondered about carefresh, could this be ok to use as a steady substrate? I just bought a bunch of aspen at the Havre de Grace, Maryland show this past weekend. Is there a way to get the dust out of the Carefresh......Hmmmmmm. Please keep us updated on how you make out. :cool:

We don't normally use carefresh. We usually use desert snow, but we had a late night bug emergency in our male's tank and the pet store was out of desert snow so we just grabbed carefresh. We plan on switching back soon. But didn't want to just waste the carefresh. We just used carefresh because it's easy to clean and see where they messed. And the pet store was out of just about any good brands of anything else we use. Also, that's only one small/medium-ish bag of carefresh per tank. Carefresh puffs up A LOT.

We had them both in bigger tanks before but they never moved from their one preferred hide ever so when we moved and had to unfortunately downsize their tanks, we just eliminated the other hide they never used and put in bigger water bowls since they both like to swim. She was only under there for two nights and then moved back to her hide and hasn't gotten under the carefresh since and that was about two weeks ago, maybe two and half weeks ago. The days are starting to blur together lately... lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Delco Baller

You know I often wondered about carefresh, could this be ok to use as a steady substrate? I just bought a bunch of aspen at the Havre de Grace, Maryland show this past weekend. Is there a way to get the dust out of the Carefresh......Hmmmmmm. Please keep us updated on how you make out. :cool:

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When we use carefresh, to dust it out, we move the tank out of the room it's kept in and either I hold the snake, or my boyfriend holds the snake and the other turns a fan to blow into the tank and then we spend about an hour shaking and agitating the carefresh until we're satisfied with the amount of dust that's flown out and covered our hand/arm/clothes/blankets we do this on/anything around. We trade off dusting and holding snakes when our arms get tired. Then we let the tank sit for about 10 minutes, then we shake it again with the fan on it and if any dust comes up, we shake it for as long as it takes to get the dust out until we're satisfied that we've dusted it.