Hides and substrate help...

In my racks I was using cardboard sheets that I folded into hides for a while, but then I realized that most of my ball pythons werent even using them. They would just push them aside or curl up right in front of them. So I took the "hides" out and they have been out for about a week now and everybody has eaten and I have had no problems. So are hides really a neccessity in racks? I can understand using them in aquariums, but they seem kind of useless in racks. But what are your opinions? Also what substrate do you use? I use aspen shavings because I can buy it in bulk, but its a pain in the rear to clean. I am thinking about using paper towels, but once again what is your opinions?

Hides aren't necessary in racks unless you have a particularly picky snake. Some of mine have hides and some don't, it all depends on the snake. I use newspaper. 100 times easier than aspen.

I would recommend paper towels, easy to clean very cheap, I am not an expert but I believe Hides aren't necessary in racks unless you've got a BP not eating then you would provide a hide, but I'm no expert.

I put hides in most of my bins, they all make use of them, and it appears they are happier with them then without. Although it takes up a lot of space. I also solely use newspaper as substrate.

I don't get how using liners is easier than shavings? You can't really spot clean with liners, so you end up taking everything out and replacing it, where as with wood shavings you can just scoop out the dirty area and throw it away.

I use 2 hides/tub and kiln-dried pine shavings for my corns. They use both hides.

What about the ink in newpaper? Could that have any sort of danger?

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Originally Posted by californiakingsnake

What about the ink in newpaper? Could that have any sort of danger?

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No. Everybody uses it. (except me, lol)

haha alright

I just recently switched from news paper to substrate and i am a much happier keeper. i used newspaper for a long time because it was free and it WAS easy. But i one day cleaning i realized i am changing the entire substrate in every tub EVERY time their dirtied. Same thing with paper towels which i liked better because it looked cleaner but had i had the same hard time justifying it as i did with the newspaper. I have been using Repti-Bark for the past month and i love it. I got a smaller scoop and spot clean, now cleaning takes me a third of the time. I don't know why i haven't been using substrate the whole time. i was going through ridiculous amounts of newspaper which also created a ridiculous amount of garbage. Its cheap, i buy in bulk but i just saw it at Petco for like 10 bucks for 10 Quart bag. And because your spot cleaning you don't have to change it as often just add a scoop or two when your spot clean i go through about 50 quarts every couple months. So my vote definetly goes to substrate and peculiarly Repti-Bark it holds humidity very well and looks really nice, clean.