Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I saw a message posted the other day saying that "astro turf" or that greenish carpet looking stuff you can buy at like petco isn't good for snakes. I'm curious to know if regular carpet is alright. I've been using regular carpet in both my boa's cage and ball python's cage and they seem to be doing great. Of course it's the softest carpet I can find, and everytime they.....well, crap....I clean it immediatly. There is no foul smells inside the cages at all. I'm just wondering if it's bad to have carpet....why?

i use to have astro turf as a substrate but ther reason I stopped is I heard that astro turf can hold alot of bacteria. if cleaned alot or replaced every couple days i'm sure it's not too bad.. i still see alot of people using it but that was enough for me. Also I always wondered if the feeling of the astro turf was uncomfortable..maybe that's me being dumb but bed a beast or that type of substrate seemed much more pleasant to the touch than the astro turf.either way for me right now it's all about the newspaper...when I get a place with more space I want to start using soil.....as far as regular carpet I can't say I've never used it..the only thing I could see is it holding alot of dust or mildew but since you say it's cleaned constantly I can't think of anything else to worry about except possible fire if the heat pad is directly under the carpet etc.

good luck

...and its disadvantages.

The best carpet I have found is the reptile carpet from justherps.com, its soft, durable, easy to clean, looks nice, etc. It's just great stuff... been using it for months.
However, snakes do like to burrow and hide under the substrate, which is not possible with carpet. So, what I recently started doing, is to have a layer of carpet with the loose substrate of your choice on top of the carpet. Clean up is still very easy, because the carpet helps soak up the mess and with practice its very easy to lift the carpet out and carry most of the loose substrate from the cage to the trash. Then you just wash the carpet, replace and your done.
Another advantage to this is that the carpet puts a layer between your boa and the bottom of the cage, which is often the hottest part if using a UTH. That way, if your boa does burrow, he doesn't go down too deep where its hotter and burn himself.
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David - Houston, TX
Young Red Tail Boa
Purchased 11/16/03
www.geocities.com/davidag02

It's funny you should say that they can't burrow under carpet cause I can't get by boa out from under it. I have two vision cages model 322 on top of another and I guess he likes the heat from the bottom lamp more than basking by his own lamp. heh.

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1.0 Ball Python - Keo
1.0 Silverback Bolivian Boa - Cyn
1.0 Ferret - Bijou
2.0 Cats - Bocephus & Arnold
2.0 Dogs - Bo & Stewie
0.2 Rats - Gwen & XG1