Substrate for Odor Control?

Anybody have a preferred substrate for odor control? My husband recently got a stinking goddess/keeled ratsnake/king ratsnake, and although he hasn't musked us, his enclosure has a definite pong that's unlike our other snakes, including another Old World ratsnake (Vietnamese blue beauty).

Currently he's on shredded aspen, but we have no objection to switching. I'm thinking indented kraft paper or another sheet substrate would at least be quicker and less messy to change frequently than the aspen.


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I have a coconut mulch/fiber substrate and it does amazing for humidity control and no smell at all for me


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Maybe try a planted bio-active environment?

I mix cypress mulch with the herptopia coco stuff.
The coco coir in general is really good, but the normal pet store stuff is like pure dust and kills my eyes/makes me sneeze non-stop. The herptopia stuff is way better.

I keep my savannah and mangrove monitor on sandy soil mix (it's actually about 5 parts eco earth, 5 sand, 1 dirt). It doesn't stink with rotting rat corpses in my mangrove's setup (it tears food appart to eat it), plus it breaks down most waste. Dunno how you could manage it for a snake, though. You always get hitch hikers, and the snake isn't likely to eat them

Thanks for the input. The enclosure doesn't have much of a litter dam, definitely not enough for a healthy bio-active setup, so for now we're going to try indented kraft paper.


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