Thinking of changing bedding

I now use wood shavings as my snakes bedding and i was thinking of changing to news paper
Do i just use sheets??
Can i feed the snake in its viv if i change to news paper.
please write back
cheers

When I was using newspaper I just used a sheet of it. Now I've heard that sometimes the ink will rub off onto your snake. As far as I know it isn't harmful. Some people suggest using kraft paper or papertowels.

Yes you can feed the snake in its viv if you change it to news paper.

EXELLENT looks like nigels new bedding is newspaper!!!!!!!

The other day as I was searching through some online articles, I glanced at one that mentioned something about using newspaper with colored paper was harmful to snakes due to the ingredients of the colored ink. Being that I don't use newspaper nor intend to, I didn't really give it much thought, so I really don't know if there's any truth to that statement or not. But since you asked and I just saw this a few days ago, I thought I'd bring it up. You might want to try and Google around a bit to try and research this in case you get a newspaper that has colored inks

Originally Posted by Green Bean

When I was using newspaper I just used a sheet of it. Now I've heard that sometimes the ink will rub off onto your snake. As far as I know it isn't harmful. Some people suggest using kraft paper or papertowels.

Ink rarely rubs off on anything anymore, since newspaper publishers switched to vegetable-dye based ink. Perfectly safe.

I'm new here and I also have been wondering about the toxicity of the ink on newsprint used in bedding. Many newspapers are apparently using soy oil based ink. Soy based inks are much better for people, pets, and the environment than petroleum based inks. Unfortunately my local paper uses linseed oil for black. See link below.

If you ask your local newspaper about the ink, you might check and see if they sell the "remnants" or left over blank newsprint.

As far as the application, I have read where many people use 1 or several folded layers of newsprint on the bottom of the vivarium. Also, some say that shredding the newsprint allows the snake to burrow. I have thought about mixing these two methods. If you find an inexpensive source for butcher paper please share.

I hope this helps,

j


The following is a post about wrapping food in newsprint; and the safety manager's take on linseed oil based inks.

http://forums.courier-journal.com/vi...f724972e8c5816

"The newspaper's color inks are made with soy oil, but the black ink is made with linseed oil. (In all, the paper uses far more black ink than color ink.)

Jim Perry, the newspaper's safety manager, referred to the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for the black ink to answer this question.

He said that he would not recommend wrapping food with the printed newspaper."

Can i feed the snake in its viv if i change to news paper.

I didn't see anyone answer this. (-:



No, you shouldn't feed your snake in its viv with any possible kind of substrate. The idea behind a separate container is that if consistantly whatever comes into your snakes viv is food, pretty soon he's going to get aggressive and bite at your hand if you try to pick him up. Putting him in a different container just teaches him that food is never in the viv, so don't bother biting anything in there, and food only comes in the other container.

There is also a concern about substrate sticking to the prey and being ingested, and newspaper would definately be safer in that regard. However, that isn't your only concern to deal with and so it doesn't eliminate the problem unfortunately. (-: