These are all great questions. I've wriiten a novel here for you.

Regarding substrate ingestion - it is kind of like the cell phone on an airplane thing. There has been no proof that cell phones interfere with aircraft controls, navigation, etc, but in theory it seems possible. But because cell phone designs and operating frequencies change so quickly, there is no way the FAA can have planes tested constantly for every new cell phone design, so they just play it safe and ban all cell phones while in flight.

Alot of keepers apply that same school of thought. Play it safe, even though having a snake die from ingesting substrate has happened very few times if at all. It may be that the substrate did not cause the problem in the first place, but we play it safe just in case. Not a wrong approach. So, reptile carpet is a safe way to go, even though we really do not know if there was much danger to begin with.

In the wild, they deal with it just fine, but of course they have evolved to live on that soil type. But as is always said, captivity is not even close to the wild. Snakes kept in marginal conditions may be more sensitive to anything, including these wood particle substrates.

Seriously, if you've ever found a rosy in the wild, there aren't any aspen shavings around, or reptile carpet, or ground walnut. These substrates are so foreign to what a rosy has evolved in/on that it is amazing that the snakes do as well as they do in our plastic boxes. They definitely adapt to our captive conditions as much as our captive conditions provide for them.

Regarding humidity. Excellent question. I have seen the effects of too high of humid conditions on rosies, and it isn't good. But, moderate humidity is just fine especially when lots of ventilation is provided. Since rosies live underground most of the time, it is safe to say that they don't dry out. There must be some humidity level down there. Probably very stable and probably in the lower end of moderate. So if cage carpet helps maintain that level in that breeder's cages, then maybe that is why they recommend it. Sounds reasonable to me.

I have done a soak session with baby rosies once a week or once every few weeks in a plastic box with a water level of less than 1/4 inch for about 5 minutes or so. I think the babies are better off being hydrated like that and then kept dry between those soakings. I think it helps with feeding response. I live in an area that can get dry though. If I lived in Florida, I doubt it would be necessary to soak. Probably tough to keep rosies happy there anyway with that year-round humidity.

One other observation from my own collection. I've never seen a stuck shed on a rosy, no matter how dry I've kept them. I think that says alot about how well they do with lower humidity in their cage most of the time.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

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