Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Everyone that replied to bskorn's thread pretty much answered most of my questions.
But I was just wondering how clean corns are. I'm no stranger to cleaning tanks, I have a few mice I raise as feeders for my bigger leos and their tanks get nasty fast!
Anyways, is their crap easy to clean out of the bedding? or is it recommended to keep them on paper towels?
Thanks!
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Cleaner than mice. They themselves don't smell, and their "poop" is likened to bird droppings with more solid. They defecate 1-2 times per feeding, so it's not much at all. I find spot-cleaning aspen or bedding much easier than replacing paper towels.

Snakes in general are pretty damn clean. If you give it a big enough tank, they tend to defecate in a corner, or in a regular spot. Not all do, but all of mine do.

That's the big benefit of snakes: the very high enjoyment:maintenance ratio.

Cleaner than mice. They themselves don't smell, and their "poop" is likened to bird droppings with more solid. They defecate 1-2 times per feeding, so it's not much at all. I find spot-cleaning aspen or bedding much easier than replacing paper towels.

Snakes in general are pretty damn clean. If you give it a big enough tank, they tend to defecate in a corner, or in a regular spot. Not all do, but all of mine do.

That's the big benefit of snakes: the very high enjoyment:maintenance ratio.

I sort of disagree with bazmonkey in a way.

Yes, it might be easier to scoop out waste when they are on substrate like aspen, but I prefer to use papertowels. I think the cage stays cleaner (provided you change the papertowels when they get soiled) and you can keep track of it much better (if the poop looks healthy or not). I also just heard of a snake that just died from eating substrate, even though it wasn't fed in the same container as the aspen. It just swallowed it sometime in the course of it's life burrowing in the aspen. I would want to risk it, so I use papertowels.

I also used to have a leopard gecko and it pooped way more often than any of my snakes combined. So if you can handle that you should be fine with a snake.
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alstiver@hotmail.com

1.0 '01 hypo snow
0.1 '02 ghost (pastel)
1.1 '02 bloodred

I can definitely see how paper towels could be better, but I couldn't switch mine given how much they burrow in it. It's practically their staple activity.

As for dying from substrate ingestion, if it was fed outside the tank, and the snake just casually ingested aspen, then pardon me for the "coldness", but that thing deserved to go. I can understand killing mice because not all CB snakes can subdue live prey, but a snake that casually eats substrate and dies is not a "fit" snake. In keeping some sort of natural selection, that snake was definitely slated for "untimely demise". The average snake, for the original poster's information (Fritz), can live on aspen at the very least, and with minimal supervision they can eat on it too. Papertowels are much easier in terms of price, and in keeping tight control on environmental conditions, and for inspecting health aspects.

Despite claims otherwise, I think that as a wild animal, expecting a helthy snake to be able to eat on substrate is not an outrageous expectation.

I do realize where you're coming from, Amanda, and I must admit that if I knew the person whose snake died that way, and I knew that snake, I might be compelled to switch to paper towels myself.