Using news paper and Aspen?

[RaidenTheAlmighty]

Do you think there would be any problem with laying paper on the bottom of my snakes cage and then placing the aspen on top of it? I just find it a little annoying to clean up when my snake poops on the bottom of the cage. I think have at least a layer of newspaper down there might help prevent that a little, as he would probably me unlikely to burrow under it. What do you think?

 

[Karoni]

It couldn't hurt to try it. You might have to tweak your temps a bit or take out a bit of aspen. I hope it works for you, but something tells me your snake will just burrow under the paper and poop. They seem to know how to make it the hardest to clean. I keep telling mine, "Poop in the center of the newspaper, not on the edge. And stop pooping on your hides!" but they ignore me.

 

[Graham]

I think it wouldnt help that much because most likely the snake will just burrow under the news paper aswell. But hey if it works let us know I have that same problem.

 

[restes]

Just an idea...don't do this until you can get more reputable feedback. But would using a cooking spray of something like olive oil on the bottom of a glass tank be ok? The main ingredients of cooking spray are just oil and a soy bean extract (lecithin?) if i'm not mistaken so I would assume it would not harm, the animal. Sure would make clean up easier...

 

[Graham]

I know that you use vegetable oil to get snakes off of glue traps so it must not hurt them.

 

[Hexadeci]

If you use newspaper do you have to sanitize it? How would that work, soak it and dry it?

 

[Jdog3131]

Wouldn't hurt to try the newspapr then aspen.

If you use newspaper do you have to sanitize it?

Nope

 

[xStaticSnow]

I do this with several layers of newspaper and about an inch and a half of aspen and my snake rarely goes under the newspaper and it helps cleanup

go for it, it wont hurt anything!

 

[Karoni]

If you use newspaper do you have to sanitize it? How would that work, soak it and dry it?

That's the great thing about newspaper. You just toss it out when it's soiled.

 

[Miqote]

Just an idea...don't do this until you can get more reputable feedback. But would using a cooking spray of something like olive oil on the bottom of a glass tank be ok? The main ingredients of cooking spray are just oil and a soy bean extract (lecithin?) if i'm not mistaken so I would assume it would not harm, the animal. Sure would make clean up easier...

It might not hurt the snake, but wouldn't it make it greasy? Especially if you are using Aspen.. a little dust tends to settle on the bottom, I think that would get kind of gross. I would tend to say this is probably not a good idea.. just in case it got in the snake's nostrils or water or something (a lot of my snakes like to burrow right to the bottom of the tank, and I think it would get spread around)??

As for the newspaper, it doesn't need to be sanitized before use. Although, if you really wanted to, I saw a blog once where an (overly chemical conscious?) lady was using newspaper as cat-litter but she didn't want her cat exposed to the ink on the paper, so she soaked it in water(maybe with some kind of natural soap) several times to get out as much ink as possible, then she lay it on screens in the sun to dry, then crumbled it up to use as litter. I would say that is completely unnecessary however! lol

 

[Karoni]

As for the newspaper, it doesn't need to be sanitized before use. Although, if you really wanted to, I saw a blog once where an (overly chemical conscious?) lady was using newspaper as cat-litter but she didn't want her cat exposed to the ink on the paper, so she soaked it in water(maybe with some kind of natural soap) several times to get out as much ink as possible, then she lay it on screens in the sun to dry, then crumbled it up to use as litter. I would say that is completely unnecessary however! lol

I see I misunderstood Hexadeci's question, above. My understanding is that the inks on newspaper are vegetable-based and aren't harmful to snakes.

 

[ScottyK]

I see I misunderstood Hexadeci's question, above. My understanding is that the inks on newspaper are vegetable-based and aren't harmful to snakes.

Your understanding is correct. Newspaper, magazine and the majority of printed items are all made using nontoxic inks and coatings these days.

UV coating (like the heavy gloss on some magazine covers) and metallic inks are the only treatments that would make me nervous around herps. Because of that I would not use things like cosmetics or high end chocolate boxes to make hides. I'd also stay away from using magazine pages on the bottom.

Other than that you should be fine...

 

[AliCat37]

Like everyone else says, it can't hurt to try. I use newspaper under my mice's shavings and it works great when it comes to cleaning

 

[atmox]

I must be doing something wrong, i did this too for a while but i found it a pain to replace the newspaper when soiled, i had to pretty much take everything out, push the repti bark (in my case) to the other side so i could put down the newspaper. Then even out the repti bark and put everything back in.
Now i use eco earth and just scoop up the poo.

 

[Janome]

Hello. I have 10 snakes an use newspaper in all their tanks. Even my big jungle carpet pythons cage. They all manage to get under the paper at some point or another. I also put paper towels on top of the newspaper...except in my JCP's cage...that works good for me an also inexpensive. When the paper towel gets soiled I just take that out an place another on top of the paper. Grant it...that doesn't work all the time since it depends on how much they "go". I have a trans-pecos rat snake that "goes" all the time seems like.