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HELP! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!

Sierra0101 said:
Thank you for the options, I didn't think of cypress. I'll probably give that a shot.
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Like Dan mentioned Pine is may not be the best option for snakes because of all the possible health issues it could potentially cause & that aspen & cypress are better options but be careful & keep your eyes open. I recommend when baking/spraying your pine substrate to take a close, deep look at it. I heard some companies actually do have some pine mixed in as well & some even use go a fair as using wording like "cypress blend".
 
KORBIN5895 said:
It all depends on where you get it from. I would be very careful using Cyprus mulch sold for landscaping.
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Agreed. Reading labels is always a must... Additives etc need to be known.

Coconut is great and for smaller collections is a perfect option. I'd have to buy it in such bulk and ship it for all my animals, that it is more of a pain then not.

Unless somewhere sells it in bulk locally. I'd totally buy that over anything if I had a local option.

Sierra, he was just saying that be aware of the product you are buying. Some manufacturers will add other kinds of shavings into a product for landscape purposes etc.
 
I tried coconut husk for my young cobras. I absolutely hated it. Guess I just don't like granular substrates. Suppose that I should have added the caveat that there's always the chance at having other woods mixed in the mulch. Perhaps I've just been lucky, but I rarely noticed anything other than cypress in the bags I bought. As long as you're not buying a "blend", I'd think that what little pine you may run into wouldn't be nearly enough to be very worried about. At least, that was my experience.
 
KORBIN5895 said:
It all depends on where you get it from. I would be very careful using Cyprus mulch sold for landscaping.
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Sorry I didn't see your response earlier but it looks like Kevin & a few others pretty much covered the explanation for me. I wasn't trying to scare you but just wanted to mention it so you were aware of as much as possible before deciding. I understand even if there is only a small amount of pine mixed in that it probably will not make a difference to the snake but being cursed with bad luck it's rare I gamble even with good odds.

I once seen someone with a box in an gravid females enclosure on the warmer end. The box had a bottom & sides but no top & was filled about 3/4 high with a mulch substrate, while the rest of the enclosure used some kind of paper I think. I think the theory behind it was it was that the paper was cheap, easy to swap, & wouldn't hide any mite type critters. The box held the warmth longer especially on the belly if your using a heat panel. I believe the "mulch box" that also was easier to clean then a whole enclosure, kept shavings separate from F/T food & water dishes as well as making a half decent hide box/private birthing spot. I haven't sat down & thought about this in to much depth yet but I think this might be a path similar to what I will do in the future for certain plans.

Sierra, I dont think I mentioned it earlier but I'm also sorry for your loss.
 
Thank you. It's been pretty hard on me. I'm sure most of the people in the reptile world feel this way also, but my animals are like my children. They all have names, and receive the best care I can provide. I love them all more than you could imagine.

I sat down on the day he passed, and for almost 7 hours I typed out the story of the worthwhile hell I went through for this snake. It took me 7 months to live it, 7 hours to write it, and 15 minutes to read it. If any of you would like to read it, please feel free to PM me and I'll gladly send you the link to do so.
 
Again, so sorry for your loss. I'd add a vote to the coco husk pile, I know several people who use that for Brazilians and it works well.

Were you planning a necropsy just to make the substrate was the cause?
 
:( Really sorry to hear that this happened, but thanks for sharing it so that others can avoid it.

I hope this is not too much derailment, but can anyone please post a pic of the coco husking some of you are using? I use newspaper but I have coconuts in my garden, and would love to switch if I can just see what kind of size chunks it is usually made into... Thanks
 
Helenthereef said:
I hope this is not too much derailment, but can anyone please post a pic of the coco husking some of you are using? I use newspaper but I have coconuts in my garden, and would love to switch if I can just see what kind of size chunks it is usually made into... Thanks
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This is what I used. It's packaged in brick form, but breaks apart to something basically the size and texture of sawdust. It's very highly processed. Seems like something that'd be fairly difficult to do without machinery.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produ...D=525395250&catargetid=1570170020&cagpspn=pla
 

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ApexPredatorBoids said:
This is what I used. It's packaged in brick form, but breaks apart to something basically the size and texture of sawdust. It's very highly processed. Seems like something that'd be fairly difficult to do without machinery.
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Ah yes, not something I'm going to make with my bare hands, obviously. Thanks for the info though. :thumbsup:
 
ApexPredatorBoids said:
This is what I used. It's packaged in brick form, but breaks apart to something basically the size and texture of sawdust. It's very highly processed. Seems like something that'd be fairly difficult to do without machinery.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produ...D=525395250&catargetid=1570170020&cagpspn=pla
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While EcoEarth does provide a means of maintaining humidity, I personally do not use it anymore. I don't know if you are talking about using this for an actual garden or for reptiles, but I would not use it for reptiles anymore.
I had a "bad" experience using this product. I put this in parentheses because it was solved before it became an actual problem.
The problem was, I had JUST made the mix and was putting it in one of my reptile's cages when I noticed what looked to be a drill bit in the mix. This could have seriously injured or even killed the reptile that was going into that cage. When I contacted the company, their response made it sound like this was nothing new, that this wasn't the first time they heard of this. While they did send me a free 3-pack, I am highly cautious and would recommend sorting through it before putting it into an enclosure.
 
Sierra0101 said:
I have a hard time believing this since somehow I got a drill bit in my mix.
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Any manufacturing process creates a possibility of leaving foreign bodies in the product. You've never found a bug in a food item? Things slip through basically any quality control system. My mother and I used to work for a company that did government contract work. They made detonators and certain other internal parts in weapons systems ( I believe Sidewinder missiles were one of them). You'd be amazed at how many duds made it through their QC measures. It happens.
 
skirtinthedirt said:
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.
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This is basically what pre-cut cage liners are. I do the same thing, only I order mine online so that I can adjust the amount I order and the thickness of paper as needed.
 
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