Granular Substrate Opinions

[SaiyanFury]

Hi all I have a question to pose. First I just want to say that I'm using a calcium sand substrate and it works great, except for a few problems I have. I'm using Zoo Med Vita-sand, FYI.

Here's a link showing what I use:
ZooMed Vita-sand

1: It gets all over my beardies and is hard to rinse off.
2. When my female beardie becomes gravid, which seems to be about 80% of the time she starts digging in the sand looking for the best place to bury her eggs. While that's all fine and dandy, the dust she kicks up gets all over everything. It gets sucked into the air conditioner, into mine and my wife's PCs, everything. Can someone recommend a granular substrate that doesn't have lots of dust in it that beardies wouldn't get impacted on? Maybe I'm shooting for something impossible, but I'd like to hear opinions. Oh FYI in our house as it is, it's impossible to move our furniture including my beardie enclosure to another part of the house. Thanks for your opinions in advance!

 

[Vegas Chad]

We use sand that we get at sand dunes, you might be able to use washed beach sand. When we are out we use play sand that you can get at any home improvement store for cheap.

Typically a dragon will only scratch/dig when she is ready to lay the eggs. If this is the case you should remove her from your normal cage and put her into a laying bin. This will have enough dirt that is damp enough that she can dig herself into the tunnel.

 

[Teasekitten]

Hi there, I asked my Fiance and he said:

"I'm using ground english walnut it's dust free, with small granules, not really digestable, but small enough granules that they shouldn't get impacted. It's fairly ingestable by adult dragons, but unfortunately, not digestable"

 

[SaiyanFury]

We use sand that we get at sand dunes, you might be able to use washed beach sand. When we are out we use play sand that you can get at any home improvement store for cheap.

Typically a dragon will only scratch/dig when she is ready to lay the eggs. If this is the case you should remove her from your normal cage and put her into a laying bin. This will have enough dirt that is damp enough that she can dig herself into the tunnel.

Hi guys thanks for getting back to me. I've found that Mjollnir, my female will dig for weeks before finally laying her eggs and burying them in her cage. But I will certainly give your suggestion a try, Vegas Chad. Thank you very much! I know that regular sand from a hardware store has silica in it and can cause respiratory problems. But beach sand might be a viable alternative. Thanks to you both.

 

[kenya]

I have heard that all of these substrates are horrible impaction risks, especially the vita sand and walnut shell. I think washed playsand is the least harmful of all mentioned- I think clean, hulled provo millet is also okay. One of the best things is pieces of non adhesive shelf liner cut to cage size- you can have a couple and just switch them out to clean when they get soiled.

 

[SaiyanFury]

I have heard that all of these substrates are horrible impaction risks, especially the vita sand and walnut shell. I think washed playsand is the least harmful of all mentioned- I think clean, hulled provo millet is also okay. One of the best things is pieces of non adhesive shelf liner cut to cage size- you can have a couple and just switch them out to clean when they get soiled.

Thank you for your perspective, Kenya. I've been using vita sand for well over a year and my beardies have never shown any signs of impaction. It's a very small grain. Heck it's virtually dust, but I am looking into alternatives. If washed, play sand is good then that's a viable option. Thank you again.

 

[kenya]

Just an update on vita sand: this photo is an xray of a beardie that was housed on it for years with no visible problems...until he became impacted one day. The problem is that vitasand will clump. It is small and may be digestible in small grains but once inside of the animal, it is very cohesive and will clump and make solid blocks. I still advise to stay away from it.

If you are going to use playsand, wash it well and make sure it isn't made from silica!

Taken from an article on beardeddragon.org:

" Another major contributor to impaction is the ingestion of substrate. Many particulate substrates can pose a risk. In many cases, Calci-Sand has been reported to have caused impaction. However, it is not alone; any type of pellets (such as Rabbit Pellets), pebble-like substrates, and several dried plant-based substrates are also known to present a high risk. Play sand can also cause impaction if it is ingested on a regular basis, or if a great deal of it is ingested at one time.

The packaging of many substrates claim that they are completely digestible. However, please be very wary of claims from the manufacturers of these products. Unlike products for human consumption or use, the safety of products used for our pets is under no such regulation.

