towels as substrate....?

[laurnerox1]

hey all, i'm back. some of you might recognize me, I got a northern from andrew seikes last summer and named him Alfie. Well Alfie just had his first vet visit on monday at a great place not to far from my home and they told me a bunch of things that I should be doing for him. the most important one they said was to get rid of my reptile bark substrate and just stick to folding up a towel and lining the bottom of the cage. it's easier to see when he pees/poos, easier to clean, and gets you to see if his cage is dirty so you are forced to keep a clean tank. Also when its dirty i just pick up the poo with a paper towel and take out the decorations, roll up the towel and put it in alfie's own hamper and put down a new towel and put the decorations back...

now if its simple and cleaner, why isn't everyone else doing this? I know it looks more real for these exotic animals...but if thats the case why you feed them cat food? lol. anyway, I went and bought a few towels for cheap so i just do a load every few days of his own laundry and there we go. all i have to pay is laundry, instead of buying bark every so often.

I made sure to include a lot of hide spaces so he still gets to 'burrow'.

Oh yeah, the vet loved him! said he was the most mellow guy they ever met and he's welcome to come back whenever! which is good cuz they couldnt get blood and we have to go back on friday...
he is 19.5 inches long!!!


pictures coming soon, couldnt get the upload thing to work

[SailleSkinklover]

Mine is in Towels and on unprinted Newspaper when he's vacationing in Everett, and he's on Aspen at his Big Cage in Carnation. (he travels with me)
He's virtually litter trained, so I have no probs keeping clean vivs!
(he poops either outside his cage, or in one spot and very easy to clean up after.
No Poo-Nami's from my boy!

[Zach]

In my opinion, that's ridiculous! Using reptile bark is not unclean in the least as long as you stay on top of the daily spot cleaning...

I use towels for babies, and by the time all the babies are gone I'm SO glad to be rid of the towels because they're so danged UGLY! If you've got a fabulous pet like a big 'ol BTS, why would you just throw towels into the tank. Looks terrible. Of course, this is just me.

Certainly nothing harmful about using towels. As far as natural goes, nothing really about keeping these BTS is natural...we don't feed them a single native piece of food, and the temperatures we use are completely fixed and pretty much consistent. They're also completely out of danger and get much less exercise. High quality cat food is a great way to feed a meat base to food dishes. I stress high quality!

[zakkhogan]

I have to say, i agree with zach, their is nothing natural about keeping any animal in a cage, and there are so many artificial factor we have to create, ie heat, radiation, light and tons we dont, which i think are important elemnts of survial like wind and rain.. but due to the un-natural nature of keeping exocit pets we are unable to supply.

But.. again as Zach said they are getting a much better quality of food and care free from predators..


I personal use beech wood chips for my blue (which are light in colour) so i can spot poo as soon as i get in from work, but wee, as far as i understand is pretty harmless, but still best to clean as i find he likes to pee when in he's the water pool... (

[Tattoo]

I think vets are big on any type of substrate that won't lead to impaction. Of course they won't eat a whole towel so that's why they advise in that direction. If you don't feed in your enclosure or on your substrate it shouldn't be an issue. I think spilled food in the substrate would probably be the biggest stimulating factor in a BTS eating their substrate.

[Fatal_S]

Towels or paper towels are a great choice when your BTS is sick or has mites, but using other substrates is fine for a healthy BTS. Towels won't hurt at all, and if you like em, use em. I think I'd just get annoyed at having to remove all the deco from my tank every time I do a spot clean so I can change the towel. I don't think I'd like the look either. To each their own.

[Jadex25]

My main concern would be that i would never see Pyro again if i put towels in there.lol i once put paper towels in there and didnt see him for 2 days coz he had so much fun hideing under them lol

[Marie]

I use carefresh on one side and old clothing/boxes on the other. My gang seems to have so much fun crawling through sleeves and pant legs. It is ugly though. I used to use Reptibark, but I ended up with white bugs crawling through it (and that was only after 1 week). I don't think anybody else has had the problem though!

[NomadOfTheHills]

He probably doesn't know BTS like to burrow.

Also, I have used repti bark, and am not a big fan.

Very dusty unless you soak it a LOT.

[Zach]

Really? My first try at repti-bark was less dusty than aspen. Maybe I had a good bag. Only used it once; just too expensive. Especially now with ten BT's!

[NomadOfTheHills]

I agree, its very expensive.

I've used tons of bags at work, and I can say, it is extremely dusty.

[laurnerox1]

yeah i didn't mind the bark that much but looking back on it, it was way dusty and i hated cleaning the tank, it was so difficult. now the towel works great, and honestly he's so much more active.

i told the doc that he loves to burrow and they said just provide them with some real great hide spots and he'll be ok, like a box where he can curl up and just feel protected.

[Scotts1au]

Mine are on Eucalyptus leaves
Real cheap for me.

Scott

[Leigh]

Oh yeah, the vet loved him! said he was the most mellow guy they ever met and he's welcome to come back whenever! which is good cuz they couldnt get blood and we have to go back on friday...

Ever thought that the vet said this because HE'S THE FIRST ONE HE'D EVER SEEN.... and if he's soooo gooood, why couldnt he get blood the first time????

Vets would love to see you all the time , THEY CHARGE A FORTUNE EACH VISIT.

[Leigh]

Oh yeah, the vet loved him! said he was the most mellow guy they ever met and he's welcome to come back whenever! which is good cuz they couldnt get blood and we have to go back on friday...

How many does he own then??

Ever thought that the vet said this because HE'S THE FIRST ONE HE'D EVER SEEN.... and if he's soooo gooood, why couldnt he get blood the first time????

Vets would love to see you all the time , THEY CHARGE A FORTUNE EACH VISIT.

[Kymbadina]

Oh yeah, the vet loved him! said he was the most mellow guy they ever met and he's welcome to come back whenever! which is good cuz they couldnt get blood and we have to go back on friday...

How many does he own then??

Ever thought that the vet said this because HE'S THE FIRST ONE HE'D EVER SEEN.... and if he's soooo gooood, why couldnt he get blood the first time????

Vets would love to see you all the time , THEY CHARGE A FORTUNE EACH VISIT.

I agree! lol, It is $45 just to take him to the vet..That doesnt include bloodwork or anything

[laurnerox1]

yeah I know it was a bit expensive. and trust me, i work at animal hospitals and it is extremely difficult to get blood on even an animal that doesn't have scales! To get one with scales takes much more talent and precision. We went back on friday and the other vet got it after a few minutes.

and as long as the bloodwork comes back, they only want to see him once a year....so they're def not trying to take my money.

but yeah, I just thought I'd share that the towels are pretty easy to maintain and I'm glad I switched. I think it's just easy for me because I only have to take out like 5 or 6 things in his tank to change it, and I let him out all the time anyway its a good thing to do while he's runnin around the room.