newspaper vs aspen as a substrate

Hey, so I normally use shredded aspen as my substrate however (due to mites) I have just switched to newspaper and want to know peoples opinion on it as a substrate. I've heard of the ink on the print turning the snakes bellies black which i can see it doing. Also for those of you that use non print paper, where do you get it and how much does it cost? To me it seems cleaner, cheaper, nicer looking, and easier to use. Let me know what you guys use and think thanks.

I use newspaper in my racks, none of my snakes bellies have turned any color other than pink before they shed. It may depend on the newspaper. I also, however, use aspen in my tubs. It's just a personal preference. I prefer newspaper because it's so easy to clean.

I also use regular newspaper, and like LGray23 I've never had any black bellies show up on any of my snakes. Our local newspaper is using an all natural soy based ink that doesn't stain your fingers either, although it DID cause the price of reading the news to double...

i too use newspaper and never had the ink bleed on the snake but in my white cages the black ink does bleed and stain the cage.

I use aspen in my tubs and packing paper in my tanks. I like the no-smell aspect of the aspen in the tubs. Plus I can dump out water bowls for my shedding snakes, and the aspen holds the moisture without being a scale rot risk factor.

But I like to keep the tanks as close to perfectly clean as possible. It's tough to vacuum chips out of the corners, and it's easy to just to completely switch out the paper and wipe down the glass. The packing paper is left over from when we moved, but someone on the forum mentioned that you can get it at Lowe's and/or Home Depot? So I'll be checking that out.

coco-husk! ALL THE WAY lol

I used newspaper for a short period, but I switched back to aspen because the newspaper offered NO odor control whatsoever.

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Originally Posted by meowmeowkazoo

I used newspaper for a short period, but I switched back to aspen because the newspaper offered NO odor control whatsoever.

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That is a very good point that i didn't even think of I think I might just stay with aspen

I used non-printed newspaper from any U-Haul store. They sell boxes of about 250 pre-cut sheets for only $10. Considering I do not have hundreds of snakes, this is a great deal for me. They are the perfect size to fold in half and fit into a 41qt tub. People with large collections who use non-printed newspaper typically get theirs from any local newspaper printing facility. The machines that print the newspapers work similarly to a receipt printer in regards to paper roll. At a certain point, the machine says the paper is out but there is a significant amount of paper remaining on the roll that the machine cannot feed through. These rolls with the remaining paper are just thrown away, so the printing facilities generally have no problem with giving them away for free. I believe it was J. Kobylka who did a video on cutting and using these rolls of unprinted paper. Just give any local newspaper a call and ask them about it! :)

As for the odor control.. as long as you keep up on cleaning and replacing the soiled paper there shouldn't be much of a problem. I've seen no difference and I've used aspen, paper towels, printed, and non-printed newspaper.

I use thin sheets of newspaper to line the tubs but over that I use paper towels (regular white ones, not the blue shop towels). I won't use anything else because A) super easy clean: just throw them away when someone's made a mess and replace B) you can easily see mites and messes against the stark white C) inexpensive to buy and D) there's nothing that can get possibly stuck in their mouths when feeding

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Originally Posted by Daybreaker

I use thin sheets of newspaper to line the tubs but over that I use paper towels (regular white ones, not the blue shop towels). I won't use anything else because A) super easy clean: just throw them away when someone's made a mess and replace B) you can easily see mites and messes against the stark white C) inexpensive to buy and D) there's nothing that can get possibly stuck in their mouths when feeding

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Better not be using my shop towels!!

But yea I pretty much do what ever she tells me is best...

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Originally Posted by meowmeowkazoo

I used newspaper for a short period, but I switched back to aspen because the newspaper offered NO odor control whatsoever.

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For me, that's a good thing. It makes me clean the snake's tub immediately, rather than letting it lay on soiled bedding.

I used to use aspen but I got tired of dragging out the vacuum cleaner every time I cleaned the snakes. I also hated spot cleaning aspen, because no matter how much I thought I was getting out, there was still enough left in that was soiled.

It's far easier for me, and cleaner for my animals to just completely clean out the tub and replace with a sheet of clean un-printed newspaper, or in my case - packing paper, which is essentially the same thing.

I prefer my paper towels. I'm on top of cleaning so the smell is minimal.

Paper towels in the baby racks, news paper in the yearling and adult racks. I have Pieds, Albinos and a lot of light colored snakes and never have a problem with ink getting on them.

I use unprinted newspaper for the same reasons others do (easy to clean, easy to see mites/discolored excrement, nothing to injest). The idea of spot cleaning, to me, seems nasty. You might be able to get the majority of it, but there is still going to be some leftover urine or feces that's going to sit in there with your snake and fester until you completely change out the bedding.

It's true that newspaper isn't great for humidity. I have a dedicated snake room, so I can control the humidity of the room (currently at 70%), and newspaper will hold moisture for a short while. I mist tubs a couple times a week, and I tend to spray extra when I know a snake is in shed. The occasional stuck shed is taken care of by soaking the newspaper. The next day, no more stuck shed. I use ARS racks, btw.

I use the pre-cut cage liners from Cageliners.net. They work great for me. I have all Boaphiles(tanks and racks) and it keeps me on top of everything. I check each tub/tank every morning and night and if I have one dirty it is really simple to just take the snake out, disinfect the tank, put a new sheet down, mist the tank, and put the snake back in. I don't have hundreds of snakes therefore I have time to do it this way. I am pretty anal when it comes to keeping my tanks clean and the fact that you CAN'T spot clean with the paper is a big plus to me :banana:

P.S. I voted Non print Newspaper since the liners are pretty close to that

I use aspen chips (sani-chips). I've tried everything, and I mean everything, and this is what I like best. I like it more over newspaper because its much easier to spot clean. I can just use my pooper-scooper to clean spot clean the aspen very quickly and effectively. Then pretty much every month I do a complete change of the aspen.

Whereas once newspaper is soiled you have to change the entire thing.

I tried aspen, Newsprint, and Eco Earth and liked Eco Earth the best spot cleans well and holds humidity well in my aquariums but again it all comes down to personal preferance.
Robie

I can see the need to use some sort of porous substrate in a glass aquarium, but if you're using tubs anything paper is the way to go imo.