Evening- any breeders or hobbyists with ball pythons have experience using ink free newspaper or paper in general as a substrate?
I have a rack tub system and looking to swop to paper.
I don’t have a problem if I need to swop out a whole rub if a mess is made.
If I swop over to paper I plan on putting a humidity hide in tub.
Any thoughts,tips etc much appreciated.
Hiya. Some people have great success using paper, all depends on room environment really.
I tried it in the past, but couldn’t hold humidity. I found substrate a better insulator aswell as holding humidity.
If your room environment allows heat and humidity retention in your rack while using paper, happy days.
Also found using shredded paper helped much better than flat paper.
Trial and error, best of luck.
Anyone else using paper?
I never used paper when I did keep ball pythons as I found it easier to manage humidity and mess with an absorbent substrate. However, I do use paper for adult geckos and the humid hide/nest box for males and females resolves the humidity concern as you have suggested.
Trial and error could your best answer as mentioned.
Thanks for your input.
At the moment I’ve settled for a combination of paper and beech chips for my big tubs and just paper for my divided tubs.
With the paper it’s a quick change but smells. The beech helping to absorb and take some of the smell away.