Question about substrate

I'm just wondering, could you put patches of hay or grass overtop of the soil in a ball python enclosure? I think it would be more natural to them, considering in the wild they like to roam in the tall grass.


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Suppose you could but that would be kind of a pain to clean if you ask me. I'm a minimalist and just keep my snakes on aspen with a couple hides, a large water bowl and they are very happy and tame. My snakes spend a lot of time outside the cages and I clean every month or 2 months at the latest so something like a naturalist cage would take me too long to clean too often. But I have seen some really awesome looking cage set ups as displays.

As for grass, are you talking about planting growing grass? Guess it could work. You could also look into putting live plants in pots in there too. I know I've seen guys do that with chameleons and bearded dragons as long as the plants aren't toxic but beardies like to nibble on plant leaves. Ball pythons are pretty quiet so all that would work but if I did something like that with my boa, she would destroy everything when she went hunting for food in the cage. She already pushes her hides all over, pulls down the cord for her rhp and light but luckily they are both bolted down. So for her, she would just flatten the grass and knock over and flatten the plants :)