I agree. You have to treat uro's like as they would be in the wild- to the best of our ability. But my thought is that I have no idea what the soil/sand/clay is in the Northeast region of Mali, Africa and have never been there myself. There is not much literature besides saying that the northeast region where Mali's are found is dry, hot and sandy/dusty. Here is a link to what I had found on yahoo. There is 1 picture taken from the arid region. I have no idea what it would be like to burrow in that or what the mixture consists of.



http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-2275465-mali_slideshow-i



My uro had A LOT of soil but chose not to burrow. Instead he went to a burrow I had made for him and NEVER came out. I had to dig him out myself. He wouldn't eat and everytime I added water the humidity would shoot up and then come down, then shoot up again and then come down. I agree that there is some sort of humidity in the burrow since it is under ground but the rest of their enclosure shouldn't have drastic changes in humidity like mine was doing. Plus, we have no idea what the humidity is in a burrow in Mali Africa.



I am not sure if my was a CB or a WC. I rec'd him and he was 8 inches from head to tail. Some say that when you receive one as big as this they are WC. I am torn because I tend to believe that you are most comfortable in what you are used to. I switched from the soil setup back to sand because Spike was showing me signs telling me that he didn't like it. I'd much rather see Spike eating, enjoying himself, and basking than hiding in a cave, not eating, basking, and not coming out of the hide at all. He doesn't seem as if he is lacking anything being on a sand substrate. He actually seems more happier than he was on soil.



It could be that my soil mixture was not right but he didn't even try to burrow. How do I make a mixture if I have no idea what they burrow down into in Africa? Plus, from the looks of that picture - it doesn't look like much but sand to me. I am sure they have hides and caves and such that they can hide in but I haven't come across anything online to tell me what those look like and what the Mali uro's make them out of.



Anyone have any literature on this?
-----
Lisa



1 Mali Uro - Spike

1 Leopard Tort - Herman

1 Shih Tzu - Jake



lisasmith@optonline.net

Monroe, NY

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