Carefresh

[marisa]

Hello!

I am switching substrates for two reasons. One we recently had to start paying for garbage removal so a full weekly cleaning of paper towel substrate makes a huge amount of garbage....and I am not willing to recycle it since it's nasty with crap sometimes...blah blah and reason two my bigger colubrids rip the crap out of paper towel and make huge messes with it. I also wanted to offer them something to "dig" into instead of flat paper.

Anyways, went out and bought the biggest bag of Carefresh I could. I have never tried it. I did a search and answered some questions but I have a few more...

1. What's shedding like on carefresh for you guys? It says super absorbent so do you guys find it "drying" ?

2. How often are you guys who use carefresh doing FULL changes? I plan on spot cleaning probably twice weekly, but I am unsure how often I should be replacing all of it.

3. Do you guys find Carefresh or Aspen better/more convienent/healthier?

Thanks! I hope they like this stuff, it's damn expensive! lol

Marisa

[Dani33]

I used carefresh for a time and I liked it best of all particulate substrate. I definately prefer carefresh to aspen. I found that aspen wasn't as absorbant and never seemed to smell clean.

I spot cleaned and did a full change and clean out every shed. Unless it just seemed to need to be cleaned. Be wary though, snakes like to burrough and poop underneath, so I used to mix it around to look for it at times.

I never had any proplems with shedding.

I prefer paper though because I can fully clean it easier. I find that some of the shy snakes eat better w/ paper as well because they like to hide under it and I suppose it feels a little more secure (weighty) on top of them.

[marisa]

Yeah I DO like paper towel. I've always used it. I am just ready for a change.

I don't mind the crapping underneath. Mine always crap under the paper towel as it is. lol.

Thanks for sharing.

Marisa
P.S. I am moving this thread to general enclosure...I would also like to hear from Ball Python owners. I am not really interested in switching them as well, but tinkering with a substrate change for them too. (I use paper towel with them now and don't want to fix anything that isn't broken, but I'd like to have everyone on one thing if it's possible)

[Vengeance]

I had my Ball pythons on care fresh, I didn't really like it, I found that they didn't really use it, they never burrowed underneath it and they just packed it down to a point that wehn urate or fecal matter was found it spread out to quite a bit of the surrounding carefresh so you were replacing quite a bit. I find newspaper is better for ball pythons, if you are worried about the waste, you can recyle newspaper which is free. For my Cali King I still use carefresh for a few reasons, he loves to burrow, hides under the carefresh more then he uses his hides, it keeps the smell down, and the frequent and small fecal and urates make it easy to spot clean. Since I don't really worry about hummidity with my Cali King the dryness isn't really a problem. IT can hold hummidity ok, I had my Ball python tank at 60% without much of a problem when I used it.

Hopefully this will answer yoru questions.

[marisa]

Yes it answers some. I can see some disadvantages when it comes to using it for Ball Pythons...been doing some reading...it might be too dry, and like you said, they are heavy so it would really get packed.

Gonna at least try it on the colubrids. But probably leave well enough alone for the Balls for now.

Marisa

[Brent Strande]

It's so much more expensive than aspen that I'd recommend going with aspen over it...

[marisa]

It's not the cost I am worried about though. If it works better than aspen, I am buying it.

I don't like aspen for many reasons although I don't "hate" it. I feed in cage for one, and don't like the idea of the snakes swallowing aspen. I also do not like the type I find around here, which has lots of stick like peices, etc. It's pokey! :D


Marisa

[bighillreptiles]

I find aspen to dusty and care fresh much cleaner as well .

[Bartman]

Does carefresh mould? That would be my only concern.

[Ryan and Katie]

I think any substrate under moist conditions molds but we've found that aspen is worse as far as mold goes than carefresh.

[marisa]

Neat. Thanks for the replies.

Marisa

[Bartman]

Cool, just a question since were on the topic of substrates. Do you think paper towl/news better is BETTER for the animal then cypress mulch/aspen/etc or is it just used because its cheaper?

[Vengeance]

I liked carefresh for a couple of reasons, my inital reason for buying it was because I wanted a particle substrate that was ok the ingest in small amounts. Carefresh advertised the fact that it is safe to ingest, so that was the biggest factor for me. When I got my newest Balls I found it didn't suit my needs because when the hatchlings when to strike their prey item, they took a mouth full of carefresh at the same time because they didn't have their aim down yet and I wasn't comfortable with them eating so much substrate, that and they didn't take advantage of a particle substrate anyway, they allways laid onto and packed it down, so I much rather prefer newspaper. I never had a problem with mold when using carefresh, I still use it with my king as I've mentoned because he loves to borrow but don't see a point to using it with Balls.

[LISA127]

I have never tried carefresh for snakes. I only use aspen for the snakes. However, I did try it once for my blue tongued skink. I didn't like it because it does not pack down like the aspen does. Blue tongues are heavy, so when he would walk he would sink right through it and end up walking on the glass. He didn't like that. The aspen packs underneath him and gives him traction.

[Shad0w]

Re: I think any substrate under moist conditions molds but we've found that aspen is worse as far as mold goes than carefresh.


I believe Cypress is naturally mold resistant... pls correct me if Im wrong... I remember that from some wood projects I worked on.

[marisa]

Well they have been on the carefresh for a couple hours, and what do you know, I already have an early opinion.

First off, because of work I wash my hands literally 60 times a day. This makes for very dry skin in the winter, and right now they are irratated to begin with a bit.....with that taken into account...after filling the cages with carefresh and handling it, my hands were highly red and irrated as they would be after a long day of hand washing and dry skin.

I take this means its REALLY drying.

I am going to leave it for a full shed cycle and see whats up. I may make sure all have humid hides...as I don't use them for kingsnakes now....or try and mist every so often.

It's a little dusty, but nothing like wood dust.

My snakes starting burrowing into it immediatly though. Which was kinda neat since they haven't done that in years.

So I guess my full opinion will be after they have been on it for a shed or two.

Marisa

[oscar]

i have only used carefresh and all my snakes are yearlings or less so not sure how they will fare when they are larger, but i have found that i like.. not that i have much to compare to. i have never had a problem with mold and all have shed easily. they do seem to enjoy burrowing esp the king and the hognose.