Where to find soil/sand at this time of year...

[Little Wise Owl]

So, my tegu's adult enclosure is ready to be set up but I'm having a tough time finding appropriate substrate for it. I'd typically use soil from my backyard but that's frozen and under like 5ft of snow and places like Home Depot don't have any soil or sand for sale. What the heck do I do? lol I have a massive enclosure to fill...

[Sharlynn93]

I know with our "Lowes" I could order online and they pulled it from the back room and had it ready for pickup. If you ask in person they won't do it because they don't want to bother digging it out...it may be frozen, but you could thaw it out in short order I'm sure...thats what we did with the mulch, anyway...

[poomwah]

good idea, you'd be amazed what lowes has in the back.
do you have a menards nearby? we just got some sand and soil at menards a couple weeks ago

[Little Wise Owl]

I'm in Canada and there are no Lowe's near me and I don't think we have Menards.

[Sharlynn93]

Do you have a local mom & pop hardware store? They may have some stored...our local "ace" hardware shop has theirs in their back room storage for winter...

[Sharlynn93]

Check your home depot online too. Like I said our lowes said no but I ordered online which forced them to dig it out of storage.

[Little Wise Owl]

I checked Home Depot online but they only had one plain Top Soil and it's not available anywhere in my area and didn't offer shipping and it kept giving me an error when I requested a "Pick up".

I can check our local hardware store but even in the summer they never had what I was looking for. How hard is it to find dirt these days :P

[Sharlynn93]

Tell me about it..lol..just trying to find pure cypress mulch is impossible around here. Unless I want to pay for a brand marketed for reptiles and that gets expensive!

[infernalis]

spring is coming soon..... I know I will be digging up my yard again.

[Little Wise Owl]

Unfortunately the ground is going to be frozen to most Canadians for a few more months.

[Mikoh4792]

Unfortunately the ground is going to be frozen to most Canadians for a few more months.

So is the soil under snow or ice? if its snow Id just shovel my way through. If it's ice maybe use a big ice pick and hammer? lmao

[Terranaut]

How much do you need?

[pdomensis]

Find a nursery or landscaping outfit. They should have their bins tarped or if not they should be able to bust up their piles with a loader. I guess it depends on how much you need though.

[Little Wise Owl]

So is the soil under snow or ice? if its snow Id just shovel my way through. If it's ice maybe use a big ice pick and hammer? lmao
It's under 4-5ft of compacted snow and ice... I'm not getting anything out of the ground for a few months...

How much do you need?
Enough to fill a 6'x2' enclosure about 12" deep.

I've found compacted peat moss bales at Rona today. No sand though (and the man I was asking gave me attitude about asking for children's play sand for reptiles... "SAND WILL KILL YOUR REPTILE" whatever)

Any soil I find has additives or extra crap in it. Why can't I ever find just straight up plain soil?

[Jim Smith]

You might want to check out Craig's list. There are a number of places that either keep their potting soil and sand under cover of cover them with tarps to allow access to it for people who start their own seedlings. Just a thought...

[Terranaut]

I don't have that much. Sorry. I have about 1/2 a yard at most.

It amazes me on here how people forget to see what country your in when suggesting where to shop. I wouldn't send Americans to Canadian Tire when they have tubs on sale;)

[Little Wise Owl]

I found some (frozen) bags of Black Earth Top Soil. Compliments - Food and Drink Recipes and Household Products (http://www.compliments.ca/en/Products/product.aspx?b=1&s=12&c=2&t=6&u=9&sku=5574235357)

The back of the bag said it consisted of top loam and humus. Is humus safe? I also found bags of play sand so if these top soil bags work, that'd be awesome.