Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all,

A while back, I thought I would give newspaper a shot as a substrate. Typically, she has always had excellent sheds without any problem and I was using pine bedding. Her first shed with having newspaper as bedding was a disaster. I did provide some driftwood to assist her with shedding, but it didn't help her much obviously. At that point, I had soaked her in lukewarm water for about 5 minutes at a time, meanwhile I was able to remove 99.9% of the shedded skin. After this, I decided to go back to pine bedding. Currently, her temps and humidity are as follows:

Basking- 93 degrees
ambient air temp- 81
Humidity- typically fluxuating between 60-70% but boosted to about 85 temporarily for aid in shedding.

She just shed last night, and it appears that she is still having trouble shedding. She was able to successfully shed everything except for about a foot long strip of old skin on her back. Until I tried newspaper this was never a problem. Has anyone else ever seen this happen? Any ideas to the cause or how to fix this problem and then prevent it for the future?

Thanks and I appreciate your help!

Chris
-----
Chris Law
U.A.P.P.E.A.L. (Uniting a Proactive Primate and Exotic Animal League)
Herpetoculture Element Representative

I've been using newspaper for over 35 years and have never had a single problem with it; even for high humidity species such as green tree pythons and even burms. Ambient humidity levels is the key component towards healthy sheds. When my burms, or any high humidity herp, goes into a shed cycle, I heavily spray the cage once or twice daily. Newspaper can tolerate quite a bit of misting. It may have just been a fluke and I wouldn't necessarily just ditch it with one bad experience; newspaper is still a great bedding. I personally don't like Pine because of the oils in the wood; can cause irritations and respiratory problems for burms and other herps. Just my .02.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
Lake Forest, IL

>>Hi all,
>>
>> A while back, I thought I would give newspaper a shot as a substrate. Typically, she has always had excellent sheds without any problem and I was using pine bedding. Her first shed with having newspaper as bedding was a disaster. I did provide some driftwood to assist her with shedding, but it didn't help her much obviously. At that point, I had soaked her in lukewarm water for about 5 minutes at a time, meanwhile I was able to remove 99.9% of the shedded skin. After this, I decided to go back to pine bedding. Currently, her temps and humidity are as follows:
>>
>>Basking- 93 degrees
>>ambient air temp- 81
>>Humidity- typically fluxuating between 60-70% but boosted to about 85 temporarily for aid in shedding.
>>
>>She just shed last night, and it appears that she is still having trouble shedding. She was able to successfully shed everything except for about a foot long strip of old skin on her back. Until I tried newspaper this was never a problem. Has anyone else ever seen this happen? Any ideas to the cause or how to fix this problem and then prevent it for the future?
>>
>>Thanks and I appreciate your help!
>>
>>Chris
>>-----
>>Chris Law
>>U.A.P.P.E.A.L. (Uniting a Proactive Primate and Exotic Animal League)
>>Herpetoculture Element Representative
-----
Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

Mr. Carmichael,

Hello and thank you for responding. Typically her humidity levels are high enough and I did actually mist the cage (forgot to add that). I misted it twice daily (once in the morning and once in the evening). As far as pine bedding is concerned....I thought it was cedar that was the problem? I was told by several people that pine typically is but is treated to prevent this? I am assuming this isn't correct? How about Aspen....do you think that would be ok or would you recommend something else?

Thanks,

Chris
-----
Chris Law
U.A.P.P.E.A.L. (Uniting a Proactive Primate and Exotic Animal League)
Herpetoculture Element Representative

I would recommend Aspen over pine bedding. Here's something else to consider. We keep a fair amount of burms off display on newspaper without any problems. For our exhibit, however, it needed to look nice for the public. So, we combined equal parts top soil, ESU Jungle Mix and a little torpedo sand and the topped the surface off with a bunch of dried oak leaves and I must say it looks very nice. We can maintain excellent humidity levels with this substrate and our burms are doing very well. Fecal matter is easily scooped out.....looks real natural too.

>>Mr. Carmichael,
>>
>> Hello and thank you for responding. Typically her humidity levels are high enough and I did actually mist the cage (forgot to add that). I misted it twice daily (once in the morning and once in the evening). As far as pine bedding is concerned....I thought it was cedar that was the problem? I was told by several people that pine typically is but is treated to prevent this? I am assuming this isn't correct? How about Aspen....do you think that would be ok or would you recommend something else?
>>
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Chris
>>-----
>>Chris Law
>>U.A.P.P.E.A.L. (Uniting a Proactive Primate and Exotic Animal League)
>>Herpetoculture Element Representative
-----
Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

" So, we combined equal parts top soil, ESU Jungle Mix and a little torpedo sand and the topped the surface off with a bunch of dried oak leaves and I must say it looks very nice. We can maintain excellent humidity levels with this substrate and our burms are doing very well. Fecal matter is easily scooped out.....looks real natural too."

HHmmm, that sounds like a good idea. How regularly do you have to change this substrate out? What I will probably do is change from Pine to Aspen temporarily until I get my new enclosure built, then I will probably try your recommendation. That would also make the enclosure look really nice. What about uric acids? How well does it work with that?

Thank you for your advice,

Chris
-----
Chris Law
U.A.P.P.E.A.L. (Uniting a Proactive Primate and Exotic Animal League)
Herpetoculture Element Representative

We have been using this "mix" for around 6 months and so far (and using the same mix for years for other herps like monitors, smaller boas/pythons, etc.), it has been easy to maintain. We keep two large burms in a 16' x 4' x 4' exhibit and we just spot clean urates (easy to see in this dark soil mix) and the big dumps are easily taken out. We will do complete changes every 2-3 months or more often if needed. We will aerate this mix by just sifting through it with our hands; this keeps the soil well oxygenated and healthy to allow the microbes to help break down fecal and other organic matter. We'll see how this works on a long term basis but I enjoy experimenting so we'll see where this goes.

>>" So, we combined equal parts top soil, ESU Jungle Mix and a little torpedo sand and the topped the surface off with a bunch of dried oak leaves and I must say it looks very nice. We can maintain excellent humidity levels with this substrate and our burms are doing very well. Fecal matter is easily scooped out.....looks real natural too."
>>
>>HHmmm, that sounds like a good idea. How regularly do you have to change this substrate out? What I will probably do is change from Pine to Aspen temporarily until I get my new enclosure built, then I will probably try your recommendation. That would also make the enclosure look really nice. What about uric acids? How well does it work with that?
>>
>>Thank you for your advice,
>>
>>Chris
>>-----
>>Chris Law
>>U.A.P.P.E.A.L. (Uniting a Proactive Primate and Exotic Animal League)
>>Herpetoculture Element Representative
-----
Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL