Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What no you guys do for a natural looking substrate?

I've had success keeping atrox on everything from aspen to newspaper. Stay away from cedar or pine.

-Kris

I keep newborns on paper and older ones on aspen.
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Tim Cole
www.austinherpsociety.org
www.AustinReptileExpo.com/
www.AustinReptileService.net
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Conservation through Education

I was thinking more of an arid look. I've been told by a few guys that a pea gravel/play sand mix would work fairly well. Any thoughts?

It really is just what your needs are. If you are keeping one for display/personal enjoyment a sand or gravel or mixture of both works just fine and most definitely looks best in a natural display for the species. If I were going to do a display myself, I would just use play sand with large rocks placed how you like for shelters and such. Play sand dries fecal matter quickly and can be easily spot cleaned with a shop vac/long tube attachment. It's drawback is weight. Although they inhabit many enviroments fro desert to lower pine forset I most often see atrox in washes cratered in the sand waiting for dinner to come by. Sand and gravel mix looks good too,but will be harder to clean.I have never had a problem of any kind with snad and I jhave kept snakes on it for forty years. For the first twenty or so I used it almost exclusively.

Those who keep numbers of snakes tend to prefer stuff like aspen as it is absorbent, lightweight and easy to clean. I use a mixture. I have always liked pine for it's odor killing ability. I have never had any trouble with it and I have used it in my breeder racks for kingsnakes and boas for most of my life. With rattlesnakes however it gets pushed around too much and looks messy. I really liie aspen as it packs nicely and forms a mat, but it isn't that great for odor absoption. I now make a mix of pine and aspen (75% aspen/25% pine) which together makes a nice matted substrate and has good odor absorption (my wife has a nose like a bloodhound)Don't use cedar, it can cause a lot of problems! Spot cleaning is easy,I just use the shop vac with tube attachment. I don't have to get anywhere near the snakes or remove them from the cage. They usually don't even budge from their coil. I then just rearrange the bedding a little to cover the crater made by the shop vac. Every couple of cleanings of course I remove the snake, suck all the bedding out, and give it a thorough cleaning/change of bedding. I try to find that balance between easy to maintain (I have a very crazy work schedule) and halfway pleasant to look at, lol. It's a molossus pic but this is how most of my crote cages basically look...

Rich

maybe it wiil give ya some ideas...

Kinda goes along with my mix i want to make. Doesn't look like there is a lot of sand in that pic. Mostly very small rocks. Thanks. Great pic

It's actually course sand with small pebble mixed.

Two concerns I'd have with sand/gravel....

First, as Rich already mentioned, this is heavy stuff...which can make rearranging enclosures quite a chore if necessary.

Second, if you decide to use a sand/gravel mix, I'd recommend either feeding the snake in a different enclosure (i.e. a bucket) or feeding f/t and placing the dead rodent on a rock inside the enclosure. There's always the rsik of impaction if the snake swallows too much sand/gravel...Yes, in the wild swallowing some substrate is a natural occurrence but too much can definitely lead to health concerns.

-Kris

I have a 6' Vision cage that I made into an atrox enclosure. I keep an adult trio in it, and it is very naturalistic. On the heated side, I have a mixture of sand, pea gravel and rocks set up in a den-like manner in which they can bask from above. Towards the middle of the area, I have some river rocks, in the form a small river bed to cross over into an area that has a large water bowl on cypress mulch and the bowl is surrounded by moss. Shredded redwood and bark with a large log for a hide on the same side, and couple of faux cacti on the sand/pea gravel. The end result is a nice looking setup with a complete array of environments for the animals. I haven't had any problems at all with it, and if I knew how to post pics on the forum I would!