Milk substrate........

[JonD]

What does everyone use for substrate with milks?

Im just wondering because I want to change what I'm using and looking at options. Currently Im using cypress mulch, but I find the stuff really messy, expensive and generally a pain in the azz. My milks all burrow in the mulch and are hidden about 90% of the time. Would keeping them on news paper or paper towels stress them out? I use news paper for my boids and it'd be easier for me to use it but if it isn't good to use for the milks than I don't mind using an alternative.

I was also thinking of carefresh. Anyone use the stuff?

Thx all!

[bighillreptiles]

i youse news paper on all of my milk,corns and kings with no problem at all and carefresh on my hognose and baby boa's bouth work good except the runny mess that the orns and kings make when thay go to the bathroom that is why i use paper on them

[vanderkm]

We use papertowel for hatchling milks - til they are feeding on hoppers. Easy to clean, relatively inexpensive and we find they almost always hide under their waterdish or in hide tubes we provide. Those that hide in the bedding make a mess with papertowel because they always seem to get the sheet moved into the waterdish and it wicks all the water out into the tub.

We use carefresh for all the milksnakes that we have in racks and it works fantastic - very absorbant, no odor, minimal dust. We get good sheds with it in the rack. We have a couple large female hondos that are housed in custom made wooden cages with overhead lights for heat and have found that carefresh is too absorbant when used with heat lights - it dries the snake environment out too much and we have had very bad sheds with hondos and our corns that are kept on it in tanks. We switched back to aspen for them and it is working great - just our local source has been pretty poor quality lately - would prefer something that is less dusty.

I really don't like newspaper - doesn't seem absorbant enough at all - we have never been happy using it.

mary v.

[Jeff_Favelle]

I'm with Mary for the babies. Paper towel until 1st shed and 1-2 meals, then I switch to beta chip. Beta chip for colubrids just ROCKS!

But carefresh can work as well. For sure.

[gonesnakee]

I house all my Colubrids from hatchlings to adults on shoptowels. These are the heavy duty super absorbant blue papertowels. They make cleaning a breeze for all specimens & aren't that bad to look at. They also make it very easy to check for urine, feces, regurges etc. at a quick glance. A little more pricey than some substrates, but I get them by the case wholesale so it ain't so bad & makes daily maintenance fast & easy. No worries ever about ingesting substrate either, unless they eat the towels (had a Woma & CalKings do this before, "why is the poop blue?" DOH! LOL)
Mark

[Linds]

I've used papertowel in the past for colubrids, but as with Mary, found that the papertowels ALWAYS ended up partially in the waterbowl. I then switched to Beta Chip and was completely unsatisfied. While the pieces are small, there are still many sharp, pointy pieces that I certainly wouldn't want my animals trying to pass through their systems, and no matter what kind of prey (furry, hairless, wet, dry) was fed, it acted like a magnet, trapping a ridiculous amount. In addition, it also doesn't hold burrows at all. I've been happy with Carefresh in the past, and have since gone back to using it for all my smaller snakes. It doesn't stick to prey very well, if ingested, it can safely pass in small quantities without worry of fixed pieces, holds burrows well, and lasts a long time.

[Big_V]

If your having that many troubles Jon just send those nelsons my way buddy. :p

[Dani33]

I also use carefresh with all my snakes.