what should i use for bedding

[iwilleatursnake]

hi,
i just bought a high gold ball python baby and im using paper towels right now as bedding. I was just wondering what else i could use and what i shouldnt use. My friend uses pine bedding for his ball but online it said that was bad. but his seems happy burrowing in it so i was just wondering if i should use that. also i was wondering if my cage setup was good. 10 gallon, with a waterbowl that is about a 8th of the tanks area, a 75 watt bulb, about 75 degrees on the cool side, 87 on the warm, and 90 on the basking. It is eating hoppers every 7-10 days, but the person who sold it to me said that it eats live food and hasnt ate a frozen one. So i was also wondering if there are any techniques to get it to feed on frozen. If not are there anyways of having a safer feed with a live food.
Thanks for your time.

[TheMan]

Read the second thread of this forum entitled "Ball Python Faq Sheet" by Matt K. Very informative! My setups are 90-93(basking spot), 82-84(ambient), 80-82(cool side), 54-58% humidity(75-80% during shedding). Both with newspaper substrate. I feed f/t but before that I fed prekilled. So far I haven't had to rely on anykind of feeding strategies. I put the rat in the cage and they just start swallowing (neither one constricts the rat first). My advice to you would be to read as many caresheets as possible. There's plenty of them on the net and some go into great detail about feeding strategies....I myself am no expert on BP's but I hope this helps.

[Vengeance]

I'm currently using carefresh from my Baby balls, its a particle substrate. But I'll be moving over the newspaper in the next week or 2. I've had to many problems with the hatchlings accidently grabbing the rat and the carefresh at the same time. I even put the rat on a paper towl and they will still drag it off the towel and get the carefresh all over the rat. Carefresh is supposed to be safe to ingest in small quantities, but I don't feel like taking the risk anymore, so on to newspaper they will go before their next feeding.

[Artemis]

I love paper towels!! Feed in the enclosure with no worries of impaction, you can rip them up and spot clean by taking out some of the paper towels in spots and not having to replace them all, and you can spot mites and other problems more easily. They look nice, too.

Ultimately its your choice, but do refer to the caresheet as TheMan mentioned, to avoid any toxic ones!

Artemis

[arkuden]

i agree with Artemis. I use only paper towel in my setup. It doesnt looks amazing and natural but my snake is healthy and thats all that matters. If you want something with a natural look to it then try cypress mulch. I used it for a while but switched to paper towels becuase it was cheaper and easier to maintian. Only when my BP goes in a shed do i wish for cypress back becuase it really holds the humidity.

Also i dont feed my snake in his cage i have a separate rubbermaid for that so my hand reaching in to the tank wont be associated with food meaning i wont be bitten haha :)