Eco earth as a substrate.

How many of you use it?
Yes I know there was that mondo substrate poll but it wasn't even listed as an option on that one.
If you do like it what do you think the pros and cons are? I'm just wondering how messy it might be say, like when I take Nagini out and have to sift through the dirt, or when I go to clean it out I gotta make sure not to spill dirt everywhere.
And if you make too much of it (since that stuff expands like nuts) are you able to store it untill next time?

heh I use the eco-earth and I love it. If you have the book "The Art of Keeping Snakes" by Philippe de Vosjoli, it has great pointers on how to properly maintain a bioactive substrate system. At first, yeah, it does stick to you and your snake. Just have a moist paper towel on hand to wipe down the snake as it slithers through your hands. After a while, the substrate takes on this silky texture, which does not cling to you or your snake. That is what has happened in Phantom's viv, which is nice. And there is little to no nasty odor, just pleasant earthy smells, with the weekly maintenance program that he explains in his book. It's worth getting and reading.

As for the bricks, I usually use a table saw to cut into havles or quarters, and soak those as needed to fill the vivs. If you expand the entire brick you can freeze it once it has dried up a bit. But using the Vosjoli method, you'll find that you wont need much of it. Perhaps once a year add new into whats already established. try it, you'll like it.

I dunno how I missed this thread! I bought some of the Eco-Earth a couple of weeks ago and tried it last week. I used about 1/4 less water than was recommended to hydrate the bricks, but the dirt was still way too wet. I spread it out in an empty Sterilite for almost two days before filling the snake bins with it, and it was STILL too wet. When I pressed my hand against the dirt, it stuck to my skin. The toilet paper tubes and kleenex box hides were all damp and soggy the next day so I immediately dumped the bins and switched back to aspen.

I'm sure the dirt would dry out a lot better in an open-top enclosure, but it did NOT work in my rack.

I considered mixing the dirt and aspen, but I decided it just wasn't worth the hassle.

BTW, yes, it was incredibly messy!

I don't use it at home, but we I use it in almost all of the off-exhibit snake enclosures at work and it works fine. I used to have those snakes on newspaper with artificial hides, but now they're on Eco Earth with plants and natural hides and they act like completely different animals (they act NATURAL!). I like it very much, and no, it's not messy if you give it a little time to dry out.