What Substrate do You Use?

[unseen]

Zoo Med Aspen Snake Bedding

 

[bluey87]

i use kritters crumble in my blueys enclosure and in my bredli hatchy click clack, and i just bought some of that green carpet from bunnings and cut it to size for my beardies enclosure

I only dislike sand because it gets everywhere. Personal preference really. I think I'm gonna get Kritter's Krumble for my frog and maybe for one of my snakes. I'll have to contact ANL and try to get some mulch for my blueys.

i use kritters crumble for my bluey enclosure looks good and does the job, i see u live in south east QLD if your ne where near pet city pop in there they sell it for roughly 12dollars a bag each bag lasts me a while

 

[nakerz_the_herp]

Yeah. I go to Pet City every no and again. I think the I'll hold out for the GC expo, but I'll go have a look at Pet City when I'm there next. My blueys have fairly big enclosures (4ft x 2ft x 2ft) and I use deep substrates so, I guess I'll be buying 2 bags or so.

 

[Sock Puppet]

I'll have to contact ANL and try to get some mulch for my blueys.

You don't have to go to ANL, Bunnings sell it. I'm sure a lot of nurseries etc would also stock it.
I only use newspaper for my blueys, due to the frequency & quantity of their excrement (& tendency to sometimes walk through it, spreading it everywhere), it's easy & quick to change.
I use the mulch for my snakes though.

 

[Chris]

Does anyone have any photos close up of KC in an enclosure?

 

[lazylizzy]

tea tree mulch for inside, grass for outside

 

[nakerz_the_herp]

You don't have to go to ANL, Bunnings sell it. I'm sure a lot of nurseries etc would also stock it.
I only use newspaper for my blueys, due to the frequency & quantity of their excrement (& tendency to sometimes walk through it, spreading it everywhere), it's easy & quick to change.
I use the mulch for my snakes though.

After researching ANL I discovered that the nearest one is on the north coast of NSW LOL. Thanks. My dad works at Bunnies so that should be nice and easy to get.

 

[Allybean]

For my Centrilian, Blue tongues and Jackys I use EU Mulch... never had a problem.
The Scorpion has Sand and One of my Beardys has EU Mulch whilst the other has newspaper.

I would love to have them all on the mulch but im worried about my little Beardy eating the mulch.
I know they can easily get compacted, wether it be on sand or mulch, so I'm trying to figure out what is the best substrate for these guys.

 

[Em1986]

Ok, a bit off topic but just wondering what everyone's views on calcisand are for bearded dragons? I have read all this info on a website that is called wild crystal or something like that and they say that their calcium sand is digestable but everything still tells me it could still cause impaction. The sand come in 3 consistencies and i was considering the fine one. It is also repellant to water so easy to spot clean and water evaporates off the surface so there wouldn't be an issue with humidity etc.

By the way i love the fact that so many people use so many different substrates and are sharing what they use and their opinions on the substrates, good thread

 

[Shiresnakes]

Has anybody experienced dryness in their snakes/ dry sheds not coming off in one piece from using kritters crumble or similar product? Thanks

 

[Ricochet]

I use oz-pet, which says it's made from waste plantation timber, Dunno if this is the same as kritter crumble or any of the others. So far my darwin hasn't had any prob shedding. I keep his water bowl reasonably close to his heat "lamps" which I hope will help with humidity (changed reguarly). He's a carpet and spends most of his time up in his branches or basking shelf and not on the cage floor (substrate). Maybe a snake that spends more time down on the substrate may be effected more.

 

[ChloeR]

i use kritter's crumble for my blonde mac,
aspen snake bedding for my BHP,
reptibark for my coastal,
and a sand/kritter's crumble for my bluey...

no really reason for the different types of substrate only what i think looks good in there enclosure...

 

[SamNabz]

I used Kritter's Crumble as the substrate for most of my snakes for a short while. I have now gone back to newspaper after a piece of the 'fine' stuff got into one of my darwins eye and caused a bad infection.

Upon asking a few keepers about Kritter's Crumble, I got a lot of bad feedback from people I trust in the hobby who have also got rid of it due to problems with it getting into eyes, vents etc.

