Substrate / Water changes.. how often?

I am curious how often you guys are changing substrate and water? I replace the water daily and every 3-4 days I wash the bowls. As for substrate, I use shredded aspen. I spot clean daily and once every two weeks I change out the aspen and do a full tub cleaning.

Is this often enough? too often? I have 9 ball pythons right now so its not a hassle but once my collection explodes I will be looking for ideas to make the whole process quicker.

Also, I save any aspen that is not wet for my rats. Does anyone see a problem with that?

Thanks!

Richard

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Somed00d

I am curious how often you guys are changing substrate and water? I replace the water daily and every 3-4 days I wash the bowls. As for substrate, I use shredded aspen. I spot clean daily and once every two weeks I change out the aspen and do a full tub cleaning.

Is this often enough? too often? I have 9 ball pythons right now so its not a hassle but once my collection explodes I will be looking for ideas to make the whole process quicker.

Also, I save any aspen that is not wet for my rats. Does anyone see a problem with that?

Thanks!

Richard

---

Substrate: It depends on what you use. I use newspaper and change it every time they poop/pee. This is more work than spot cleaning with aspen. Aspen should be swapped out completely every couple months (someone with experience, please chime in on an exact figure). Two weeks seems too frequent.

Water: No need to change it everyday unless they soil it. I do a complete swap out with clean inserts once every 7 days (or immediately if they soil it).

Hope that helps!

JonV

Fresh water every day.
Substrate: for paper, when ever they pee or poo. When I tried aspen, I spot checked daily and changed it out weekly.

Giving the aspen to your rats is soo funny. They'll become accustomed to the snake smell- yeah, no problem, time to snuggle down and sleep... then WHAM -- snake eats 'em

I can't imagine reusing aspen is sanitary.. It's already soaked up alot of snake urine and liquid feces, and then dried again, so how is it going to be useful to soak up any rat urine?

Get new aspen for the rats.. They deserve a clean place to live too.

I change the water every two days. I use paper towels as substrate and I change it whenever they pee/poop, if not, I change it once a week.

Water gets changed every feeding day, in my case 6 days unless its been soiled.

Aspen gets changed once a month and spot cleaned daily

Water bowls and hides get washed in dishwasher once a month

I always thought 2 weeks was too often to change the aspen but it is still clean so thats why i use it for the rats. I may try going a month to see how it works out.

SatanicIntention: I see your point of view I totally expected someone to mention it actually. I am not reusing aspen that has been soaked/dried just the stuff that has not been soiled I guess it would still be good enough for the snakes to use.

Thanks to everyone who responded.

Richard

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Somed00d

I always thought 2 weeks was too often to change the aspen but it is still clean so thats why i use it for the rats. I may try going a month to see how it works out.

SatanicIntention: I see your point of view I totally expected someone to mention it actually. I am not reusing aspen that has been soaked/dried just the stuff that has not been soiled I guess it would still be good enough for the snakes to use.

Thanks to everyone who responded.

Richard

---

I feel 2 weeks is too often. If I have a big mess I will clean out the dirty portion and just add more aspen. Also every few days I "fluff" the aspen as the snakes have compacted it from moving around.

I change the water every 2-3 days and clean the bowls everytime it is changed.
I use newspaper also and I change that whenever they soil it or whenever they crumple it up so bad its all pushed to the side LOL For some reason they enjoy mashing it all up and laying underneath it.

I give Ruth fresh water every day or every other day, spot clean every day and change her substrate every time she sheds.