Before trusting a substrate, do some research to discover what those with lots of personal experience think about it. Many calcium-based substrates (including, but not limited to Calci-Sand) not only claim that their substrate is digestible, but also claim that it is beneficial for your bearded dragon's health if they do ingest it, because it is a source of calcium for them. However, a bearded dragon may be inclined to eat more of this substrate than is good for them, if they feel a need for additional calcium in their diet. And they are NOT digestible, as they claim. Combine the difficulty of digestion with the increased likelihood of ingestion, and you may have yourself a very sick bearded dragon. "



" Impaction has been explained many times. I frequently see it discussed in numerous forums on this site. In fact, we recently (at the time of this writing) had one discussion in particular, in which the poster provided the X-ray image of their pet's impaction. It was a severe case. The bearded dragon was kept on play sand covered with a layer of Calci-sand. The beardie managed to eat the sand (a lot of it). This X-ray image was probably the most astounding illustration that I've ever seen to make people truly aware that this is a very real and dangerous issue, and not just an exaggeration.

Yes, all those bright areas in the belly are sand! As one of our forum members commented, this beardie was more like a "Rock with a tail" than a normal, healthy beardie. In this particular case, this picture really is worth a thousand words, and illustrates the seriousness of the problem much more effectively than words ever could. "

The full article can be found here: http://www.beardeddragon.org/articles/impaction/

 

[SaiyanFury]

Thank you for that valuable post, Kenya. I've been housing my beardies on Vita-sand for over a year now. My guys have ready access to calcium as I regularly supplement their food with calcium and vitamin supplement dust. On top of that the crickets I feed them are partially gut loaded with Cricket Quencher with added calcium. I try to keep their substrate free of any moisture, either from defecation and other sources of moisture. Do you have a source I could possibly get play sand from that's not silica based?

 

[BocaJan]

I get my sand at Wal-Mart for cham laying bins.

 

[MWheelock]

My 2 cents...

I think the biggest thing that you can do is know your animal and adjust accordingly.

1) All of these calcium sands are not small enough to get absorbed, regardless of what the manufacturers say. (Think of how fine your supplements are to be absorbed). If your lizard injests enough of it, there is a good chance of impaction.

2) For that matter, any sand can be an issue since gravity will pull it down to the bottom of the stomach and may have a hard time passing into the intestine and out the body. Isn't sand what they have in the wild? They don't live in the Sahara with loose sand, most of it is fairly hard packed, so when they attack a bug they aren't getting a big mouthful of loose sand.

3)Walnut shells are too big and crazilly shaped so can easily get stuck.

4)Paper towels look like crap, though easy to clean.

So going back to the first statement. Know your lizards habits and adjust. Examples- When a young beardie is offered crickets, if he is a spaz and gets as much substrate as insect when grabbing, he should be fed in a different container. The veggies can stay in the cage since it is on a small dish that won't allow injection of substrates. When the beardie is older and either a better hunter or on veggies almost exclusively, sand or other substrates should not be a problem.

I have playsand in my leopard geckos cage. Mealworms are in a shallow dish they can't get out of. I feed roaches with a hemostat (or forceps). I always know who's eatting and when. I also feed them high so that they get no sand in the initial bite.

I have seen some people that have linolium fragments and they seem pretty happy with ease of cleaning. They usually only have 1/2 linolium, but some sort of substrate in the rest of the cage

 

[SaiyanFury]

Thanks for the information, MWheelock. My female beardie is fully grown and my male is nearly fully grown. Both enjoy the veggies I give them, although both still relish crickets aplenty. When they were young I kept them on reptile carpet so the ingestion of substrate was moot. Now they're much more skilled in eating crickets and other various insects while ingesting nearly no substrate at all. I'm just wondering about keeping my female in another enclosure to cut down on her kicking up dust while she's gravid. You said play sand is an option? I'm guessing that it's been washed well and there's no silica present? I've read that silica is bad for beardie respiratory systems so can you confirm for me that it's safe for adult beardies?

 

[MWheelock]

I haven't found that it is a problem. That being said. I also suggest that people mist the cage in the morning (simulating morning dew) This cuts down on the dust a lot.