Bye bye Aspen--Newspaper and Paper Towel Substrate Users....question for you!

Yup she said a whole square of paper towel. I too have pulled wood chips out of the mouth of a snake it sucks. especially when it is your most aggressive feeder whom has not eaten yet and keeps trying to eat your hand while you are trying to pull out a stuck chip!

Let me pose a question to you guys. A snake or another reptile in the wild has a probability throughout its life to swallow a piece of wood, leaf, etc... Does this mean it will die? It won't necessarily die if it swallows a piece of substrate such that it isn't sharp enough to puncture itself. This is excluding newspaper, paper towels, carpet, etc... (any man made products) because they aren't natural to a snakes environment so I don't think it would be good for them to digest. With enough hydration the wood, leaf, etc... will most likely pass through their system just fine.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't watch your reptile while it's eating. I watch both my snakes while they eat to ensure they don't swallow some substrate. I'm just posing a fact for everyone to consider.

Well, who is to say the wild snake doesn't die if it eats a bit of wood? Snakes in the wild do die all the time due to various reasons, and eating a bit of wood or debris can easily kill it.

That's not to say that any litle bit of non-rodent will kill a snake. But it can happen, depending on circumstances and size of debris.

For the original question... I use newspaper or aspen(sometimes both). Only rarely had a paper slide around, but it's very humid here. I take regular newspaper and fold the edges so it fits the large tubs(I tear it in half and fold it for small tubs) and I rarely ever had it slide around.

I like the aspen better, as I feel it's MORE humid, actually, and less messy IN the tub. But it does make for a messy room since it flies everywhere almsot all on it's own. Getting aspen into a bin and not all over the room is always a complete disaster for me. I really need to have my small shop vac sitting in there constantly.

Also, there's the issue of disposing of the used aspen. I'm not sure how many snakes you have, but when you have a lot, the aspen REALLY piles up fast. And the darn stuff never compresses back into the brick it came in.... it's always extra fluffy so it's about one garbage bag originally, into four garbage bags "dirty".

I've started using the dirty used aspen for mulch. After all, that's what it is, in the end. Shavings, mulch, chip... all the same. I just use it first, then "recycle" it. The occasional poo or snake skin is virtually unnoticable in the garden!