Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey Everyone!
I changed Spikes substrate back to play sand today. He HATED the soil/sand mix I made for him last Thursday. He was not fairing well to it at all. Anyway, I put him back into his enclosure with the sand and he is happier than I've seen him ever! He's very active (again) and ate! He hasn't really taken much food in since I changed to soil. He is just going nuts! Anyway, the soil thing may be great for others but Spike did not care for it at all. I mean, after all listening to our animals will def. give you the most important info. Anyway, thanks for everyone’s help during that chaotic time! I will be sticking to play sand for now on.
Thanx!
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Lisa

1 Mali Uro - Spike
1 Leopard Tort - Herman
1 Shih Tzu - Jake

lisasmith@optonline.net
Monroe, NY

That is great he's back to normal.

Dragonchuck
I am going to use the millet wild bird seed. They seem to like it so far and that's what Doug uses.

Glad you found something that is working for you and is doing ok. I switch between the 2 substrates (sand or millet) and all of mine do great on either one.

Guess my thinking was.....don't fix it if it aint broke (as far as totally changing a habitat).

Glad your uro is doing well!
Renee

I just started using a 2-3 inch layer of dirt/sand mixture with my uro, and she is doing great! Usually she would wake up in the morning to eat, and bask for a little bit, then sleep for sometimes the entire day after that. Today she has just been back and forth between basking and eating, and she even crisened her new rete's stack if you know what I mean. I went in a minute ago, since her lights went off, and she was doing the glass dance, but I'm sure she'll get over it in a day or two, especially if she builds a nice little burrow (under the bottom stack that I sort of half buried in the dirt).

it's like I say, you just have to use what works. You're uro obviously does better on sand for some reason (seems like the mix might have been off or something, or maybe too much water...you want it to be dry on top), so use it. Personally, I would have given dirt a couple more days while adjusting temperatures and messing with the mixture and stuff, but it's your call. I know a couple posts down someone is talking about their uro eating the substrate. When you get one like that, you basically just can't use sand or dirt, so seed is almost the only way to go (besides non-particulate substrates). I think it all depends on the uro and what seems to work best for you. So far dirt is working well for my uro, and that's something I have been missing out on with my previous, temporarly substrate of newspaper (needed to keep a good eye on fecal).

good luck