My first post and my first snake!

At the risk of posting a Melissa Kaplan atricle ... no one has explained why pine and cedar are bad substrates. Here is a link with the best information i can find : http://www.anapsid.org/cedar.html . She quotes a Dr. Richard Evans, a veterinary pathologist who seems to expalin why these substances are dangerous to reptiles quite well. The only other sites i could find just said that they are dangerous.

Thanks elevate. I don't understand why they would sell it to me with the snake. I will take it out today. So how much damage have I done with him in that substrate for 6 days?

Its hard to tell What damage might have been done, if any. I've never had any experience dealing with a snake who has been in that situation, mainly just because its such a huge NO in reptile husbandry.

That was very irresponsible of the pet shop to sell you that substrate, and I fear that other ball pythons may not be as lucky as yours is to have an owner that cares about these things.

If he continues to feed and act normally otherwise, you are lucky so don't worry about it. Good luck with him, and keep us updated.

Welcome to the site! Nice lookin bp you have there, too
Glad you got hipped to the substrate issue, if you have any questions about types, you can go to "forums" and then "search" and type substrate and you should get a gazillion results as it's been discussed quite a bit. Sometimes better than waiting for posts to be answered, lol.....like that's EVER been a problem here! We all love to help each other out here which makes this a great site to be a member of.

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Originally Posted by led4urhead

At the risk of posting a Melissa Kaplan atricle ... no one has explained why pine and cedar are bad substrates. Here is a link with the best information i can find : http://www.anapsid.org/cedar.html . She quotes a Dr. Richard Evans, a veterinary pathologist who seems to expalin why these substances are dangerous to reptiles quite well. The only other sites i could find just said that they are dangerous.

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Thanks for the article led. Now I have to stop and think of the damage that was done BEFORE I bought him. At the reptile store, he was in a tank with the same substrate if I remember correctly. Poor guy he's only 2 months old.

EgyG35, Did you find out exactly what the substarte is?

This is what the reptile store gave me.

http://www.hartz.com/Our%20Products/...2205360621.jpg

It's exactly that one but not the lemon scent.




Here's what I just bought. Is this ok to use??
http://www.vrgpet.com/images/vrg/030835.jpg

And I also got him this
http://www.petco.com/assets/product_...199702011B.jpg

What do you guys think??

Since you just got the snake, it would probably be a good idea to keep him/her on newspaper for a little while so you can make sure that the feces/urates look normal. Then to keep stuff simple and cheaper, go for aspen/cypress bedding. Both of those come in much bigger bags for a much cheaper price and both work well for humidity. The bedding you just bought looks a little like moss? But anyway, for just starting out, I'd use aspen or outdoor carpet. Alot easier to check for poopy or parasites. Oh! Speaking of parasites, get a vet appt. and take a FRESH fecal sample to the vet and have mr. snakey checked for parasites. It's a fast and easy check, price ranges from $10-$20, and takes about 5-10 minutes to do (doing them myself anyway :) ) Hope this helps. Keep asking questions, as it helps you and alot of other people learn :-D

Thanks Becky,

What I bought is not moss it's natural bark. I will put some newpaper for now. Can you tell me what makes the feces look normal? I will set up an appointment with a vet thanks!

Feces should be firm and moist, but not loose and runny or overly dry(the actual poo, not pee or urates). And for a good herp vet, you can look here:
www.arav.org or http://www.herpvetconnection.com/
There are a ton of vets on that site. Hopefully you can find a good one near you.