Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i use the coconut husk fiber bedding for my brb. i use it in the cage and in the humidity box. do you guys have opinions either way on any bedding? someone was talking about using natural soil... is any soil better? i think i like the husk fiber for the substrate but im thinking about switching to moss for the humidity box.

I had a vivarium for my brbs for a while, and the thing you really have to watch out for with natural soil is mold and pests. If you are going to go with natural soil bake the heck out of it and set up a full on vivarium style drainage system. I gave up because I felt that it was more work than it was worth. Right now I keep all my snakes in steralites without any bedding. It's ugly but it cuts down on cleaning time. (and I never have to worry about mold or about messes I can't see) In this picture you can see the plastic-coated dish drying rack(so they can go somewhere dry) and upside-down bowl(hide-hut) and the large bowl with water in the bottom.(So they have two sources of water, so If they poop and I'm gone all day they can just drink from the other water source.) I put water in the bottom of the sterelite(it's not in this picture) so since it's a closed environment the humidity stays around 80-90.

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-Jasmine

6.5 Brazilian Rainbow Boas
1.1 Peruvian Rainbow Boas

I'm currently using a decorative bark which is made up of 'western forest products' overlaid with a thick layer of moss. I get the 'forest products' that are composed of small pieces and alot of it is really broken down and makes a rich, soil like substrate (Home Despot, Lowes, exc). I've never had an issue with mold but there are lots of organisms living in this stuff. I like that; they are not harmful to the snakes (as far as I can tell) and help break down the feces that I occasionally miss. The substrate and moss are great for high humidity environments. I change out everything every 4 months or so.
Environment:

Happy snakes:

I know why those snakes are so happy!!

And it's not the substrate, they gettin some!!
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

I have dozens (OK, several dozen), I keep all mine on paper substrate. A couple of layer of newspaper fpr added absorbancy and a layer of indented craft paper to look nice and keep the newspaper ink off the snakes.

For a good portion of the year I also give them damp moss in the hide boxes. This is what I call feeding season, they eat a lot and mess the cage more so to simplify things, I line the hides with paper as well.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

I was the one talking about natural soil.It is made without vermaculite, perlite or chemical fertilizer. I don't use this in all of my cages because it is hard to maintain especially since both of the snakes in this cage will go into the water bowl at the same time and flood the bottom of the cage. Fortunately I have a heat pad on the bottom of the glass tank and it evaporates and keeps the humidity high. I also have a hide box (a 6 qt sterilite box) with green moss in it (you can buy this at Orchard and most home improvement stores with a nursery). This is where my BRBs typically hang out. I soak it prior to putting it in the hide box so it is dripping a bit when it is in there. This makes the hide box really humid even if the rest of the cage is not. Typically the moss will not get mold for about two weeks as long as the snakes don't poop in it, but they usually do. I also use moss boxes occaisionally with my other non-BRB snakes who are having bad sheds, my baby hognose especially enjoys it.
For my adult BRBs I have them with hide boxes like Dave does in the "feeding season" (good word for it Dave) as well as newspaper in the bottom of the cage. For my baby BRB she is in a container and I use paper towels as well as a small version of the moss box available at all times. The paper towel seems to work better since she typically spills her water and it absorbs it better, with wet newspaper things get nasty and when the snake is active it turns into a stinky pulp.
More than anything I think the newspaper and paper towels are convenient for cleaning, the soil has bacteria and little organizms that break down small fecal matter. I would love to have all of my cages setup with soil because it looks a lot more natural than bright white paper towels or newspaper but is less easy to clean. I used unbleached papertowels so you dont have to worry about chemicals. Other than that I think its just a matter of choice to what substrate you use.
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Jess
2.4 adult BRBs (Sango, Dude, Copper, Cleo, Cherry, Dudette)
1.1 baby BRBs born 6/18/06 my first litter(Zeek, Isis)
0.1 baby BRB produced by Dave Colling (Sable)
1.1 Pacific/celestial Parrotlets (Dewey and Delilah)
1.1 MORE Pacific/Celestial Parrotlets (Tickle and Booger)
1.0 normal corn (Pop the Cornsnake)
1.1 african brown house snake (Nellie, Lacie)
1.1 crested geckos (Chips, Dijon)
1.0 Veiled Chameleon (Calais)
1.1 western hognoses (Google, Yahoo)
0.1 paranoid mother "too many snakes!"
1.0 significant other that gives me a funny look when I say a baby snake is cute

thanks,

alot of info, proving to me, once again, that there are many good ways to do most of this stuff.