Hello!!

[GarterGuy]

What does the carefresh stuff look like? Do you have a photo of your tank?

Hi Odie and Hans!!! I'm really ready to have one but I'm going to wait till spring so I can have more money and I'm hoping to be in my own apt!!!! I can't wait to move out.

This is my female T.s.concinnus (Petra) tank. Like I said, it's kind of grey and lumpy looking, but I've had great success using it on all my snakes, not just the garters.

[Sputnik]

It's the same kind of stuff I use. I think it's called Back2Nature.




Or there is always recycled paper cat litter (and slate)...

[NFS07]

It does not look that bad. That may be something I should look into than.

[Lori P]

I'm going to look into it too. I've been worrying about the aspen, but, I didn't want to take away the snakes' option to burrow and tunnel as they love it so! This looks like a good alternative!

[Roy Munson]

Hi Nicole! I saw your reply in my Puget thread, so I thought I'd give you an official welcome.

A few years ago, I tried Carefresh on one of my corn snakes, and I didn't like it. Not only didn't I like the look (which I could have dealt with), but the stuff seemed to suck all of the humidity out of the environment. The snake was in a plastic tub, so humidity control had never been an issue. The snake had always been problem-free and had shed perfectly every time on aspen, but I got a bad shed out of him on Carefresh. His ventral scales also started to look slightly wrinkled and dry/split at the edges. I changed him back to aspen, and everything returned to normal. I still have the rest of the bag of Carefresh.

My two garter pairs are young, so I keep them on paper towels. I haven't decided what I'll use for substrate when they're adults. If I can get them to eat in separate feeding tubs, I may go with aspen for their living enclosures. I'm keeping mine separately. I've been anti-cohab for too long with other snake species to change my ways now (ha ha).

[Lori P]

Ok, well, I bought some Carefresh today to try. The vet had told me that Miriam's fecal sample was slightly grainy, so I started to really worry about her ingesting substrate. But she looooooves to burrow, so I didn't just want to go with paper or carpet. Plus, I'll be changing it a lot the next several weeks as they go thru their parasite treatment, and this is easy to scoop out.

Here they are exploring...



And here's the tank with it... I don't think it looks bad!



Little Miriam, looking soooo much better :-)



And Esme, the milksnake's tank...



I sure don't want to dry them out... so will watch them carefully!!!

[drache]

I find that supplying a damp hide makes care fresh okay

[Lori P]

Well, and it's just recycled paper pulp, so I'm thinking it would be akin to them lying on and burrowing under paper towels... but will keep Dean's experience in mind.

Plus, it comes in many fashion colors... pink, blue, white, and natural... LOL!!

[salzar]

welcome to the forum. bye
michelle

[GarterGuy]

Hey, Lori the tanks look great.....hope you have as good an experiance with the Carefresh as I've had. RM's story is one I've heard from others, but like I said, I've had ALL my snakes on Carefresh now for several years, even the baby garters, with out EVER having any issues with them being too dry. They all shed, nice complete sheds and I don't have any problems with dry or split ventral scales on them. They aren't in plastic tubs though, and have good sized cages with lots of room to move around, onto different surfaces and also have large water dishes to soak and swim in if needed (although I've never seen them in there water dishes, except for a drink or just a minute or two swim). Also the relative humidity in the room is only at 30-40% during the winter, so the room's not providing anything extra. I wonder if kept in rack systems the bedding does dry their skin out, due to the fact they're always just sitting on it and usually tubs only have very small water dishes ( I imagine that extra humidity is gained even from H2O evaporating from the larger dishes...although my Thayeri kings don't have large dishes in their tanks?). Anyways, it's always good to keep an eye on your critters wheh you make any big change like this, but I do hope that you have as good of luck with it as I.

Roy

PS......Glad to see Miriam looking better.