Most popular snake bedding?

[Lauren and Hunter]

We have an adult ball python which we've raised from a baby, and he was on aspen bedding for a long time. Then we switched him to Eco Earth. Although I know some people don't like it, I happen to be a fan of it-- my only rule is that I would never feed an animal live food on it, for fear of the animal ingesting it and becoming impacted. The substrate seems to be perfectly fine for my red tail boa, but the ball python seems like he has always had respiratory infection to some degree or another. My boyfriend is suspicious about the substrate-- he thinks it retains too much moisture and that the humidity causes (or at least doesn't help) the respiratory infection. He's always had shedding problems, and I worry that switching him to dry aspen bedding will make that worse.

I guess my question is, what is the preferred bedding to keep ball pythons on? And while we are on the topic, what about red tail boas?

Thanks!

[smith710]

As I was reading I was thinking the same thing about the humidity with the eco earth.  Ball Pythons seem to get resperatory infections very easy for some reason, I personally would definitely go with aspen over the eco earth, but make sure it's aspen and not pine or anything else. I personally use newspaper, so much easier, dirt cheap, and not a problem in pretty much any case. If I was to use some other type of substrate, itg would probably be aspen though.  When you notice that it is in shed, just spray the cage alot more often and keep the humidity much higher.

[justanotherfroginthepond]

I agree with your boyfriend.  You can use eco-earth in a more dry state to reduce the respiratory issue, or use a dry bedding like sani-chips or aspen and add a humidity chamber around shedding times.

I like any of the reptile mulches, barks, or sphagnum/peat mixtures for the red-tails... just wach for mites int he barks, and don't let it get TOO moist! 

And it goes without saying (but I will anyway  )... don't feed on a particle substrate!

[bad-one]

Shredded Aspen works for me