Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering what peoples views were on using sand as a substrate?
Obviously feeding would need to be done carefully so the snake didn't get a big dose of sand with the food but other than that are there any possible complications or downers?

I'm not using it at the minute and have no real plans to, this is more of a thought I had while I should have been working!

Sand is used in sandpaper! Think about it. Aspen is my first choice.

Sand paper is only abrasive because the sand in it is held in place, otherwise side winders and the like would have real issues! I was thinking more of issues like heat insulation etc.

I have not used sand with corn snakes, however, I did use sand in a milk snake display and it worked very nicely. It was in a reptile house so the ambient temps were pretty high (75-80F) and there was a basking spot provided by an overhead spotlight. We did not use any sort of underbelly heat in our exhibits but the sand was pretty deep so I would suspect that would have been pretty ineffective anyway. We fed in the enclosure and never had any problems with impaction or substrate ingestion. Of course, we did not thaw our mice in water so the sand did not stick to them.

Having said all that, for our corn snake exhibits we had a base layer of pea gravel covered with pine straw. Again, basking sites were provided by overhead spot lights. There were some stumps in there as well as some live plants...very forest floor like. That worked very well as well. The corns would hide in the pine straw and bask on the stumps. Depending on what look you were looking for, that might be an option as well. The snakes were also fed in their exhibit with no ingestion/impaction issues.

One thing to consider in both of these set ups (and when considering the use of a substrate like this) is that they both had drains in the floor so that the substrate could be rinsed pretty thoroughly in the enclosure. This, coupled with the substate depth allowed us to keep them pretty clean for an extended period of time. If you were to do something like this in a small enclosure with a shallow layer of substrate I would be concerned with urate buildup over time as gravel or sand by themselves are not going to become bioactive. Not saying you should not do it, just something to think about.

Hope this is helpful.

Rob

Thanks for such an in-depth answer Rob, it was all very useful. I thought it might make a nice change for my snake, give her something new to explore etc.

It's not something I'm going to rush into but the more info I have the better!

Thanks again

I don't know what you are using for substrate now but if you are just looking for something new for the sake of enrichment (which I think is a great idea) I would actually suggest things like Carefresh, aspen, newspaper, or cypress mulch over sand. All of those are good substrates and, if put into some kind of rotation, could provide a variety of scents and textures for the snake. All of them are easier to work with than sand as well.

If, on the other hand, you are looking for a specific look (as in a naturalistic vivarium) than I think sand can be used if the concerns mentioned my previous post are addressed. Just keep in mind that sand is heavy and not particularly easy to keep clean.

Just some more food for thought.

Rob

>>Thanks for such an in-depth answer Rob, it was all very useful. I thought it might make a nice change for my snake, give her something new to explore etc.
>>
>>It's not something I'm going to rush into but the more info I have the better!
>>
>>Thanks again

sand is bad. Its a mess. It gets in the water bowl, the snake could ingest it, its dusty so it could cause URI. And its bad for the scales. I have always heard its rough on scales and snakes that are not adapted to life on sand can have a rough time with it.
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