**The snake is fine now after a vet visit and few shots of antibiotic.

For the geckos I use a mix of red and washed play sand for Nephrurus, mix of coir peat and washed play sand for Oedura, peat moss for Phyllurus and coir peat for Strophurus.

 

[Schnecke]

Just re-opening this thread as I made a trip to bunnings the other day to discover that I can only get their brand of EUCI Mulch, which is a pine mulch and not the ANL one (Shame, was so keen to go there and grab a bag! but nowhere on the packaging did it say Cypress (I thought it might be an ANL re-branded one) Will have to try and find another supplier, I did ask the guy and he knew everything they had (he was great actually for a Bunnings employee, told me everything that was in the bags as he went through them) and he'd never heard of ANL (Australian Native Landscapes) being a Bunnings stock item here.

Was just looking for a cheaper alternative to Aspen (which is what my hatchy came with in his CC)

Anyway, I bought myself a bag of "Aspen Snake Bedding" from my local Pets Domain for $44.95 (24.4 Quart - About 26ish Litres) and the local PetStock was $66.xx!!!! $22 cheaper for just making a phone call and going 800m down the road. I have got it in the enclosure and it looks like I could to 3-4 full changes. So with spot cleans it should last a decent amount of time in there.

Will keep searching to see if I can get cypress mulch locally to try and save a few $$ but the Aspen doesn't seem that expensive when I weigh up the amount of time I will save with cleaning (compared to artificial turf - there is a weekly scrub, disinfect and dry process that will be nice to avoid, as it means I have to shift the timber in the enclosure and although it's very stable, I want to be able to do it while Moose is in there without annoying him too much)

I have a 1.5cm layer that I've slightly compacted that's over 3 double sheets of newspaper. I will get a photo tonight and post it up. Pretty happy with the look and feel of it.

 

[Sock Puppet]

I made a trip to bunnings the other day to discover that I can only get their brand of EUCI Mulch, which is a pine mulch and not the ANL one.

Strange, perhaps each state or region has different suppliers for their franchise. I was in my local Bunnings the other day & they had pallets of it available.
Spelt Eucy mulch, I don't know if it mentions anywhere on the package that it's cypress, I found that out from ANL when I contacted them. Extract from the response I received quoted below

The Eucy Mulch is mulch only, with no additives. The name is also somewhat confusing because it is not Eucalyptus in origin. The name has been used in the landscape industry for many years, and the majority of suppliers now have Eucy mulch that is based on Cypress sp.

 

[Schnecke]

The bag at Bunnings was EUCI-Mulch (not EUCY) and it is their own brand (not Bunnings on the packet, but the guy pointed out that it is "their" brand (like in Target they have a label "hot options" or in Myer they have "Miss Shop" it's a brand within a brand (I hope I'm making sense)

It just has "pine bark mulch" written on the packet (so, not Cypress or Eucalypt - very misleading) and it was very very fine, not like the pictures of cypress mulch I've seen. This is what it looks like:

JPW Landscape Supplies :: Soil, Sand and more.....

It's definitely finer (and when I ran it through my hands it looked very dusty) compared to Aspen or Cypress mulch.

The hunt continues

EDIT: Photo's of the Aspen in the bottom of my enclosure (with Moose looking on while using it as a Jungle Gym naturally! I put a plastic rail in there last night so the bedding doesn't fall out when I open the door.

 

[Ricardo64]

I too use sand, what's the dilemma, after all you'll find sand in there natural environment.

I too use sand, what's the dilemma, after all you'll find sand in there natural environment.

 

[AndrewHenderson]

Exo terra plantation soil and Kritters Krumble is just coir peat, you can buy compressed blocks of it for 3 bucks in bunnings or the bigger blocks of coarse stuff for 10 bucks. You just need to hydrate it again and dry it out before use. HEAPS cheaper and exactly the same, another product that gets reptile put in front or in the name and gets inflated 300% and flogged off by exo terra.

 

[69blottfilms69]

When i get my thickys ill use desert sand

 

[Cockney_Red]

When newspaper is soiled, you have to change it, all other options allow for spot cleaning, and therefore, laziness, which can lead to issues with husbandry....jmo