Substrate pros and cons?

Orchid bark everytime for me . Looks fantastic and holds as much moisture as you want it to ... and you can easily clean it / treat it with F10 / dry it and re-use !!

I've used cypress mulch, coconut mulch, eco-earth, pine chips, shredded aspen, repti carpet, indoor/outdoor carpeting, sand and dirt, and kraft paper. And the one I keep going back to every time is...... newspaper.

Actually, I'm using something right now called Bogus Paper (it's thicker and more absorbent than newspaper) and I'm liking it a lot. We'll have to see how it works out in the long run though.

I use newspaper and paper towels, I personally like paper towels more because they are more absorbent than newspaper but newspaper is literally free : ) Anyway I doubt newspaper or paper towels would be very aesthetically pleasing in this case, but I'll list some pros/cons I find about newspaper/papertowels.

Pros:
- Easy and fast to do a 100% substrate change
- Pretty cheap
- Don't have to worry about your ball python ingesting any of it

Cons:
- Ball python can shift the newspaper around really easily, it drives me nuts sometimes
- Doesn't look very nice, occasionally you do get a snake with letter print on them as well
- It doesn't hold humidity quite as well compared to other substrates, but I personally haven't had any shedding issues at all.

Over the years I have used various substrates

For hatchlings I now only use shredded aspen

For adult males I also use shredded aspen

For adult females I use news paper most of the year and during breeding season, once they ovulate I use cypress mulch and after they laid back to newspaper.

I usually have a selection on hand. Aspen, pine, kraft paper and coco. Some of my snakes seem to prefer one, others prefer something different. I can also mix them as needed if I choose to.

In my naturalistic cages I use a mix of cypress, eco earth, and repti bark. I like how it looks and it holds humidity well.

In my big cages I use newspaper.

I have never had an issue with feeding inside the cages using any substrate.

I tried using repti bark. I liked the look of it, but I feel like its a hassel to keep clean. I'm using paper towel now and it is so much easier to deal with. Less smelly and a lot cleaner.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrich

I personally mix eco earth and the aspen. Works very well for me. Bumped up the humidity when I was having trouble keeping it up where it should be, now it's fine.

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Do you get solid sheds with that? Mine is on Aspen as of now and she sheds in pieces.

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I use bioactive soil. Perfect humidity without doing all that crazy stuff to the screen on top of the terrarium and minimal maintenence

I use papertowels