Ball Python Ate Wood Chips

[Kcl]

I'm using the term as "uncleaned"....it is what it is. Maybe I have just coined a new term for you if you can't see what it is. And yes I have read several accounts across Google University where a lot of people love their "compost piles". Heck one young man (BioDude) appears to be running a succesful business on what was coined back in the 1800's as snake oil. Market it, hype it, and put it in a bottle (today it is plastic bags) and people will buy it.

I will agree with you setting one up would be a tremendous amount of work. But once set up and that is debatable if it can even be done properly indoors (but lets say it can)we are back to my original point. "Look at my snake sitting on his compost pile. I haven't messed with it or cleaned it in years."

All the while the compost pile is not in it's perfect state since humans have a really tough time replicating nature, who is suffering? The snake.

If you run this type of setup and are on top of it 24/7, I commend you and appreciate the efforts you expend to provide the best for your snake. But I will error on the side of most people who get into this hobby. And that is they want minimal effort to say they have a snake and show off their snake to their friends......"oh never mind the stick sticking out of his nose, it's just substrate and it happens all the time in the wild". "It's usually not too lethal".

I do run this type of setup for my ball python and will likely set it up for the garters. He seems very happy with it, more than he was with both paper towels and cocofiber, and is still very healthy. I certainly do mess with it and check on it plenty and spot clean and make sure the insects are properly cleaning the rest. But regardless, that actually wasn't my point at all. Whether bioactive is good or bad is a different debate.

My point was that representing uncleaned cocofiber or wood chip as being what people support when they support bioactive setups benefits no one, including the snakes, as it gives the false impression that there is a group of people out there supporting using just whatever substrate and not cleaning it. Representing that as something that there is an argument for at all does everyone a disservice.

On an unrelated note to the bioactive issue, I would point out that snakes do also ingest everything that is undigested in their prey's stomach as well as all the partially digested stuff in the intestines. They do therefore naturally eat a pretty small percentage of plant matter, seeds, nuts, insects, etc.

It does bother me when my garter snakes get cocofiber in their mouth, even though it doesn't seem to bother them and they prove constantly that it is not obstructing their gut. It honestly wouldn't bother me much if they got dirt in their mouths though because a large part of their (for the species I have and many others) natural diet is worms. Worms have dirt in their gut and lots of it.