Wood Slaters

Does anyone have wood slaters (those little, grey bugs that curl up in a ball) in any vivs to control waste?

I have a big timber viv so I wouldn't have them for fear of them eating the actual viv, but is it possible to keep woodslaters in a glass viv with a forrest bed type substrate to eat up residual poop and all that? Would it be harmful to the snakes?

I heard about this a long time ago but don't know anything about the theory being put into practice. Does anyone do it?

I'd like to think about it in the future if I keep a big glass viv...kind of as a little sustainable-ecosystem-thingie.

I don't know about that type of bug, but when I had my frog viv up I had a nice little ecosystem going that included a colony of fruit flys. The flys ate the poo and the smaller frogs ate the flys.
<a href='http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb008_ZRxdm103YYUS' target='_blank'><img src='http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/15_2_3.gif' alt='Male Entertainer 8' border=0></a> It was a cirrrrrrcle of liiiiiife.

Those are the same as Roly Polys right?

If this works it'd be well handy!

Plenty of slaters wandering about in my back garden .....

Sounds too food to be true!

^^^ that should have been "too GOOD to be true" but I suppose "food" kind of works in the context of the post ....

I'm not sure if you are talking about pill bugs/rolly-pollies, but I think you are. I thought that they only ate rotting vegetable matter and didn't think that they'd go for protein, which is what snake poop is...right? I suppose you could try it out, but I remember when I was a kid I used to catch them and raise them up. Yeah I know, I was a bizarre little tomboy and I caught every creature known to man back then including spiders, pill bugs, frogs, toads, crawfish, minnows.....etc, etc, but anyway, when I had my pill bug collection I recall that they liked things to be really moist. Otherwise they dry out and die. Incidentally, they are live-bearing bugs. Its really fascinating to find a pregnant female, because their bellies are transparent and you can turn the moms over and see the babies inside them before they are born. They even have different morphs. Some have spots and some don't. Well, there is your pill bug/wood slater class 101. Maybe someone else can give you some insight on whether they would be any good at eating snake poop, but I have a feeling that a cornsnakes environment would be too dry for them. Maybe a boa's, but aspen's pretty dry. I think it might work if you used a "dirty" bedding like forest bed or cyprus mulch, but I think they might just eat the wood and process it instead of the poop. But ask around and maybe others have better ideas or more info.

These are the guys I'm thinking of ...



Having just read a bit about them, looks like you might be right though Bobo's Mama. They like pretty moist conditions and eat decaying vegetable and plant matter so I'm not sure that snake poop would be high on their menu.

I also discovered that they're edible.

*Heads off to the garden with a fork .... *

Yep, it looks like we're all thinking of the same little bug!

A guy I know keeps them with his lizzards to clean up the waste and that's about all I know about them....I figured some people here would have some knowledge about the whole thing.

For now I'll keep up the spot cleaning and occasional total cleans but as my collection grows...ANYTHING to cut down the work!!!

different species

Just fyi, the one in the picture is not the same as the ones that curl up into a ball. The one in the picture can't curl up, if you try to make them you will break there little backs and squish them. There are two main species of pill bugs, the kind like the one in the picture and the other kind that can roll up into a ball. I guess its like comparing cornsnakes and kingsnakes. Similar, but not that same. If someone were to produce them in captivity, they could probably be bred together, but most likely never would in the wild. Okay, I'm done.... I know WAY too much about these bugs, and i'm probably scaring people :sidestep:

You're right, that picture doesn't look exaclty like the one I was thinking of that rolls up and yep you do know way too much about them :sidestep:
I remember as a kid if you touched them they would roll up into a little ball, hours of entertainment :grin01:

The only ones I remember in Australia were the ones that rolled into a perfect ball and the biggest were the size of a pea. The flattened ones I don't ever recall seeing as a kid.

i've just set up a large viv with rocks covered by earth covered by a woody mulch. i'm looking into setting this up as a bioactive substrate. scoop out the big poops and lets little 'things' clean up the rest.

let me know if you find any thing that works really well, or things to avoid. i currently use tadpoles / snails to clean the water. still looking for somethign land based.

can't seem to edit, so i'll add... don't forget the wonderful world of worms.
these amazing little critters eat damn near anything and help move the dirt around. if you're using just wood mulch i think it might be a little difficult to find anything... because in nature the poop turns to dirt anyway.
grubs, beetles, etc also work well... preparing to go collecting shortly to start my collection.

is it sad that i used to shoot those little things out of straws when i was younger?

If i had a large enough viv, i might consider this but i think i'm gonna have to stick with the scoop methods for a while

Those little ball things look mint, wish I'd of been able to collect them and have my own little colony when I was a kid. I was into that kind of stuff aswell bobos moma. Us brits get stuck with those ones that can't curl up, I've always known them as wood-lice. They're very similar to sea-lice (don't know the real name) that are a little bigger.
Good idea princess, will look forward to hearing any other ideas.

Hey Slither...I've got a question, since we are talking about bugs and all, what do you feed your praying mantis? Those are the coolest bugs of all and I think they are smart too. When you look at them, they look right back and will even follow your finger, but you probably know this since you have one :crazy02: I don't know if I could keep one as a pet though. I might feel sorry for it and let it go. I first got into snakes as a teenager in Pennsylvania, they had little snakes all over the place. I don't know what kind they were, but I'd play with them and check on them everyday. I never caught any though because I knew my parents would never let me have one, I guess that's a big advantage of being an adult...anyway...your praying mantis fascinates me. Cute that you call him Ben.

Ah, rolypoly bugs . . . neat . . . my brother and I once caught as many of them as we could in a cup, then we went to examine them in a classic Volvo my dad had bought as a project car . . . one started having babies and we were watching that, but got called into the house, leaving the cup of rolypoly bugs and the one having babies IN the car. A few weeks later my dad was shocked to discover his project car was absolutely infested with those things, AND they were eating the interior. We never fessed up! So, if they can survive on the interior of a car . . . who knows?!?

~slither~ said:

Us brits get stuck with those ones that can't curl up

Click to expand...

Not true. It's just the non-curling ones are more common in the UK. You can find the curling ones, you just need to look a bit harder to find them.

Wood-louse identification webpage!

~slither~ said:

They're very similar to sea-lice (don't know the real name) that are a little bigger.

Click to expand...

Thats 'cos they're crustaceans. Their closest relatives are crabs, lobsters etc.

Fascinating little beasties are wood-lice/slaters/pill-bugs etc etc ...

This is worrying .... I must be starting to sound almost as scary as Bobo's Mama on the subject. :crazy02:

Hey!! Anyway, that link you posted is COOL! I didn't know there were so many kinds.