There are many, many choices for what you are going to use to line the floor of your reptile's enclosure. Some are good, some are not so good, and some will just plain harm your snake. Here I will go over some of the most used substrates to cover their good points and their bad points.
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Actually, douglas fir bark is not the same as pine bark. Douglas fir bark is bark from Douglas fir trees. Pine bark is bark from pine trees. They are entirely different trees.

Yes they are different species, but they both contain toxic sap that contains forms of tolulene.....not good for reptile.........

has anyone else used the "snow" style substrate from exo terra? I have a ball python and the contrast is great, but I've recently switched to astro turf just for a different look for a while. there is a pic in my photos with this substrate. Any snake that has color to it will contrast highly and really stand out.

What are some ways to treat your substrates (such as the woodchip stuff you get at the petstore) for mites and etc? I know about baking them in the oven, and also heard about Prevent-A-Mite as well as some type of spray used on camping equipment. PAM isnt sold around me (I live in nyc, not many reptile resources, or atleast that i know of) and i cant find the camp stuff. Id like to be better prepared for my next snake.

I believe PAM is a cooking spray right?...i use newspaper its cheap/never has mites/easy to clean

Lol. Not PAM the cooking spray.. I meant PAM = Prevent-A-Mite. I was bein lazy haha. I thought the same thing tho when i saw the abbreviation.