Best sub-strait/bedding material

[MS2]

I was just wondering what was the best thing to use in my cages. I used to use pine shavings, but had a bad experience with it. Now I use newspaper, but it's not great either. What else can I try?

[Iloverhacs]

Aspen works great. Its absorbant and is not dusty like pine shavings.

[Amon Ra Reptiles]

Well if you do a search on this you will find 1001 posts on this and everyone has their own opinion. (mine of course is right jk. Anyway pine is a bad choice for a lot of reasons that others will most likely elaborate on. Aspen is a little expensive in my opinion but a lot of people use it and love it. Cypress mulch is good as well if you are going for aesthetics, it holds moisture well too. I personally use towels which are white and roughly the size of my tub but I do this due to the fact that we have grown to over 40 balls now and they are awesome to simply pull out throw in the washer with some bleach and reuse. I keep a stack of them handy so there is always plenty. If you wanted to try this route you could probably find several for a dollar at a dollar store. Even at a buck or two each they are pretty cheap considering they aren't disposable. That's what we like. Hope this helps. Have fun and good luck!

[iCandiBallPythons]

I dont really think there is a "best", I think mainly it depends on what works and user choice but from my experience I have used scott blue shop towels and unprinted newspaper. Hands down the only thing I use is now is the blue shop towels. The only downfall is they can get pricey in bulk

[ogdentrece]

I'm not sure about 'best', it really depends on the individual. Depends what you need out of it - humidity, heat conductivity, absorbancy, appearance, cleaning, cost? Some are better than others in different ways, so it really is based on your needs/wants. For example, aspen is worse than mulch when it comes to humidity, but I personally find it easier to spot clean. Its cheaper for me too, and then there is the environmental considerations...
Paper towels and newspapers are more hygenic but they're pretty unsightly if they're in a display tank, and if you have furniture inside it's a pain to remove everything just to change them. If not they're a breeze to change. Those are probably the most commonly used substrates, others include cocohusk, orchird bark, reptibark etc. I don't know much on those so I can't really advice.

Pine is bad due to the aromatic oils it releases which messes around with liver and respiratory functions. Apparently.

[OtterGoRun]

A lot of it is personal preference. Besides the big no-no's like cedar (which should never be used), it's really up to you, based on housing, humidity issues, price, and aesthetics. I use aspen, because it is really easy to spot clean, but my way isn't the only way.

[Exotic Ectotherms]

I love Eco-Earth. It holds humidity extremely well, is absorbent, looks nice, and keeps odor under control when soiled. I don't buy the bricks of it....they sell it already loose in bags that way you don't have to soak it before use. It runs about $8 per bag.

[Keyboard Warrior]

Best is relative. Some like aspen. Some like newspaper. I personally like repti chips. They provide a natural, forest look, and its easy to clean, and its pretty good at holding in humidity.

[mommanessy247]

ok here's my go on substrates and these are my "reviews" after having used some of the above mentioned.

cypress mulch - it "says" it holds humidity very well but i find that to be false cuz i was having to spray it several times a day just to maintain normal humidity, even more for higher humidity when my girl was in shed & i have 2 water dishes in there. so all that spraying = more intrusions to my girls home and she was not liking it one bit.
oh & watch out cuz pretty much all the cypress mulch that home depot & lowes carry also contain cedar.
cedar = maybe even . when i found that out i immediately switched to newspaper temporarily.
my opinion on that...i hope to never have to do it again. i absolutely hated it. you cannot spray paper. then i went to a 1/2 mulch, 1/2 newspaper (mulch on the warm side) to help with the humidity & it worked well enough.
now i'm using exo terra forest bark & my only 2 complaints on it are superficial in comparison to the others. theres the occasional splinters from handling it and poo is not very easily visible in it cuz it's pretty dark. (my snake has never gotten splinters though), in case anyone was thinking about that.
it's 100% fir bark and i only have to spray it once a day when my girl is in shed. with the bark the 2 water dishes can maintain normal daily humidity all by themselves but when my girl is in shed i bump it up by spraying the bark once a day and i keep a hand towel wet (but not dripping) on top of the screen.
so i'm loving the bark right now.

[MS2]

Any problems with the snakes swallowing the aspen shaving? Will that cause any problems with the snake? I've had a large pine shaving get stuck in the mouth of one of my females, so I switched to newspaper(because that is what I had on hand). It works o.k.,but it slides around alot. I was concerned with mulch having mites or other kinds of bugs.