Reptile & Amphibian Forums

how many of you guys use newspaper or paper towels for there indigos i think im ready to toss the wood bedding and go for paper towel or news paper for easy cleen up...

For all my Drymarchon I use newspaper. It is easy and quick to clean and inexpensive. I used to use Sani Chips.

Robert

>>how many of you guys use newspaper or paper towels for there indigos i think im ready to toss the wood bedding and go for paper towel or news paper for easy cleen up...

I use both aged newspaper and paper towel. I place a base layer of paper towel with two of three sheets of newspaper. I have 12 snakes so the cost of paper towel its bad. Walmart 8 rolls (unprinted) $6.00.

Dann

At home, I keep my indigos on good old fashioned newspaper and having nothing bad to say about it (other than it doesn't look that great)...by far and away the best substrate. BUT, at my wildlife center, that features many herp exhibits, I go with a much more natural look for our indigo on display. This cage has a sandy/soil/pea gravel substrate w/grounded up spaghnum moss; looks real nice and it works very well. The indigo loves to burrow in this stuff too.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
City of Lake Forest Parks & Recreation (IL)

I use solid white paper towel for hatchlings. Use newspaper for everyone else, at least two weeks old. Clean cages minimum twice a week.

i like the look of aspen but that's about it......so i use newspaper mainly because it's safe/easy to feed on and is fairly asorbent too.......

I use exactly the same drill. The only difference is that I have large rubbermaid boxes in one end of the cages half-filled with cypress mulch. They love to burrow up in that stuff.

A little over half of my Indigo's cage is newspaper and the rest is aspen. He likes the aspen to burrow in and it creates a natural hide on that side of the cage. I feed on the side of the newspaper just to minimize any injestion of the aspen. He typically eats right where he finds the food. I used paper towels when he was still a little guy. I would need way too many paper towels now.
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Gregory S. Hake

I use a thick layer of aspen for all my snakes. I like the insulative properties that a thick layer of aspen shavings provide. If the cage floor were warmer, newspaper would be appropriate for me.

Doug T

I never use newspaper (especially after seeing the ink rub off on some of my snakes-can't trust the quality). I use aspen for dry snakes, then cypress and finally, spagnum moss for the "wet" ones. Sand is for the other extreme (my sidewinder and horned vipers-cerastes).

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I have used a wide variety of substrates throughout the years, but both newspaper and paper towel have been my mainstays. With newly hatched neonates I use moistened paper towel. I use paper towel exclusively on all Eastern Indigos up until the time they get about 3 feet in length, at which time I switch to newspaper.
Paper towel is cheap, easily cleaned and pretty inert. All in all a good bedding. When I had very few Easterns I gravitated towrd using recycled paper towel, purely out of enviornmental concern. As the collection grew, so did the need for even MORE paper towel, en' masse, which made it monetarily impossible to afford, as recycled paper towel is Expensive, just as organic produce is expensive( Funny ting that is shouold be). I tended to use a LOT of paper towel in each slide box, or cage, often putting down three layers of it, which allows the snake ot hide and absorbs the massive amounts of watery poop and urates. Fun eh?

As for newspapers...I use them on adults, often three layers thick, and replace them OFTEN. Luckily, I have used Vision cages, which the newspaper fits in nicely and neatly. I change the newspaper whenever it gets a)Soiled..or b)Wet, because of waterbowls tipped over etc. I also wipe the snakes off every three weks or so, because of the ink that is in the paper which adheres to their scales.

Good news about BOTH substrates is this: No ingestion of particulate matter ito snakes mouth or espohagus.

Hope this long diatribe helps...

Sincerely,

Fred Albury

I use cypress mulch for my pair of cribos - its my personal favorite. Its cheap, doesn't mildew and when deep allows the snakes to burrow down into it. It holds moisture very well so ventilation has to be adjusted accordingly

Joe