Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I keep hearing different pros and cons on all these. I hear that all can cause kidney failure after a while in rats. I am up to about 35 breeding females right now. I use drynest pine shavings that I get in 12.5Cfoot bags for about 8$ each. It seems ok to me. But who uses what?

I use pine. I have used aspen as well and really like it if you can get the big bags cheap enough.
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Greg Holland
GM HERPS
www.imageevent.com/gmherps
gmherps@sbcglobal.net

Ive always used pine, i don't care for the mallard brand there is another brand who's flakes are much bigger and barely any sawdust, but when i can't get the better one pine is the only one to go with, too many bad things on the cedar
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"Have you hugged your snake lately?"

I really like my drynest brand pine from IFA. I use pets preferance in my lizard cages. It's recycled paper pellets. I'd like the odor control of the cedar for the rats, but the pine is cheep. HAs anyone heard of it causing illness in the rats or second hand to the reptiles?

For my rodent bedding I use 1/2 pine/fir mix with 1/2 shreded papers. (free from my office) It is cheep and working great for me.

My snakes are on Aspen.
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1.1 Albino Sonoran Gopher
2.0 W.C. Sonoran Gopher
1.1 Red Bull Snake
1.1 San Diego Gophers (het albino applegate)
2.2 Leucistic Texas ratsnake
1.1 "White Oak" ratsnake
2.3 W.C Okeetee Corn
1.2 Abbt line Okeetee Corn
1.0 Reverse Okeetee Corn
0.1 Creamsicle Corn
1.2 W.C Miami Phase Corn
1.1 Sinaloan Milk
1.0 Albino Honduran Milk
1.1 W.C Mexican Black King
0.2 C.B Mexican Black King
2.0 W.C Cal King
1.1 C.B Cal King
0.1 Durango Mountain King
1.0 Desert King
1.3 Northern pine
1.1 N.J White pine
3.5 Black pine
1.2 kankakee Bull
2.3 Bearded Dragon
0.0.40 Red Eye Tree frogs
7 Tanks full with African Cichlids.
Many Mice, Rats and feeder Roaches

I use Gem Premiere wood shavings their from Auburn, WA.
4 cu. ft. of it expands to 10 cu. ft. at 6 bucks a pop it works
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2.5.0 ball python
1.1.0 100% het pied
1.0.0 Blond Pastel
0.1.0 Spider
1.1.0 columbian boa
1.0.0 rat snake (alabastered)
1.1.0 corn snake
0.1.0 Chuckwalla (Jamie)
0.0.2 Bearded Dragon
0.0.1 crested gecko
1.0.0 leopord gecko
4.0.0 Quaker parrot (Woody)(Liam)
1.0.0 Landseer Newfoundland (Mac/Newfy)
0.0.5 whites tree frog (trevor, kirmet)
3.2.0 cats (rockie, bs, brownie, lerrado, kole)
1.3.0 kids (dilyen, dakota, chyanne, sierra)
Brian n Chrissy

"snakes are kind of like potato chips, you cant have just one"

The aromatic hydrocarbons in pine and cedar do cause alteration in liver function tests, but I haven't really been able to find what damage it actually causes the liver. And it's "chroni" exposure, which is sort of a nebulous term. Bottom line is that in many cases our feeder rodents probably don't live long enough to cause serious damage. Keep the cages clean, clean water, balanced diet, you're fine. If you have a choice, though, cedar is worse than pine. Aspen is the "best" since it has none of these phenols/hydrocarbons. FWIW-I use pine pellets under either pine or aspen shavings. They break down to a powdery substance, covering the bottom of the pans nicely. 40# bag, $6 at the feed store. Will last a while. I'm sorry if this got long winded-hope it helps a little.

Russell

I use aspen. I get it from Petco, $11 for 2 cubic feet packaged and it expands to 5 cubic feet.
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1.1 Normal Ball Pythons (Snakerton and Mathilda)
1.0 Het Albino Ball Python (Walter)
0.1 Albino Ball Python (Perrie)