Colored Aspen Bedding

Went to petsmart today with my cousins because they needed some parrot food and I decided to just take a look at some of the reptile stuff they had when I came across this......http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...ductId=3945029, don't know if it's been posted or anyone else has seen it before but i thought it was kind of weird to see a dyed bedding product

I've never seen that. I'm curious as to how the dye holds up if it gets wet, or will it bleed and smear everywhere. I almost wish I had a small bag to experiment with...

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Originally Posted by Vypyrz

I've never seen that. I'm curious as to how the dye holds up if it gets wet, or will it bleed and smear everywhere. I almost wish I had a small bag to experiment with...

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I think I read somewhere on the packaging that it won't bleed when exposed to water but i'm not 100% sure whether it exactly said that or not

It says on the packaging that the color won't bleed or anything like that. I have some colored carefresh in a couple tanks right now due to a substrate cleaning moderate emergency and the pet store was out of the regular substrate I use. It doesn't bleed or anything. One of our bps abandoned her hide, crawled under the carefresh, and has been sleeping there for the past couple days.

WOW! :O

If that's safe for reptiles, but colored I surely want some! I always look at all the cool colored bedding I can't use and weep beacuse I don't want to hurt my snakes, but wish I could give their cages a make-over! I am a colorful person and love wearing anything with tons of color. Seeing the same colored apen bedding for so long is depressing.

Anyone using this and know if it's really safe to use? I wouldn't mind maybe a lil bleeding of colors if it's not TOO bad, but definitely want any harm done to my animals!

As for the carefresh, I hope you don't keep your ball python in that stuff for too long. It is BEYOND dusty and horrible for breathing in. They could get a bad RI any time soon if you keep them living in there. :/

When we use Carefresh in our snakes' tanks, we always spend about 15 minutes "shaking" and agitating it in the tank with a fan on it while one of us holds the snake so we get dust out. I checked on her yesterday and she was fine, no hissing or anything. I plan on checking on her again in the next couple days though. We ended up with a package with new labeling and a package with old labeling, the newer pack had significantly less dust than the old pack. When we were standing in front of the Carefresh my first thought was "I'll die if I give Zoey or Sparks a RI." But we've used it with success in the past with the "dusting" method.

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Originally Posted by maverickgtr

When we use Carefresh in our snakes' tanks, we always spend about 15 minutes "shaking" and agitating it in the tank with a fan on it while one of us holds the snake so we get dust out. I checked on her yesterday and she was fine, no hissing or anything. I plan on checking on her again in the next couple days though. We ended up with a package with new labeling and a package with old labeling, the newer pack had significantly less dust than the old pack. When we were standing in front of the Carefresh my first thought was "I'll die if I give Zoey or Sparks a RI." But we've used it with success in the past with the "dusting" method.

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Great, because yeah that stuff is NAAASTY! I was just shocked when I opened it at one point because I had wanted to use it for my old mice and when I saw how much dust there was I was shocked. It was staticly(thats so not a word is it?) sticking to everything and such a mess. I loved it for all the colors though and was sad it was so dusty. I myself am not that great at getting the dust out so I abandoned it. Even if there are just these red and black colors in aspen bedding I want to check it out!

We have the same problem with getting bored/frustrated with it when agitating, but at that point we switch off who's holding the snake and who's doing the tank. We keep it up until we don't get any more visible dust and then let it sit and settle then do just a little more. We keep a ceiling fan or small room fan either right above the tank or in the tank (did I mention it's a small room fan? lol it's one of the short, thin, cylindrical ones) and turn it on low and that alone circulates a lot of dust out.

i agree with what coils said about the dust...not good.
i personally prefer all natural...no colors, no dyes & no scents for my household.
i saw colored mulch when i was shopping for cedar bedding for my snake terrarium & i was like "colored mulch, really? why? wont that dye leech into the ground & cause problems with the plants its around?" [shakes head]
one thing i know for sure...you cant alwaystrust the packagings "claims".

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Originally Posted by maverickgtr

We have the same problem with getting bored with it when agitating, but at that point we switch off who's holding the snake and who's doing the tank. We keep it up until we don't get any more visible dust and then let it sit and settle then do just a little more. We keep a ceiling fan or small room fan either right above the tank or in the tank (did I mention it's a small room fan? lol it's one of the short, thin, cylindrical ones) and turn it on low and that alone circulates a lot of dust out.

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Lol, sounds like a long process, but a good one for getting most of the dust out then. It's cool you can get most of it out too. I tried a couple diff things with it, but always couldn't get a lot of it out or enough to be satisfying for me. I was always just worried about my snakes and what could happen if I didn't do it well enough. Maybe I will try again.

I really want to someday soon snatch up a kenyan sand boa and I know they love digging around and buring themselves. The carefress is awesome for that and would be better than pesky sand which also worried me when using it with animals (including the calci sand)

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Originally Posted by mommanessy247

i agree with what coils said about the dust...not good.
i personally prefer all natural...no colors, no dyes & no scents for my household.
i saw colored mulch when i was shopping for cedar bedding for my snake terrarium & i was like "colored mulch, really? why? wont that dye leech into the ground & cause problems with the plants its around?" [shakes head]
one thing i know for sure...you cant alwaystrust the packagings "claims".

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Very true, thats why I'm curious about this and if anyone has any proof it's safe after using it over a period of time ect ect. It would be cool IMO if it's safe, because that black would look awesome with an albino or something you know? Lol, I'm just like that...but i DO always think of the animal first! I would never purposley do anything to hurt their health.

Curious though...isn't cedar much bad for snakes also? I thought aspen was really the true way to go. Or was it pine that's just toxic?

Cedar is toxic to reptiles. Pine is still up in the air; it releases similar compounds to cedar but it hasn't been determined for sure if it's toxic. Aspen is recommended as natural alternative, and desert snow is also very good and what I usually use with much success, though it is very expensive.

http://www.anapsid.org/cedar.html
http://www.reptilecare.com/substrate.htm

Okay thoooought so, but didn't want to come off and knowing something I wasn't 100% sure about.

Shouldn't you not be using cedar bedding in your reptiles cage then?? Dust is one thing, but yeah I was pretty sure I remembered way back when to stay away from all cedar when i got my first ball python!

Using cedar as bedding is bad. It's not even recommended to use as wood for the stand of the tank because the fumes can rise up and get into the tank.


Sorry to the OP for the thread jack, btw.

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Originally Posted by maverickgtr

Using cedar as bedding is bad. It's not even recommended to use as wood for the stand of the tank because the fumes can rise up and get into the tank.


Sorry to the OP for the thread jack, btw.

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Not a problem at all, you've been sharing some very informative and interesting stuff:)