first feeding of new snake.... upside down and buttfirst lol

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Originally Posted by rickm

WHAAAAAT!?!?!? what are you talking about? what would you suggest, aspen?! lol. eco earth is one of the best substrates you can use for ball pythons! it holds humidity better than any store bought substrate out there, the top layer will dry out, while the lower levels stay moist...so your snake is not laying on wet bedding. it is digestable if it is swallowed, and it looks and smells great. why on earth would you say that it is not a good bedding?! that is ridiculous. it is better than anything you can buy...and I think the only better bedding out there is a bioactive bedding that you make yourself. I would like to know your reasons that you think that this bedding is bad...there is not a bad quality about it! lmao!

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lol...I hope this stays civil as I'd like to hear both sides of this...I've never used eco-earth so I'm curious...

Use whatever substrate you want. Everyone has their own preferences and the balls never know the difference anyways lol

I switched to eco-earth from repti bark, I love it! But I am always up for trying something else.

I really prefer using paper substrate to avoid accidental ingestion. I know not everyone like the look of paper bedding, it's just what I'm comfortable with. As far as loose bedding goes, I think of it compared to what I imagine the wild would be like when they eat... in our cages they are stuck on loose bedding and ingest it. In the wild I'm guessing the ground is relatively solid and not tilled up/loose. Especially if they eat in rodent holes/tunnels. Maybe I'm totally off base, but that's my take. I prefer avoiding potential hazzards rather than testing theories.

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I've used eco earth, it's awesome! Looks great and hold humidity!
Sadly, it messy and sticks to EVERYTHING!
So I switched to Cypress mulch.
I will never look back.
It looks even better, doesn't stick to everything, and holds humidity just as well!


Oh topic, That's cute! When I first got Dovah, he would sit at the top of the enclosure and eat the mice in mid-air, upside down! It was pretty cute!

Love the eco-earth.

It vacuums easily too.

Love how a wacky feed turned into substrate debate lol. I switched to eco earth because the beddings with larger chucks of wood, bark, etc would get stuck to prey items and in there mouth and I'd have to help remove it sometimes, not to mention if they did get it down I wasn't sure if it'd hurt them or not so I thought this would be a good choice

When I saw your subject line, I thought for a second my bf had beat me to the forum and posted about my first snake feeding today. She did the same thing, was upside down and tried valiantly to start in the middle of the rat, lol. Took her a while to work her way around the feet sticking out of one side of her mouth and the body sticking out of the other.

Not the sharpest quill on the porcupine yet, but hopefully she'll get better at it. She's only about 6 wks old right now. :D

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Originally Posted by Surrealle

When I saw your subject line, I thought for a second my bf had beat me to the forum and posted about my first snake feeding today. She did the same thing, was upside down and tried valiantly to start in the middle of the rat, lol. Took her a while to work her way around the feet sticking out of one side of her mouth and the body sticking out of the other.

Not the sharpest quill on the porcupine yet, but hopefully she'll get better at it. She's only about 6 wks old right now. :D

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At least she went through with it! Mine usually gives up when he starts from the middle lol. He's all 'bah, this is hard. I'll wait til next week'.

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Originally Posted by rickm

WHAAAAAT!?!?!? what are you talking about? what would you suggest, aspen?! lol. eco earth is one of the best substrates you can use for ball pythons! it holds humidity better than any store bought substrate out there, the top layer will dry out, while the lower levels stay moist...so your snake is not laying on wet bedding. it is digestable if it is swallowed, and it looks and smells great. why on earth would you say that it is not a good bedding?! that is ridiculous. it is better than anything you can buy...and I think the only better bedding out there is a bioactive bedding that you make yourself. I would like to know your reasons that you think that this bedding is bad...there is not a bad quality about it! lmao!

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Best substrates for who? You? I don't like Eco-Earth for snakes. It makes a ton of mess and you'd be surprised what can be found in it. I've used bricks and bricks of that stuff when I dealt with 400+ scorpions and you would be amazed and what I've found crawling and growing in there. While it may not be harmful to the snake, it's not very well inspected, I can tell you that. I do prefer Aspen but if you want something for humidity they have better choices out there. The only really beneficial thing about Eco Earth is the fact that you can visibly see urates and such when passed versus it not always being visible in Aspen shreds. Aspen has it's downfall to, so don't get me wrong. BTW, it can mold extremely easy, and I mean way easier then you think.

Also as far as it smelling great, are your nostrils clogged?

Oh here just to be fun I'll list a major issue with it.

1.) If the snake swallows a large bit of it, it can get stuck in the top/bottom of the mouth and can clog your snake up, especially around the glottis.

The stuff can be thick and not easy to get down to digest causing issues. If you feed f/t then the rodent can be damp because of being thawed or even if the snake gets a nice size chunk in her mouth from striking a live rodent. That's a major issue and I remember a few years ago a member having this issue, I'll look for the post again later.

Sure while your snake can swallow Aspen at least it's a lot easier to deal with versus Eco Earth. When mine swallow a piece of Aspen I simply take the tweezers and grab the shred of Aspen and pull it out. That simple. You can't do that with Eco Earth.

It's not hard to keep it civil but before you come here thinking you know it all, it may do you some good to get some actual experience with it.

P.S. - I'd recommend CoCo Husk before Eco Earth.