Wood Chips as Substrate for Hissers

[Nhewyt]

OK, I'm really just sorta curious about this. I've never kept any of my hissers with a substrate - just plain ol' egg crates in a bin or custom made hives.

This mainly because it is so easy to clean and I clean my cages at least once a week to prevent any possible allergens that might build up and set my husband (or myself) to sneezing.

...but I've seen a lot of photos at seller pages and even here on this page, of folks keeping them on some sort of wood chips. So....

Why wood chips and what kind?

[Allpet Roaches]

Wood chips are often used to soak up moisture and reduce odors somewhat for mammal caging but these aren't issues with hissers. Aspen or any wood bedding that's not pine should be fine though softwoods might not really harm them (pine beddings can be white, red or red and white while all the hardwood bedding types I've seen are white). Keep in mind, many people are allergic to the dust from the wood bedding --even with no animals present.

[Nhewyt]

Thanks Orin - it makes sense that the Aspen would be best for them since the Cedar shavings are sold to fill dog beds to keep fleas off. And from what I've read, some of the Cedar and Pine beddings are actually harmful to small pets because of the vapors. And my husband actually is allergic to the dust from Cedar shavings :-(

I think I'll stick with bare cages though - I imagine it would be really hard to sift nymphs out of shavings.

I'd love to try raising my new caves without substrate, but in the past I never had luck with them that way.

[Maarten..]

I use beech chunks. These are not shavings but morsets and don't have the dust issue. I buy it in a pet store, so it's completely safe.

I use it just because I find it more appealling than bare ground. I also don't clean the cages every week, so it's convenient that dirt sinks into this substrate instead of piling up.

If kept in a moist environment combined with few aeriation, it's really susceptible to fungi but in other conditions it's great stuff.

[rednkhunter]

Wow beech huh? I've never seen this offered at my local pet store :-( I bet it would look nifty. I guess I just like a super clean cage cause I clean mine out like every two - three days at least. I know that is over doing it so I'm trying to cut back so not to stress out my b. dubia The gentleman that I bough my roaches from said that the nymphs enjoy burrowing in the poop when it really piles up, and even munch on it!