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  1. #1
    BPnet Senior Member L.West's Avatar
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    type of substrate

    I currently have my two hondurans and one corn snake on indented kraft paper. Do you all think using paper or would using something like Reptile Prime be better for them??

    I was using reptile prime but it was harder for me to find the messes. Obviously using paper is very easy to see any urine/poop so I feel like I can keep their cages cleaner.

    What do you think would be best for the snakes in this case.

    Thank you
    L. West
    1.0 CORAL ALBINO BOA (OWEN)
    1.0 PANAMANIAN HYPO BOA (SAWYER)
    1.0 DUMERIL'S BOA (GRAYSON)
    1.0 ALBINO HONDURAN (RIVER)
    0.1 TANGERINE HONDURAN (FAITH)
    1.0 ALBINO TESSERA CORN SNAKE (RILEY)

  2. #2
    BPnet Veteran pretends2bnormal's Avatar
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    Re: type of substrate

    I personally have gone to loose substrates as my preference.

    With my 300+ gram corn, I was finding he would pee or poop and make me need to fully replace it at least once and usually twice a week. With all his decor it was a pain to do. Besides that, he would often pee enough that it would soak under his hides and half the time he would be found laying in it which was gross. The paper could only absorb so much, so he would get it all over him too. Spot cleaning a loose substrate doesn't require me to remove him and all his things to keep it clean, so I've begun preferring that. And it always absorbs all the pee so you never pick up a wet-from-pee snake.

    My 2 corns and honduran are all a bit different.

    The biggest corn got moved to bioactive with plants recently, so he is on an ABG mix. He loves how deep it is that it allows him to burrow, which was a surprise since he never did with 1-2 inches of reptile prime before. Bioactive means I only need to worry about removing big waste puliles and the clean up crew deals with urine and small bits for me.

    My smaller corn is on sani chips. Waste tends to stay on the surface and is easily spotted and cleaned. He is in a PVC cage, so 0 worries on too low humidity.

    My honduran is on reptile prime and is about 250 grams, so his waste is also easy to spot despite the color matching. He does burrow in it and seems to like it a lot more than when I tried to use paper.

    To each his own, of course, but I stick to loose substrates outside of QT tubs.

    Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

  3. #3
    BPnet Senior Member L.West's Avatar
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    Re: type of substrate

    Thank you for responding. I feel sorta guilty for using the paper because I think they would prefer to burrow into the reptile prime. Should I worry about feeding issues when using the reptile prime. I would hate for them to get impacted from consuming substrate - another plus to using paper.
    Last edited by L.West; 04-12-2019 at 12:02 PM.
    L. West
    1.0 CORAL ALBINO BOA (OWEN)
    1.0 PANAMANIAN HYPO BOA (SAWYER)
    1.0 DUMERIL'S BOA (GRAYSON)
    1.0 ALBINO HONDURAN (RIVER)
    0.1 TANGERINE HONDURAN (FAITH)
    1.0 ALBINO TESSERA CORN SNAKE (RILEY)

  4. #4
    BPnet Veteran pretends2bnormal's Avatar
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    Re: type of substrate

    If you feed dry rodents or blow dried ones, you won't have much at all stick to cause issues. Even damp ones in my experience don't tend to pick up enough to be concerning. If the amount swallowed is smaller than their poop, I don't see how it would cause a blockage unless it clumped into hard clumps like sand or kitty litter could when wet in the stomach. Reptile prime doesn't do that when wet and falls apart easily, so even undigested it should pass through no problem.

    People who worry more than I do tend to cut a paper plate in half or fourths and place it in the cage before thawing rodents where they plan to offer the prey so there is a solid cover over the substrate. You could cut a piece of the paper to lay over the offer zone to the same effect for feeding day.

    My Honduran drags it into his hide or away from where I offer every time, so to me I don't see the plate thing being very effective for him so I don't bother with it.

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    L.West (04-12-2019)

  6. #5
    BPnet Senior Member AbsoluteApril's Avatar
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    I've used newsprint, single face corrugated, aspen and reptile prime with my corns and king snake. They all work. I have them now on reptile prime, I feed f/t on the prime and haven't run into any issues with them ingesting a small amount of substrate that might stick to a feeder. I've also seen it get pushed off the feeder as they eat. In the wild they eat on dirt/leaves and such.
    Impaction is really more a worry or issue with lizards kept on chunky substrate like reptibark. I've never had issues with snakes kept on loose substrate.
    nothing wrong with keeping them on paper though if temps/humidity are fine, it does make it easy to change the cage. I still keep my boas and bps on paper and single face corrugate.
    Hope that helps!
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    L.West (04-12-2019)

  8. #6
    Telling it like it is! Stewart_Reptiles's Avatar
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    For colubrids I like coco coir or aspen.
    Deborah Stewart


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    L.West (04-12-2019)

  10. #7
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    I use coco coir for my King. It's loose enough that he can burrow. Colubrids also do well on aspen, I just don't personally love aspen. But since my hognose loves to burrow he's on aspen.

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