Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The great tree genocide

I very much need advice on this one.

All of you out there that have a fairly large collection, I am talking more than 50 cages or rack drawers to clean I need some in put.

Those of you that know me, know that I am a bit OCD when it comes to things being neat and clean in my home. Thus I find myself spending most of my spare time at home clean snake cages.

So here goes… As I was cleaning last night I had a thought that just popped into my head. I clean every one of my 70 cages/drawers at the very least once a week, most of them twice a week. I have noticed that I can easily go through two entire rolls of paper towels inside of a week. That is a whole lot of paper towels and a whole lot of trees dying for the cause.

Even though I mostly get recycled, I still feel that this is extremely wasteful and I am hoping that others with large collections have already solved this problem and can enlighten me.

Thank you for your time.

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John Wiseman
www.rainbowsbydesign.com

18.30 BRBs (as of 6-20-2012)
3.8 others

that's why i use newspapers. not as "clean" looking but i feel like i'm recycling and the ink is kinda bactericidal. the used cypress mulch gets dumped into my yard. feel enough guilt feeding rodents to snakes.

Johnnic,

I actually do use newspaper as substrate. Couldn't imagine trying anything else with this volume of snakes. I use so many paper towels actually cleaning the cages.

I take all the newspaper out and spray some water in the cage and wipe out whatever is left in the cage.
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John Wiseman
www.rainbowsbydesign.com

18.30 BRBs (as of 6-20-2012)
3.8 others

oh ok... yeah i don't spot clean/wipe. if i have to change the substrate/newspaper, i have an industrial sized basin sink with power washer. just blast the crap (literally) out of the enclosure

Always the great debate, how to reduce the overall carbon footprint. The tree huggers would say to use wash rags instead of paper towels since you can wash and reuse them. Of course that requires electricity and water so is that really any less of a footprint??

I also go through lots of paper every week, paper towels for general cleaning, "single fold" paper towels for the baby tubs, newspaper and indented craft paper for all the adults and sub-adults.
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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 (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Along with the risk of the animal just managing to either get tangled up in, or even swallow (or partially swallow), or just get a towel tangled up in their teeth. I cringe at the thought of people using towels as substrate even though I know some do, I've just seen the unfortunate results before of when things can go wrong with it.

Charlie

It may not be the correct way to rationalize it, but while we use more supplies/materials than another person would who only keeps one or a few animals as pets, if the animals were spread out into more homes and being properly cared for, roughly the same amount of materials are still going to be used.

Having said that, personally I like to be able to spot clean a little more than some of the rest of you it sounds like. I have somewhere around 50 cages, I at least take a glance in almost every cage daily (some of the ball pythons I don't and babies tend to get checked every 2-3 days) so I usually catch messes fairly quickly and like to be able to just clean out the isolated spot. For snakes that need humidity I use pure cypress, which I also put around my yard when I'm done with it. For the dry climate animals I use sanichip.

btw, I envy whichever one of you it was that mentioned having a pressure washer and a deep sink handy to use it with...I've considered something like that several times thinking it would make things easier! lol

Charlie

I know what you mean. I go through paper towels like crazy, especially since I use them as substrate for babies and juveniles. The only solace I have to using so many is that at least paper towels are biodegradable.
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Aubrey Ross

www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Any chance of switching the bottom over to some sort of soil then mulch layer? Prevent having to clean the bottom of every cage every time.

To save on on paper towels, you could use a sponge and microwave it in between each tank to "sterilize" it. Sponges are supposed to be microwaved daily anyways, so the sponge should still last a fairly decent amount of time - month maybe?

The electricity used during a 45-60 second microwave burst each time would be minimal.

Just a thought.
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Chris
Chris Carille Photography - carillephoto.com
Garden of Eden Exotics - edenexotics.weebly.com
http://nyexotics.blogspot.com/