Cleaning Questions

Hey I was wondering how often everyone cleans their tubs/enclosures. I use aspen bedding, and spot clean every day. Waste is never left in the enclosure for more then a day ever. As soon as I come home everyday I remove any kind of nastiness, so I keep them pretty clean. When she pees I usually remove the saturate aspen as well. But when should I change the aspen? Its prolly been in there since october. No smells or anything like that either. Whats usually a good rule of thumb for cleaning, and replacing aspen??

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Originally Posted by dsmalex97

Hey I was wondering how often everyone cleans their tubs/enclosures. I use aspen bedding, and spot clean every day. Waste is never left in the enclosure for more then a day ever. As soon as I come home everyday I remove any kind of nastiness, so I keep them pretty clean. When she pees I usually remove the saturate aspen as well. But when should I change the aspen? Its prolly been in there since october. No smells or anything like that either. Whats usually a good rule of thumb for cleaning, and replacing aspen??

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On drawers or cages that have aspen in them, I clean a minimum of every month. Pythons tend to be less messy than some of the colubrids so a month works out well.

yeah i don't use aspen anymore, but i've always gone with one month or so for changing everything... when you spot clean you obviously have some bacterial build up at some level.

All enclosures are cleaned & disinfected monthly, spot clean daily.

Well at least monthly for me, but when the big ones make a mess i just end up changing everything. Since its way to smelly to leave anything behind.

yeah im thinking that when they get big newspaper or papertowel is what its gonna be. But I'm gonna change it within this week now. Maybe I will just use papertowel now...Do you guys layer it up? One is in a 28qt and the other in 32, should I just put like one layer of paper towel down or a few?

I know breeders who don't use anything in the bottom of a tub. Just wash it out when they go. Personally I use one layer of paper towel on the babie tubs and a few layers of news paper on the bigger tubs. It holds together better when trying to remove it which a big mess.

yeah i total clean out monthly but little messes i clean out when i see em. for me easyest i used aspen (just started) but with my other substrates i used i always put down like 3 sheets of newspapper as a bottom cover then the substrate on top so if like pee leaks threw it dosent fully sit there on the glass or tub it just soaks in the newspaper and it helps in removal as one big mass then a mess :gj:

Yep...layer of newspaper on bottom, double paper towels on top. Easy to see liquid urine, absorbs great, quickly and efficiently tossed and replaced, with cursory spot cleaning of glass with which it was in contact (antibacterial soap). The entire setup gets cleaned at least monthly.

Let's face it though, the bigger they get, the bigger the mess :rolleyes: Right now I have two 3-1/2-ft BPs and one extra tiny BCI. I'm a little bit worried about the size of the latter's messes when he gets grown :O

Robbin

I use newspaper substrate. I end up cleaning and disinfecting every tub weekly. I use that time to give everyone a once-over check as well.

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Originally Posted by Icatsme

I use newspaper substrate. I end up cleaning and disinfecting every tub weekly. I use that time to give everyone a once-over check as well.

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Same here. I used to just do the spot cleaning method, but the stench was too much. For the little bit of time it takes and extra interaction I get with my snakes it is worth doing a through clean.

hmmmm....newspaper sounds a lot easier. But isn't it dirty? Does it turn there bellies a different color? Cuz i know when i go through a newspaper my hands turn grey and all inked up. I was thinking that though, about when they get older haha. Shes like a little over 2 feet now, and her poop is the size of my cat, if not bigger haha. So i can deff see if it being a lot easier to clean when they are older. Now I have another question(like thats a surprise). These BIG time breeders like Ralph davis, Kevin McCurley, all those guys, how often are they cleaning there tubs, water dishes all of that? Cuz I was thinking, thats ALOT of snakes, and a lot of poop lol. Do they check them all everyday, or how does that work? I would love it if one of them made a video of daily routines and stuff to see how that goes.

You need to let the paper be a few days old. I just have green trees on it so it's rare they ever touch it.

With big breeders like that I imagine they just constantly clean. Have certain days for a specific section and just clean them all in that group. Not for sure though. Send it to Bryan at snakebites.