Shredded Aspen vs CareFresh

[defour]

Of course, we're one of two exotic vets.

Eh? There are only two, and you two are one of them?

What we recommend to people wanting to keep their snakes on aspen (those die-hard fans...) is that they pack the aspen down very well. Often a misting of water, packing and drying of substrate is all that is needed. That generally helps to keep tiny pieces from sticking up and extremely loose substrate from becoming body-borne without some work.

Good advice. I tend to pack mine, mostly to make it less likely to get pushed into water dishes; I hadn't thought about any other advantages.

I still advocate newspaper.

I used to use newspaper a lot. I quit for two reasons: first, oftentimes the snake would get underneath all the paper and do its business there, effectively rendering the paper useless, and second, it just doesn't look good. I also used to have concerns about possible health effects from the ink/bleach, but I haven't seen any evidence of any and don't consider it a problem anymore. Lately, I don't use paper for the additional reason that it's less effective at dealing with large quantities of waste. I keep big, hungry colubrids, and when kept on paper the snakes have a tendency to really foul up the cage before I'm able to get it out. Aspen seems to reduce this by taking on more liquid.

I did like the use that burrowing species made of multiple layers of paper. I used to give my rubber boa a dozen or more sheets with some tears made in them, and it sometimes took me awhile to find her. If I had a lot of smallish snakes I would consider going back to paper.


[/QUOTE]