Reptile & Amphibian Forums

recently have been throwing in crickets at night and watching them hunt.

Well we all know they just react and DIVEBOMB, but what I'm seeing disturbs me. They nail the crick with a mouthful of sphagnum moss also dangling from their mouths.

They slowly push out the moss I guess with their tongue while keeping the cricket in their mouth. The moss usually drops and they swallow the cricket !

Well this happens over and over they dive down with mouth wide open like a shovel. They do seem to know what to do, but what if they did swallow it. Its making me uncomfortable now that I see what goes on.

I was told when I got my first guy to use several inches of sphagnum, to cushion there nose.

So what are the rest of you using, on the bottom?
I do know you can also have a bowl with crickets, but I would prefer to let them hunt naturally !

Let me know what other substrates are being used, thanks !

Eve

Eve,

I use natural dead moss... Basically the same as sphagnum... I too have noticed that sometimes they get alittle in their mouth when divebombing crickets... Although I have heard of Uro's dieing due to impaction, I don't think a its much to worry about with sphagnum... This is probably the best substrate to use considering it is soft, in large pieces (easier to kick out of their mouth), and natural... I would be more concerned if someone was using mulch, reptibark, bed a beast, or even straight peat moss (very easy to get a mouthfull of this)... These substrates are hard, and if accidently ingested they could do some damage...

When you strip your cages, just becareful that you look in the moss for any sticks, or other hard objects just as bark...

I have heard of people wasing or soaking large leaves for an extended period of time and using leaflitter as the cover of their base substrate also... As long as you dont soak them too long, they stay somewhat rigid and the geckos can kick them out of the mouhts easily also...

I use a false bottom built design, directly on top of that I use a thin layer of moss, then about 5-4 inches of finely ground coconut peat, than a couple inches of moss again...
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Ben

I use potting soil with live moss growing over it. I works really good and looks great.

i use about 4 inches of sphagnum moss. i had live moss ontop of that but it started to smell a lil, so i'm back to just the sphagnum.