Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering if any of you have experience with Sani-Chips with Crotalus and whether or not you recommend it or not and why? thnaks

I have used it and it would be suitable for your desert dryer species. Though other substrates would be much better. For your more temperate species cypress is probably your best bet
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Dan S.
Crotalus & Company-- Captive Bred Reptiles
Venom-Center -- Venomous Community
Wisconsin Reptile Community
Hybrid Herps-- Hybrid Community

Check this out. Another substrate alternative to either is:
http://www.horticulturesource.com/product_info.php/products_id/1311

Available all over the place - just Google it. The link I gave is the cheapest I've seen. Usually about $13-14. 70 liters is quite a lot of substrate (about 4/5 of a 20-gallon tote).

This Cocogro stuff is not the fine-grain little-brick stuff we all know, it's a chunky-hairy mix (looks a lot like cypress) with some finer stuff in the mix.

I use it, I love it. Dry cages, humid cages, whatever. I posted "a good alternative to cypress" here a while back. More details there.

cheers,
Jimi

I think I posted that note in "cage & habitat design".

sorry for fuzz-head...

cheers,
Jimi

"Though other substrates would be much better"
Like???? Can you give me your advice? Currently I use walnut bedding and I like it, I have used aspen bedding and it gets trapped in the tracks of my Neodesha cages, and finally I have used sand but it is heavy.

Well there are many types of substrate that will do the job and have their good points and bad points. While i use aspen in with my colubrids I do not use it with my crotalids. Here at least I find once it gets wet it starts producing mold. So i dont use it for snakes that require some humidity or where it cant be switched out quick an easy. For my crotalids I use sand for the desert species and cypress for the moderate to tropical species. Sand has many benefits i like though there is the weight issue. Cypress holds the humidity well but sometimes comes with bugs.

I do like the crushed walnut and if i could get it in bulk at a good price I might use it more.

Coconut bedding is another great product but again I run into a quantity v/s cost issue.

For neonates they go on paper towel out of ease to clean up due to their small enclosures.

In the end there is no for sure right or wrong, try out a few and use what works best for you. You have to remember we all have different climates as well, this and the local availability of a substrate does come into play.

With me i am housing well over 200 snakes and I have to take in consideration local availability and overall cost factors. If I was keeping only a few snakes I might be using one of the others i mentioned
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Dan S.
Crotalus & Company-- Captive Bred Reptiles
Venom-Center -- Venomous Community
Wisconsin Reptile Community
Hybrid Herps-- Hybrid Community

Dan made some excellent points; use what works best for you (w/in reason - obviously, no cedar or strong scented/oily plants). I use a number of substrates with excellent success including sand, sand/soil mix, soil/forest humus/sand mix, soil/leaf mulch/sand mix, aspen, cypress (I'm not a big fan of cypress only because I don't want to contribute to the rampant depletion of our cypress swamps which are disappearing at a rapid rate), paper towel and newspaper (still, the all time best substrate but just doesn't look that nice), etc. If you have the facilities, a sealed concrete floor with drainage built it so you can just hose it, dry it and voila, clean cage....safe to say, most of us don't have those abilities.

One word of caution about sani-chips - they are so small that there have been cases of the small and very lightweight wood squared getting lodged in cloacas, gum lines, heat pits, etc. Those cases may be rare as I know of others who have used it with success.

Rob Carmichael

>>Well there are many types of substrate that will do the job and have their good points and bad points. While i use aspen in with my colubrids I do not use it with my crotalids. Here at least I find once it gets wet it starts producing mold. So i dont use it for snakes that require some humidity or where it cant be switched out quick an easy. For my crotalids I use sand for the desert species and cypress for the moderate to tropical species. Sand has many benefits i like though there is the weight issue. Cypress holds the humidity well but sometimes comes with bugs.
>>
>>I do like the crushed walnut and if i could get it in bulk at a good price I might use it more.
>>
>>Coconut bedding is another great product but again I run into a quantity v/s cost issue.
>>
>>For neonates they go on paper towel out of ease to clean up due to their small enclosures.
>>
>>In the end there is no for sure right or wrong, try out a few and use what works best for you. You have to remember we all have different climates as well, this and the local availability of a substrate does come into play.
>>
>>With me i am housing well over 200 snakes and I have to take in consideration local availability and overall cost factors. If I was keeping only a few snakes I might be using one of the others i mentioned
>>-----
>>Dan S.
>> Crotalus & Company-- Captive Bred Reptiles
>>Venom-Center -- Venomous Community
>>Wisconsin Reptile Community
>> Hybrid Herps-- Hybrid Community
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

I use it for a substrate base. I put Sani-Chips or Aspen Chips in first, then cover that with Pine Needles, leaves, and sometimes add pine cones or branches. I've never used it for baby klauberi, just personal preference. I've always been paranoid that the baby klaubs would ingest some with their meal. Can't say I have ever observed that, but it's just precautionary.
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John Blume
WWW.KLAUBERI.COM