HELP! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!

Originally Posted by KORBIN5895

Yeah except most pine shavings are kiln dried to remove the oils.

Kiln drying doesn't really "remove" anything. It's simply an accelerated process for drying it out. When the dried shavings are put back into a warm and humid environment, they can re-absorb water, which makes the oils viable again. I'd imagine that snake saliva would yield the same result.

Given that he was ostensibly fine up until the point where he had the pine in his mouth, I think that's just too much of a coincidence to ignore. Have you considered doing away with pine substrate altogether?

Dan,
Yes I am getting the female off the pine shavings and I'm going to put her on shredding newspaper or something. Aspen bothers me too much. If it gets even slightly wet, it stinks to holy hell and makes me sick. So unless someone can suggest another substrate that would work better, I'm going to use shredded newspaper.

I was a big fan of cypress mulch. I used to get it in big bags at Lowes, and just pre-treat it as needed, with Provent-A-Mite, before using it. I can't really comment on how strong the smell is, though. Having spent a lot of time working in various wood-based jobs, I've become a bit desensitized to wood odors, I guess.

Yeah cypress is an option.

you could use some indoor/outdoor or even better & cheaper maybe some newspaper or even contractor paper that they sell in rolls at home depot maybe...

Skip the shredded paper - it's messy, not particularly absorbant, easily ingested, and generally more trouble than it's worth. Nothing wrong with using paper, just skip the step of shedding/tearing'

We use "painters paper" from Home Depot. It's a big cheap roll of untreated thickish brown paper that painters do....something with. For all of our guys not on shavings this works well.

Thank you for the opinions. As of right now, I got her off the shavings and on newspaper (not shredded).

Sierra, sorry for your loss. The newsprint is a great option, aspen, cypress etc. I have personally used aspen, newsprint and contractor paper. My favorite of them all was the aspen.

Being that the dampness makes you nauseated, that's obviously an issue. I just switched back to aspen and glad I did. Try the cypress and see how that'll work if you want some type of tangible substrate.

Again, I'm sorry for your loss. It is a lesson that hopefully people can learn from without repeating. Good luck!

Thank you for the options, I didn't think of cypress. I'll probably give that a shot.