Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Considering making the swith to aspen.

Any problems? Advantages? Pros/cons?

All comments appreciated.

Joel
-----
3.6.3 Leopard Geckos (1.4.3 Albino)
~~25 Leo eggs cookin'~~
1.1 Ball Pythons
1.0 African Fat Tail Gecko
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.0 Blair's Phase Gray Banded Kingsnake

I love aspen. I keep all of my snakes, rats, mice, and other assorted rodents on it.

The only cons that I can think of are price and it's somewhat dry (I mist my BPs often, especially when shedding).

The pros are many. Looks good, smells good, feels nice and soft, absorbs odors well, not dusty, etc.....
I'll always use it.

Later,
Jen

-----
HerpCrazy Reptiles

i use aspen on all my balls. never had a problem. i feed in seperate containers with no bedding then back into their cages.
1.1 pastel
1.1 het yellow ghost
1.1 albino .1 100%het albino
1.0 piebald 0.3 100%het piebald

I'm not against using aspen, many keepers use it and do extremely well with it, but It's been my personal experience that it will sometimes "mold" quickly after soiled or dampened, which in turn can harbor unwanted, harmful bacteria. I spend many hours working with my collection and pride myself on giving my animals immaculate living conditions at all times, however I have missed an enclosure or two in my time, and the brand of aspen shavings I was using was very unforgiving. I prefer newspaper, undyed paper-towels, butcher's paper, and cypress mulch, but of course I'm working with high numbers of animals, so the more "care-taker" friendly my enclosures are the better. I decided against aspen after many conversations w/ friends of mine in the hobby, only because of collaberated opinions. I have, however, gave serious consideration to the aspen chips used by SK and some other proffessionals, a buddy of mine is using it for his collection and I have to say it does the trick!! Bottom line...if you're keeping smaller numbers, I think aspen is just fine. Just my opinion.

when I first bought my BP,it came with the enclosure and the aspen. I kept that same aspen for three months. The BP presses it tight and gives it a very attractive compacted bedding look. (great look!)

I spot cleaned and added more aspen as needed during those three months.

When I started feeding some f/t food, however, I used hot water to thaw. This made the food wet. Some pieces of aspen got eaten (with no ill-effect). I didn't like the fact that aspen stuck to wet food (sometimes dry food, too). I didn't care to take the snake out to feed, so I switched to newspaper for all my snakeys. Now the food can be as wet or as dry as I want to be and no aspen shavings get eaten.

I think aspen is fine. I just prefer newspaper. I am too lazy to take the snakey out of the enclosure to feed. The few times I tried to take out of enclosure, I didn't get a feeding response (of course, maybe taking out of enclosure had nothting to do with the no appetite, shrug.).

I just htink newspaper is easier, overall. It is readily available and cost nothing.

cheers.

p.s. please have a pleasant aspen-filled Day!
-----
Longtang. I like snakes and rats.

As people already commented, a lot of people have used aspen with no ill effects. I had a friend of mine bring over a Jungle carpet python that was overdue laying her eggs. She was eggbound and died.Her intestinal tract had become impacted with aspen bedding which caused her to become eggbound. The eggs could not pass by the mass of aspen. This was found when I performed an autopsy on the deceased animal. Aspen is great for holding humidity and is pleasing to the eye. If using aspen, I would recommend feeding the animal in a separate cage. This is especially true when feeding thawed foods since they tend to be wet and the bedding will stick to the animal. Snakes cannot digest it, but can pass small amounts.Its accumulations in the intestinal tracts that become impacted that can cause problems.