The Best Substrate

[adamanteus]

That's a good and valid point, Steve. You do have to be there to keep on top of the cleaning up. The beauty of it is that it takes seconds to do.

Secure sealing is essential, especially around the edges where the substrate meets the walls, if anything nasty was to seep in it would be there for ever.

[Gyre]

I just switched to peat two days ago. Not nearly enough time for me to have good or bad feelings about it..

I do like the way your substrate looks, James. I just think they should be able to burrow.. I don't know if all snakes do it so much, but it seems to be my snake's favourite passtime.. That and chasing my fingers. :P

[Boots]

I am not sure if anyone has meantioned it already, but I used Corn-cob bedding, when I got my first garter all those many years ago. I never had any problem with it, and it was really easy to clean up. Anyone else had any experence using it?

Jason

[adamanteus]

I've seen corn-cob bedding used quite widely by stores and keepers in the UK. Never used it myself though.

[sschind]

I have two negatives about corn cob. If ingested it swells rather than breaks down, and when wet it gets slimy and moldy very quickly. Both things you can prevent (the ingestion and getting wet not the swelling and molding) but for my money its not as good as the aspen crumble bedding and it doesn't look as nice. It is probably cheaper however.

Steve

[northeastexotics]

I use aspen bedding, all my snakes are in plastic bins on racks, when you have close to 400 snakes, you need the most economical and easiest way to maintain them, however I am looking more at making a bunch of more natural looking cages for my snakes.

But I have used apsen bedding for years, I am not sure of impaction, but in the past few years, I have had 5 snakes mysteriously croak on me that other wise seemed healthy snakes, but even 5 snakes is only like a 1.2% death rate of my entire collection.

[KITKAT]

I have been using aspen bedding for some time now and so far, no worries! But I watch feeding time carefully, and have been known to grab a piece of bedding right out of their mouths when they start to ingest it...

[KITKAT]

Well, now that Stefan-A switched to newspaper, I'm checking out peat. Let's see how good it is to absorbs odors and how easy it will be to clean it...

Is that actual dried peat moss, or Michigan peat? I once kept shrews (was doing research) on Michigan peat, and discovered that it caused lung problems.

[Stefan-A]

In my case, it's actual dried peat moss. Wouldn't surprise me one bit, it's like wood dust when it's totally dry. But I found a substitute, it's a kind of bark mulch used in gardens. Cheap stuff, but I hope they don't swallow it.

[drache]

I'm trying to switch from newspaper - so far with mixed results
everything else I've tried so far ends up in the grooves of the sliding doors
I've thought of that repti-carpet stuff, but then I have to take everything out when it needs to get changed
the newspaper I put in in smaller overlapping sections, and I put in several layers, so that I can just whip out soiled sections and about every six weeks the whole thing gets redone
I wonder whether there's a way to segment the repti-carpet - like tiles
some of my cages have stuff on top of the paper, like some carefresh or some loose sphagnum moss

has anyone here tried that new excavator substrate for any of their other critters?
it's sort of off-topic, since garters don't really dig
I was thinking my hognose might like it