Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I get confused with all the cedar, pine, fur etc...which ones are the ones not to use?? At a recent reptile show a few people told me they use hamster/gerbil bedding. it was light tan shavings of some kind. Just wondering if anyone else uses that?

Aspen is the safe wood chip to use. Don't use pine or cedar. I tried repti-bark once and absolutely hated it. I use paper towels and a lot of people like newspaper, too. Cheap and easy to clean and safe for the snake.

I use aspen. It works well. Snakes can burrow and the air in between the chips stay warmer than the rest of the tank with an undertank heater allowing yet another place for the snake to stay warm and hide. Clean up is a sinch and you only need to remove small amounts close to the fecal matter. It's relatively cheap... a $5, 5lb bag lasts me 6 mnths for one cage.

DO NOT FEED YOUR SNAKE ON WOOD CHIPS>>> Many health hazards involved with digesting the wood.

Other than that I give it a big THUMBS up.
-----
-Iman

1.1 Balls
0.1 Boa (BCI)
0.0 Experience
100.0 % LOVE

Hope it helps...

I've used aspen, it is pure crap. It is too dry, they dig into it. It molds if you wet it. Awful stuff, keep it for mammals. Get astro turf. Equally as good as newspaper, and better looking.
-----
Ball-Pythons.Net

Get cypress mulch. Astro-turf is for football fields, not snake cages.

It's bad for ball pythons. It's fantastic for lower humidity burrowing snakes.
-----
Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

I have used aspen for years for hatchlings and newspaper consistently for everything else. I personally do not like cypress since it is difficult to identify feces, urin etc.

Some people have had problems with mold developing on their aspen. You should change it before it gets to that. I have only observed this to happen when the water bowl is tipped and also in rack systems with poor air flow. I use aspen for blood pythons hatchlings with dampness and have not observed mold. I provide sufficient airflow to prevent visible mold growth.

Where can I find aspen at? Petco and petsmart just have the woodchips/bark type stuff.

>>Where can I find aspen at? Petco and petsmart just have the woodchips/bark type stuff.

petsmart sells aspen bedding
petco might as well but i dunno

ashley
-----
Just A Thought
Ashley
;P

I'm 17 and I work at Petsmart. I was looking for aspen bedding but couldnt find any. Then again the store just got remodled and nothing is in place, but I'll have to look again.

I buy mine at Walmart.

Consider just using newspaper or plain, unprinted newsprint. No matter how carefully you scoop up waste, you never really deal with the bacteria build-up with granular or wood chip products. Liquid waste flows underneath - out of sight, out of mind. With paper, it's easy to see when it's dirty, so just roll it up and toss it.

-Joan