Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Should I feed crickets from a dish when using Sand mixed with dirt mixed with cypress mulch as substrate? Any worry of impaction along with letting him catch it easier.

thanks

I don't worry about impaction with any of that stuff, but if you feed the crix in a dish you won't have them breeding in your substrate.
Whether or not baby crickets growing up in the cage is a plus or a minus is personal preference, I guess.
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Impactions occur from improper husbandry, and monitors that are unable to digest properly as well pass substrate like all healthy monitors do. They dont use dishes in the wild and do fine even with low or high temps. If the animal is very very unhealthy they get impactions (also respiratory infections) as a secondary problem. If you have the animal set up properly or even something close to that they dont have those problems.

Animals can and do get impacted from substrate. When ingested some swell due to he stomach acids and no amount of heat, lights, or diet can correct it, so this information is very misleading

If you know anything about the internal anatomy of a lizard you would know that is not so and where the impactions occur and why. Even zoos with natural, large a set up as possible and diet controled by professionals have had impaction issues.

In the wild they have been found and a necropsy performed that shows sand, soil, seed, moss, fur and fiber impactions.
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