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  1. #1
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    What's your opinion of 100% cypress for high humidity snakes?

    I'm looking at switching my snakes over from paper towels (since the mite treatment is over) back to a natural substrate. I've used the coco bricks rehydrated in the past and blended 50/50 with peat moss. I've found that takes DAYS to dry out enough to use and when I do, the peat gets so dry that it can get very dusty in there, and I'm not the biggest fan of that, though I do like using coconut products.

    A local breeder suggested I try cypress, and they sell 100% cypress mulch for $12 a bag and tempted to try that out. Most of my collection is balls in 70 series tubs but I have 3 that need higher humidity: an Amazon tree boa, a Solomon Island ground boa, and a Colombian rainbow bow. The others are just a corn, retic, and burm, and need humidity closer to that of the ball. Any issues in your experiences with the cypress molding or getting funky or anything like that?

    Also, does anyone have a formula to figure up how much I need? Most are in 4x2 floorspace enclosures with the rest in 70 series tubs.

  2. #2
    bcr229's Avatar
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    Cypress mulch is an excellent option for snakes that require high humidity. I've used it and have not had issues with molding.

    You don't need much in an enclosure, maybe half an inch in the bottom to catch waste so you can spot clean it. Rainbow boa neonates love to burrow in it so I did give them a little more than that.

    Also don't confuse the 100% cypress product for reptiles with the much cheaper "cypress blend" sold at garden centers. The blend is only 10% cypress, with 50% pine and the rest "whatever we were cutting that day". I called the manufacturer and asked.

  3. The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to bcr229 For This Useful Post:

    Albert Clark (11-06-2022),Alicia (11-06-2022),Bogertophis (11-06-2022),Homebody (11-07-2022)

  4. #3
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    The blends are THAT low in actual cypress? At those ratios you'd think they'd label it as pine mulch with some cypress in it lol The only cypress any local garden centers have are blends, so I had to look elsewhere.

    I'm getting this from a breeder that's fairly big in our part of town and they've never done anyone wrong that I have heard, so I'll give it a shot. I used a mulch calculator and for 56 sq feet (7 4x2 enclosures) that's only 3.11 bags of 3 cu ft mulch. They say theirs are 33 lb bags, which on their website they list their cypress as 2 cu feet, so that's only about 4.5 bags. 5 bags at $12, $60 isn't a bad price in my opinion to just dump in my snake cages and be done with it and them be able to live on it for a while.

    I appreciate your input, I'll give this stuff a shot and see how my snakes like it.

  5. The Following User Says Thank You to Matt300zxt For This Useful Post:

    Albert Clark (11-06-2022)

  6. #4
    Registered User YungRasputin's Avatar
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    may sound like a broken record at this point but raw organic peat + jungle earth works wonders
    het for nothing but groovy

  7. The Following User Says Thank You to YungRasputin For This Useful Post:

    Homebody (11-07-2022)

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