Is Aspen bedding a good substrate?

[Stefan-A]

I'm a fan of reptile bark, it's big and chunky, does not stick to food, holds humidity, looks nice and had a rough texture.

It's also expensive as hell. I was just shopping for reptile bark earlier today, it was about 1€/liter! That's about 17 times as much as unfertilized peat moss!

Next summer, I'm probably going to start making my own substrate mix.

[infernalis]

It's also expensive as hell. I was just shopping for reptile bark earlier today, it was about 1€/liter! That's about 17 times as much as unfertilized peat moss!

Next summer, I'm probably going to start making my own substrate mix.

US suppliers sell it a lot cheaper than that on ebay Stefan. I get it really cheaply.

[Stefan-A]

US suppliers sell it a lot cheaper than that on ebay Stefan. I get it really cheaply.

US suppliers are unfortunately not available. Add taxes and freight.

[ConcinusMan]

US suppliers sell it a lot cheaper than that on ebay Stefan. I get it really cheaply.

Agreed. In fact, I have a delivery from amazon.com coming any day now. I like the stuff, it doesn't need changed too often, spot cleaning works for quite some time, and it sure does absorb odor very well, and looks natural. I spent $36 total (including shipping) for enough to fill my 20 gallon, 55 gallon, and 10 gallon for months to come. Dang local stores want $10 for an 4 quart bag! I got 8 quart bags online for 5 bucks. I mix it with a little loose coconut fiber. However, reptile bark does stick to food and is dangerous to ingest. Not really an issue as I do not feed snakes on it, or I use a large feeding tray and watch to make sure no snakes swallow it. I found peat moss to be to fine and dusty. I don't like hearing my snakes sneezing to expel it from their nostrils. Coconut fiber looks about the same, without all the fine dust found in peat moss.

Aspen bedding is a great substrate. Snakes love it and it's practical. However, it doesn't really look natural at all. Looks more like the floor sweepings of a wood working shop.

[Stefan-A]

Dang local stores want $10 for an 4 quart bag! I got 8 quart bags online for 5 bucks.

So your local stores want about twice as much as our "local" online stores and you got yours at about half the price of what the online stores demand. Or at roughly 8 times the price of peat moss.

Then again, my math could be a bit off. It's midnight.

Peat moss is indeed fine and dusty. It being fine prevents it from causing impactions and it being dusty can partially be prevented by keeping the humidity high enough. It's best not to let it completely dry out, but of course it's not supposed to be moist all the time.