Opinions on EcoEarth substrate

[TattedLass253]

Hi everyone,

For anyone who is familiar with EcoEarth substrate, what is your opinion for use with snakes? It works well for my crestie, but my ball python seems to make a mess of it. I'm a little worried about him ingesting it. I know another option is aspen chips. I may go that route.

Thanks,

[Sauzo]

I've used aspen for years and it was fine but harder to hold humidity. Used ReptiChips and it was good except my boas and retic would bury pisses and poop in it so it was hard to find. I'm back to using Eco Earth and it works well for now. The snakes seem to like it but it is kind of messy. The nice part is it's easy to find poops and pisses so it makes spot cleaning easy. Ingesting a little wont hurt them. They eat a lot more foreign stuff in the wild. I do try and feed all my snakes on a sheet of printer paper inside the cages though but I did that with any substrate.

[Oxylepy]

EcoEarth is one of my single favorite things in the world. I use it for Rat bedding, I use it to reduce the weight of dirt. I use it for crickets, I use it for hissing cochroaches.

I'd never use it for my snakes. I used to use Cypress, but it went out of fashion, so I use aspen. Aspen is amazing for snakes. My other option is news print. Eh.

[Sauzo]

EcoEarth is one of my single favorite things in the world. I use it for Rat bedding, I use it to reduce the weight of dirt. I use it for crickets, I use it for hissing cochroaches.

I'd never use it for my snakes. I used to use Cypress, but it went out of fashion, so I use aspen. Aspen is amazing for snakes. My other option is news print. Eh.

I respected your opinion until you said 'newsprint'.

On as side note though, I was told by a few people that using newsprint over years causes snakes to 'pancake'. They lose their nice squaring shape because the newsprint is so slick and after years of being on it, they are so used to basically flattening themselves out in order be able to get a grip on it that that is how they become as well as losing muscle tone since they again, they cant grip anything. Now whether that is BS I don't know but like I said, I have heard it from a few people.

Cypress is nice but too expensive for me as I throw out my substrate every month for my retic and every 1.5 months for my boas. It would cost me a small fortune to do 7 4x2 cages lol.

And I used aspen for years but the stuff is kind of a pain to try and hold humidity with. I had to work to pull off 70% even with AP cages. using the Eco Earth or ReptiChips, I easily am able to hold the 75-80% for my BP and 80-85% for my boas and retic.

[Oxylepy]

Eh, I'm just not a huge fan of my newsprint (by that I mean the unprinted packing paper) I used it for like 4 years for all of my snakes and, honestly I just never really cared for it. It just never really appealed to me. I ended up getting aspen again because I was breeding and wanted to do MI. I remembered how much I loved aspen and just... don't feel like going back to the paper. When I said "eh" my main point with it was that it feels bland to me.

Oh... have you considered cutting Eco Earth with aspen?

[TattedLass253]

Thanks everyone. I was mainly concerned about it being harmful if my sneak ingests it. Since he has a screen-top cage, it's probably best to keep the EcoEarth to keep the humidity as high as I can.

[Zincubus]

All mine are kept on orchid bark , looks great , makes the snake look great and it holds as much or a little humidity as you want .


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[TattedLass253]

I haven't looked much into Orchid bark - I haven't seen it in stores around here.

[Sauzo]

Eh, I'm just not a huge fan of my newsprint (by that I mean the unprinted packing paper) I used it for like 4 years for all of my snakes and, honestly I just never really cared for it. It just never really appealed to me. I ended up getting aspen again because I was breeding and wanted to do MI. I remembered how much I loved aspen and just... don't feel like going back to the paper. When I said "eh" my main point with it was that it feels bland to me.

Oh... have you considered cutting Eco Earth with aspen?

Nope. I was going to cut EE with ReptiChips but like I said, I go through substrate pretty fast as I'm rather OCD about keeping my snakes clean lol. So 14 blocks of EE every month or so are pretty cheap. ReptiChips is pretty cheap as well but like I said earlier, my big boas and retic bury poop and piss in it so I have to sift through every other day and for me, finding retic piss in it is really hard.

[Sauzo]

I haven't looked much into Orchid bark - I haven't seen it in stores around here.

Order it online or check plant nurseries or Home Depot or Lowes. Just make sure there is no fertilizer or anything mixed in with it. I personally would order online as that is going to be the best price most likely and if you order enough, its free shipping a lot. I order Eco Earth from Chewy.com and its $4.99 per 3 block pack and if you order over $50, shipping is free. I just order like 12 3 blocks and am set for a couple months.