Cleaning/Substrate dilemma.. Opinions please?

[Skiploder]

Ive been reading a lot of back/forth info about it. Read some threads on some other forums about this topic and its like a live vs. f/t debate. Some say the pine is harmful and others have said that they have been housing their snakes on pine for years without any adverse affects. And since there are no scientific articles that actually can prove this I'm not 100% sure but not going to risk it. But the reason most say its toxic is the same reason it "can" be toxic to mammals, the aromatic hydrocarbons (phenols) that give pine/cedar its pleasant woody scent, these compounds when inhaled by reptiles and mammals can cause respiratory infections/respiratory inflammation and sometimes liver problems.

You know that many people use pine with their rodents without ill effect - including some of the mods? You know that some of the biggest most successful breeders in the world us it also? Those treatises warning against the purported health risks of pine are not peer reviewed literature but the rantings and beliefs of another forum frau making an amusing attempt to interpret some fairly complex scientific and medical data - data that did not draw the same conclusions as she.

The same debates are held on tortoise forums regarding diet. Some forum warrior did a breakdown of the phyto-chemical components of commonly fed tortoise greens and has started a wide spread belief that perfectly harmless food is harmful. Food that the animals actually eat in large quantities in the wild.

I have been waiting for years for one person to come forward with verifiable proof that pine (we are not talking about cedar) has caused harm to their reptiles, let alone rodents. I've got some really old animals on pine.

Nothing. All forum hookum. All forum rumors.

Now Chris, what if we could show that soaking your snake before it sheds is detrimental on several fronts? We'd then have you - in one thread - advocating a detrimental practice while warning against a harmless one.

Now there is nothing wrong with that - unless someone takes your advice and regularly soaks their snakes and has a problem. Words have weight, and advice is not a thing to be given lightly or without the experience to back it up.