it was much easier talking about the soil stuff on the phone instead of through emails. I'm definately heading out to home depot today to get some topsoil, sand, and vermiculite (and make sure they don't try to talk me into any thing else). I was wondering though. I have any old rubbermaid box in the basement, but it isn't very big. it probably would only allow me to build tunnels up to halfway up my arm. Would I be better off to buy a big rubbermaid for testing out the dirt? Also, you said something about a heat lamp on the dirt testing thing, right? So should I just pick up a cheap clamp lamp and lightbulb? What temps should I be aiming for, ambient cage temps or actually basking spot? Oh, I'm also going to pick up some stuff for making a retes stack.
I won't be able to put a ton of dirt in my cages right now, since the uro is in a short aquarium right now and the bearded's tank has vents near the bottom (relatively stupid design). So I was thinking just put a few inches in, and put stuff in the she can burrow herself under? I was thinking maybe set it up so that there's a planter bottom hide submerged in the cool side with a burrow made by me under it, and then put in a retes stack so the the bottom is submerged and just a little dent made around the bottom of that so she can get the idea and burrow underneath it? I figured that that way she would still have a hide available to her when I start using soil (the planter bottom) but also have a "project" to work on, which will let me see how she does with burrowing and everything. I think this would also be a good "baby step" at letting go completely of being able to access her when I get nervous (I could just lift up the stack, or the hide spot). This setup was somewhat inspired by sunfox.
On a final note, I've been thinking about what I'll do when building the next cages. I see a few clear choices to avoid havint the dirt rot my hardwork on wood cages.
-do the cattle trough idea. Not sure how much my mom would really support the idea, but we'll see how it goes.
-build wooden cages with deep substrate dams, but line the inside with acrylic that's siliconed at the seams, so it would be like there's an aquarium built inside of the cage
-Build wooden cages that will hold specific plastic containers in the bottom. this isn't really something I'm leaning towards right now, but it's still an idea.
-Buy large aquariums that are at least 20" tall and the floor size I want. This is not really cost affective, but it makes sense. Though I would probably want to skirt off three of the sides and maybe around the soil too so that she can feel secure if she burrows against the glass for some reason. That would be really cool though, becuase then you could lift the skirt and see part of the burrow and possibly see her going through the burrow. This is probably the easiest thing to do for my situation, just because all that I would have to build is a strong 2x4 frame to hold them. Price is always a big issue though.
There's a lot of stuff to think about. If any of you out there are still weary of the soil thing, give Robyn a call or something. There's so many good things that can come from this. I think it's sort of funny that just yesterday I was thinking about using millet for substrate, and today i've gone to basically the complete opposite.
