What substrate do you use?

[VoluntaryRogue]

would everyone be able to tell me what they use as substrate for their beardies, currently i am using kitchen towel. and am looking for something more realistic,

[eyespy]

I use one of the ground coconut husk substrates, like bed-a-beast or eco earth. My vet friends and I did a study of my hatchlings this year, we raised half on coco and half on paper towels. Fecal samples of the ones on coco showed no pieces of husk passed, but slightly elevated cellulose so they did indeed digest what they ingested.

I refuse to use sand. In my 15 years working as a surgical tech I saw almost 1,300 necropsies that were found to be sand impactions. Most of these were adults who slowly starved to death as the sand that accumulated in their guts blocked absorption of nutrients from their food.

[Jeff_Favelle]

Man, you live in Aussie! Go and get some dirt from where they live!!

[Pythonian]

yea when i had mine i had playground sand which held heat so well1
Mike

[VoluntaryRogue]

Um, there's particular lil darlin's come from the NT,
that is a long way from here, let alone going through
the headache of quarentine, we are not allowed to just go and grab some dirt, sounds like you guy's have all the luck,

[BoidKeeper]

The Barons Beardie book authors say they have used sand for over 15 yrs or something like that, don’t have the book in front of me right now, with no ill effects. In a 40g I use one bag of regular pet store sand and 3 bags of the t-rex calci sand. They are born on sand in Australia so why not use it in captivity. I do however see no problem with using paper towel or even newsprint.
Cheers,
Trevor

[wolfchan]

When Alielle gets a little bigger I'm going to put her on wheat bran. Currently she is on paper towels. Magoo is on newspaper, but when he recovers I will put him on wheat bran also.

[eyespy]

Boidkeeper, they aren't born on dunes of sand, but rather on a mix of sand and soil that bakes down nice and firm in the sun. Were they born on sand, they'd starve to death because not enough plants would grow to sustain life.

Anyhow, beardies kept on sand live an average of 6-8 years. Beardies kept on safer substrates have been known to live 12+ years. Chronic impactions don't show obvious ill effects, just malabsorption syndrome from the sand slowly blocking nutrient absorption. I've flushed over 100 grams of sand out of the digestive tracts of some dragons.

[eyespy]

Oops, forgot to post pic. This is Matisse, a female I bought at 5 weeks of age. A few days after I got her my vet and I did an epigastric lavage to flush out her digestive tract because we knew she lived on playsand at the breeder's. She was not known to be a sand-eater, just an average tongue-flicking baby.

This is the effluent we recovered in the vial, playsand mixed with bile salts and digestive acids.

<img src="http://www.printroom.com/_vti_bin/ViewImage.dll?userid=eyespy&album_id=72737&image_i d=130&param=35607">

[Pythonian]

thats probably what killed my baby i had her for about 4 years. and i got her when she could fit in the palm of my hand and run around on it. and she started to like fall asleep and literally die no signs of life then BOOM right back to life again. She wouldn't walk or even stand up. And she definitly wouldn't even eat or drink. so i took her to the vet and he said she had a calcium deficiancy and it may be from the sand she was on

Mike

I miss my baby

[Alexahnder]

What type of beardie are they. Are you near Kellyville pets, or the reptile barn. You can buy desert sand, and to make it look more natural put the sand in the tank and put a liberal amount of waterin the tank. So it is moist not wet. Then leave the tank in the sun and wait for the water to evaporate. Once it is dry you end up having an authentic desert scene. It should also work with other types of sand. This way also reduces gut impactations because the sand also ends relatively hard.

Alexahnder

[eyespy]

Without the proteins from soil added to the mix, a beardie's saliva can break the bonds that hold sand grains together, so an all-sand mixture still adds up in the belly over time whether baked into a crust or not.

[Shauna]

Alexahander,
I live in Cairns, and believe me you can't buy desert sand here,
i have recently seen pic's of some dragons that are living on Breeders Choice, which is recylcled news paper,tho i'm not sure if i would do this , but all our enclosure look so very realistic, except this one, i'm really at whit's end, to any one that keeps beardy's,
recently i have found a source of erd soil, would this harm our beardies do you think.
the beardies in question are central inlands

[eyespy]

Soil is much safer than sand, but any particulate substrate has some impaction risk. The higher the mineral content vs. organic proteins, the higher the impaction risk. Not all soils are created equal. Also, since soil can contain a high amount of organic matter parasites, bacteria, fungi and viruses can live in it and infect the dragons.

Make sure you bake the soil well before using, in about a 125 degree C oven for an hour or so to kill off the critters that are naturally in there. Change it monthly to reduce the growth of coliform bacteria from your dragons' feces. If you are buying potting or topsoil make sure there are no added fertilizers, vermiculite or pesticides.

There is a safety test you can do if you are worried about how easily the soil will form a clump in your beardies' intestines. If you can get hydrochloric acid from a druggist's or hobby shop (think science kit) get a 5% solution. Otherwise, use a 7% white vinegar. Form a good hard soil ball in your hands and bake it so it gets hard. Put it in a glass and cover it with your acid of choice. If you're using HCl let it rest for about 20 minutes, or an hour for the vinegar. If the ball breaks down, your dragons' stomach acids will most likely keep the substrate from forming a blockage. If not, there is too high a mineral content in the soil and the impaction risk is fairly high.

[Alexahnder]

You could use bark chips???

Alexahnder