Beddings the good and the bad side of them....

Hello Guys,
I was just reading the Poll below about substrates and thought that it would be a good time to rehash some of the different ones out there. I am hoping to have a few new Boa Keepers come here to visit in the next few weeks and hope to have them read about some of the items used.
First off I would like to let any of the new keepers or those that did not realize know that Cedar and Pine wood chips are toxic to reptiles. They produce an oily resin that is built up and stored in the animal’s liver over time.
So with those two beddings out of the way they are still a number of “Pet Store” beddings out there for use. I call a “Pet Store” bedding those small 1 or 2 pound bags of different chips, pellets and recycled paper that is offered at pet stores. These are normally priced out of the range that a breeder with any size collection normally could not afford to use them.
I have three beddings of choice that I have used in the past with success. Newspaper, Aspen Shavings and Cypress Mulch. Each has their pluses and minuses but each can be used with great success and at a reasonable cost.

1) Newspaper is cheap, free in fact if you can get some friends to save it up for you. I have used newspaper on my animals for years and years with very little problems, but there is a couple of issues with it. It is not very attractive, kind of bare bones look to it and it makes the cages look boring. Also it does not hold humidity well and has a hard time absorbing a lot of waste (the kind that would come out of a really big boa!) so I cause you to have to clean and disinfect the cages more often. But with some cleaning it is a great substrate.
2) Cypress Mulch. Again pretty cheap as long as you live in an area that sells it. I am told that it can be hard to find in the northern states at different times of the year. It is a great looking substrate and holds moisture great! It does not normally have any type of mold growth and is easy to spot clean. In fact the only draw back that I have ever come up with in Cypress mulch is that fact that it seems to come with mites. The only times that I have ever gotten mites into my collection is after putting in fresh Cypress Mulch. I would imagine (but have never tried) that you could get rid of the mites by placing the mulch on cookie sheets and keeping it in your over at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes, but there is a fire hazard to this as the wood could fall onto the heating elements and burn. House fires stink so I avoid this idea LOL
3) The last one that I will discuss is Aspen Bedding. Aspen bedding has always been a cost issue with me, as bails would sell for $25.00 or more at some of the Pet Shops. However I have found that any local tack and feed stores also carry lab grade Aspen much cheaper, in fact my local feed store sells it for about $9.95 per bail and that is a compressed bail at that, so it goes about as far as several bags of Cypress Mulch making it about the same in cost now. Although it is more a natural bedding, I don’t think it is as nice looking as the cypress mulch and it is a bit messier. However, because it is Kiln dried, there are no mites and it is a sterile substrate. It is easy to spot clean, almost like cat litter and can stay viable for several weeks, depending on the humidity level in the cage and how often your Boa dumps the water bowl LOL. This is currently the substrate that I use on all my large snakes, (the babies still get newspaper).

I would like to hear about others and any different substrates that you use, (always interested to see if there is anything better).
I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and thanks for reading

Substrates

Could you just put the cypress mulch in a freezer for a few days to get rid of mites?

I use Aspen shavings as well. I only keep one boa, a 4 and a half foot hog island. Ive tried the cypress mulch, which I liked, but I'm a northerner (lol) so i cant find it at all during the winter months. So I stopped using it all together. My boa seems to LOVE aspen. He is always burrowing under it, and he will push a pile of it to one side of the enclosure and make a big burrow out of it as well as little tunnels going all around the cage. The kind I buy, with the way its shredded, holds its shape very well for that. I can get away with buying the smaller bales of it at the pet shops cause I use it for my boa, as well as only a couple other snakes, so I dont need to buy that much of it. And its very easy to spot a pile of poop on it.

I use cypress myself in all my large cages and display type cages. I've never had an issue with any pests in it though. On that note however, I have had them in pine bark nuggets I used years and years ago. They are not mites that feed on your snakes, at least not the bugs I had, but I'm sure they are still an annoyance to them. A good shot of a pest killer on the mulch like the flea spray containing permethrin should take care of them though.

I've wanted to use aspen for years, but nowhere here has ever sold it in anything but the real small compressed packs for around $5, which is very expensive. Ordering it by mail is completely out of the question.
A couple of weeks ago I was in Tractor Supply buying pine for the rodents and found the large compressed bales for a little under $9. I didn't have room in the truck for any that day but I'm deifnately going to pick up a few bales of that for use in the python racks.
As an aside, the pine I got from tractor supply is a lot better than the WalMart pine. It's finer cut and more absorbant, plus the bales are larger and a few cents cheaper to boot.