Substrates

Hey,

I was looking for a good substrate for ball pythons. I've read alot of threads and it seems very controversial, so I wanted to know in just a general thread your guys experiences and opinions on certain substrates are.

My main desire is one that holds humidity a little better than aspen.

I am using repti-carpet with one, and aspen with the other.

I talked to a girl I am working with, who was in the pet industry for 16ish years, and she recommended "fake moss", but couldnt find a brand or product name that is fake moss haha.

So I am curious what you guys use, and how you find it holding humidity.
I understand taht the ambient conditions around the cages make a huge difference. Im in dry conditions. My young male's 10 gallon before I covered 3/4 with tin foil was 10% humidity. Now its up at 40%. Thankfully he is a soaker, so he had a successful complete shed. (or so I think.. all of his body shed was stuck together in a ball, and I found half of his face incl. 1 eye cap in his water dish, I dont know if the other half came off cause he was on his 2 day feed break) Checking tonight.

I would look into cypress mulch. I know you can sometimes find it in pet stores.

I personally prefer paper towel. I can easily spot messes and it keeps everything nice and clean. Then again, I use tubs so I don't have a problem with humidity.

i personally use cypress mulch i get from home depot. helps big time with shedding.and some of my others i use unprinted newspaper sheets i get in a bulk order. but all of my snakes are in racks and because of winter and som dry hard to keep humidity. so i use a humidifier to help. hope this helps

Iv been using news paper is it's great!! Free and no shortage!

how about plantation soil? ive been using that and im thinking of changing over to paper towels because i cant see there pee to clean it up and where they have peed to clean because it soaks in. It seems to be good for the mosture tho.

Reptibark is great at holding humidity. It's so good, in fact, that I had to switch to aspen because the reptibark was causing condensation buildup in my tubs.

It costs about the same as aspen and can be found in most commercial pet stores.

Good luck!

I'm having trouble finding cypress mulch at homedepot or anything. Any Canadians find some?

Reptibark if you only have 2 snakes. @ 20 bucks a bag it's quite expensive to use it on big cages. I could go thru a bag of reptibark in my 7 level 41 qt rack.
If you have more tubs or cages go with cypress mulch found at home depot or lowes, it comes in a yellow bag.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._5417651_n.jpg
packing paper cut to size. cheap easy to clean and havent had a problem holding humidity or anything.

Yeah, cypress mulch is out of the question atm.

I've called virtually every garden center in Calgary. Nobody has even heard of it. Prob because, as someone said it comes from Florida. Most Canadian stuff comes from british columbia.

I may try repti bark, or coco husk. Its just weird, I've heard alot of controversy over coco.. I'm not sure why.

My pet store sells this mesh stuff that you can also use for bedding. Its nothing special, but I was wondering if I put this mesh ontop of repti bark would it cause any problems? I just want to avoid impaction.

i use coco bark and it keeps the humidity pretty good i also have a 55 gallon tank so keeping it warm is next to impossible thats y im bout to switch over to a rack setup. but i have not had any issues from it besides it aint cheap to replace it.

IF I were to use coco, should I use the bark then? The pet store I go to regularly sells it in a powder, which i would imagine would be really useful in the case of impaction, but would that cause respitory problems?

I would guess that the powerdy stuff could get into their repspriatory system. But I've never used it. I don't think you will have any problems with impaction with any of it though. They would have to be eating it and I don't think that is going to happen. The little bit that a rat or mouse kill could get on it during a feed will not lead to an impaction. They eat whole prey. If the can digest bone they can digest an accidental ingestion of subsadrate. I used to use the reptile chips and during a feed one of my big females got a few of them stuck in her mouth. That was my only issue with them. I had to hold her mouth open and pick them out. I stopped using that asap. But you could also try bin feeding. With my little ones I keep them on papertowel. I do tubs so it holds humidity well and with my adults Aspen. Only reason I keep the babies on paper is bc they are fed more so more to clean up. It's just easier for me.

I use coco coil I have been getting a brand "beats peat" it is 100 % organic and holds moisture better than peat moss about 4 times its own volume. That is actually an issue too much moisture. I end up using some hydrated with as little water I can manage mixed with some that I break up manually. Works great home depot, and rona, Kent, home hardware, many hydroponic stores carry it. It is very cheap too about 6$ for 95L (3.3 cubic feet, good for 8 snakes for 8 months) if you buy larger amounts it is even less, about 3 for the same amount, but then you have a ton of the stuff.

Cyprus is a specialty product and you can only get it from pet store here it is very expensive, at about $1 a Litre. DO NOT USE douglas fir mulch!!! It is very toxic! That is mostly what you will find here "fir mulch" stay away from it.

This was what I was talking about, for artificial moss..

http://www.canadianfloristmag.com/content/view/2243/97/

Do you think this would work? Doesnt mold or anything!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DarrinLowe

This was what I was talking about, for artificial moss..

http://www.canadianfloristmag.com/content/view/2243/97/

Do you think this would work? Doesnt mold or anything!

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Looks ok, but I would hate to use something I have to clean and reuse. The nice thing about substrate is that it's real easy to do spot cleaning without a fuss. As far as your concern about impaction, I've used reptibark for a couple years now and have never had an issue with any of the snakes ingesting any of it. I use Aspen now in the rack which sticks to everything and the snakes even find a way to not ingest any of that!

It looks like you have a few options at this point, so maybe just go through the trial and error process with what's been recommended? Until you use the stuff, you'll never know what works and what doesn't for your particular setup.

Good luck!