New Parent; Help!

I agree, paper towels are great for quarantine but I personally hate it for them permanently. It looks like they don't really enjoy crawling on it or least mine looked like they hated it. They love aspen though especially Dottie when she was a baby and Vicky now as she is still a baby. Seems babies love to burrow in it. I still change it out completely every month as I'm rather OCD about my snakes cages too as they are out a lot and on me and I don't want a poop or pee covered snake crawling around on me :P

I would suggest using something more like shredded aspen than coco husk... It is MUCH easier to see waste in the lighter colored aspen. It also holds humidity pretty well (but I never misted mine).

I am using newspaper right now for all of my reptiles due to an ongoing mite issue (i.e. I'd get them "cleared up" and then they'd come back a month or 2 later). I think I originally picked up the mites at a reptile show or something. In any case, paper towel or newspaper makes it easier to spot and treat mites, but I agree with Sauzo that they seem to enjoy having bedding to burrow in. I'm going to stick with newspaper until summer, then may switch back to aspen if there is no evidence of mites.

I also agree with the others that you should probably just leave him alone until you see a rolled up shed (it'll look like a ball of tan "stuff"). I spray my guys when I notice them going into blue and provide them with a second water bowl to create more humidity. I then pretty much leave them alone until they have fully shed. Some of my snakes will eat, even in blue (including my boas), but most of them will not, so I don't attempt feeding until after and only handle if I have to (i.e. they mess up their cage).

To each their own. But to me using any natural substrate makes me queasy. It essentially soaks up and hides any fluid or waste that is discharged from the animal. Definitely do not want my snakes slithering through their own waste constantly, or rubbing it on me when I handle them. Im also much more prone to quickly changing a soiled paper towel than changing out aspen/bark/cocoa husks. I also don't like the dust that gets ultimately created by any of these shredded wood products.

My animals have never shown a disliking of the paper towel though. My adult boas rearrange it into something of a nest.

I can definitely see your point JoshSloane. When I used apsen for my boa (and I'm using it now for my sand boas), I spot checked all the time.. I'm sure I still missed some areas, but if I saw urates or poo, the whole area around that got scooped out and replaced. With my sand boas, I have no choice but to use aspen, as they burrow and could not do so on paper towel / newspaper. I use sanichips with them, which are easier to dig in than aspen and it is also easier to "spot" messes on them due to the texture.

My biggest issue with using newspaper / paper towels (which I am doing for all my others right now) is that I have a few that get underneath it and hide... They then pee on the floor of the tub and sit in their pee, which doesn't get soaked up. To me, this is the ultimate of unsanitary conditions and I check / clean all tubs 2x a day to try to prevent this. Even some of mine with hides still do this, so I don't think there's a way around it.

Yeah I have had that happen too. To remedy this I strategically place hides and water bowls in the corners of the enclosure to keep the paper towel flat on the floor. Usually if the boa does manage to get under the towel, the tension from the heavy objects press the paper into the wet mess and absorb it.

That's why I spot clean if needed although most of my snakes only go poop once a month about the same for pee. Then once a month I completely change the aspen as well as chlorhexidine down the whole tank.

Nice! Im a perfectionist scientist. I would spend a months pay in cypress mulch if I used it. :)