Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, before anyone has a coronary, sand is not the best for everyone, there are people that have so many Beardies, it is hard to do the extra work that is involved with this, and its easier to do the paper route.

Now, I only have one Beardie. He is on Sand. I dare say he loves it.

Its more work, yes...I feed him from an elevated bowl. He never picks food off of the sand...not even the "meat protein". If I have running food, like cockroaches, they get fed with tweezers.

When he goes to the bathroom, I scoop out the mess and a lot of sand around it along with it. There is NO mess to walk through and no smell whatsoever. Yes, I have to refill a lot, but its worth the time and effort.

When I see him happily digging around...When I see him find a spot, then wiggle his fat little body around till he made a perfect little impression of his body in the sand, then fall asleep in it, hands and feet folded back, totally comfortable.

I cannot see him lay that comfortable on a flat, hard surface. I don't think its natural at all.

Yes, paper might be more "sterile".

If we lived in a bare room, and slept on a bare matress in a controlled enviroment, we'd be more "sterile" too.

So, Sand is definitaly a option. It takes a lot of commitment, some extra work (make sure they don't ingest it along with food, keep it clean, scoop every bit of messed sand out, refill often, etc) but to me its worth it, its worth the extra effort and work.

I am absolutely certain!!!!! that my Beardie would not enjoy being on a hard and flat surface, that he couldn't dig in, that he couldn't snuggle up in. Even though it would be so much easier on ME!!!!

So please stop raggin on people that use Sand. It can be done, and it can be done right. All it takes is Commitment.

Oftentimes Reptilekeeping in the US is all about "sterile", Ease and Convinience.

I like to have LESS animals but provide them with a more natural enviroment, even though its a LOT more work and effort to make it work safely.

IT CAN BE DONE, though!!!

Now flame away...
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reps-r-us

My dragon's cage looks significantly more natural and he looked so much more comfortable sleeping last night on soft sand rather than a hard surface.

I just don't understand the reasoning behind nothing be safe for them. If someone could explain to me why dragon's live out in the wild on dirt, sand and so forth, I'd love it. There's always a chance of anything happening when in captivity. One can only take so many precautions before they begin to wonder if all those precautions are really for the animals best interest. I could keep myself locked in the house with nothing but healthy food, purified air, and limited contact with other people (for fear of catching something), but jeez...what kind of life is that?

A happy animal is a healthy animal.
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1 Thoroughbred
1 Mali Uromastyx
1 Bearded Dragon
1 Corn Snake
1 Milk Snake
2 German Shepherd's (w/3rd on the way!)
2 Birds (Conure and Cockatiel)
2 Rabbits
4 Fish tanks (SW and FW)

We all have them. What is right for one isn't right for all. What I do for mine, you don't do for yours and that's fine. But why are you trying to start a flame about it? Just use your sand and I'll use my paper towels & carpet. Leave it at that. I don't even know why this is still such a big fight, it is proven that sand causes impaction and death. If you are willing to take that risk, do it. Just stop with the flaming, please.

The sand does not cause impactions, bad husbandry causes impactions.
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Bill DiFabio
Garden State Herpetoculture...website to follow...
Email Me
"The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense,
not between right and wrong." - Carl Jung

Hey Bill, long time no see. How's it going?

Sean
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Heart Mountain Herps

as far as I have seen, people that DO use bedding other then paper or carpet or drawer liner have been the one that got flamed, therefore my post. So don't turn it around.

I have said, to EACH THEIR OWN. Yes everyone has an opinion, and different strokes for different people, but I think its high time that people that go the more natural route get touted as "killing their beardie".

Please.

Like someone else said, bad husbandry is what causes death and or impactation and else.

I can keep my beardie on paper and still cause impactation with wrong temps and or wrong food, wrong size food, and so forth.

Sand is MORE WORK. But it CAN BE DONE RIGHT!!!
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reps-r-us

Opinions are like a-holes, everyone has one and some stink.

Sand user here, no problems yet. Don't flame people that think differently.

What about having like a sand...box? A spot where he/she can sleep but it is not all over the cage? Eh, Im unexpeirienced, just an idea.
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I personally keep mine on sand (well actually a 50/50 mix of peat and washed play sand). So far no problems, and I do agree that I don't believe mine would be nearly as happy on anything else. Just nothing like watching him "tuck in for bed." One question I've always had is why do we have so many problems with impaction in captivity? Obviously they evolved in the sand, dirt, and rocks in the wild. So do they have the same problems with impaction in the wild? If they don't, why?

-Dino-

I'm sure there is some impaction in the wild....but the difference is weathered ground....dragons do not live a a loose sand area like the Sahara Desert....their ground in compacted by all the elements of nature, wind, rain, sun, etc....so you can't compare the two....

And yes, sand can cause impaction if ingested in sufficient amounts....I've seen dragons who were kept under proper temps, fed in seperate tanks and still became impacted because they like to eat the sand too much....lol....not just from improper husbandry.....

I agree it can be done, I used to keep my dragons on sand as well, but as the original poster pointed out it's high maintenance....

As far as natural, I'll say it once again, captive is in now way natural anyway and sand is far from the substrate they live on in nature.....so that argument doesn't really matter....the deal is, if you like sand, do the work to keep it clean and monitor your dragon for excess licking(eating) of the sand then your dragon should be fine.
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Tracey
Tracey's Beardies
www.beardiecrazy.com
"Whining is not only graceless, but can be dangerous.
It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood" ~Maya Angelou

I agree.

By taking animals from the wild, nothing we do is quite "natural" anymore.

However, we can at least "try" to do our best to make them comfortable.

Beardies in the wild have a large choice of different substrates. There is not just either rock, hard dirt, dead grasses, loose sand. There is a little bit of everything.

There is a reason why dragons do the "wiggle, jiggle" thing before they go to sleep...They even do it when they fall asleep on me. They "nest".

This behavior comes from animals that choose a place to sleep, then "conform" it somewhat to their comfort.

You cannot conform a hard, flat surface.

Even beardies in the wild don't choose the flat, hard surface to sleep on. They go hide under rocks and such, in the softer dirt areas. They "nest" to get comfortable.

Now if people choose to keep them on paper and stuff, its their choice and I RESPECT that. It is a lot easier maintenance.

BUT MY POINT WAS, that I can choose differently, and I should not get flamed and preached at, or told I'm killing my animal.

Again, sand can be done RIGHT. It's a LOT more work and maintenance when DONE RIGHT. And I STILL believe my beardie prefers it MUCH over paper.

But thank you for your objective post
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reps-r-us

Hey Tracey,

It's the same arguments over and over lol. You back for a while or just popping in? Good to see ya.

Sean
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Heart Mountain Herps

Hey Sean,
Just popped in and couldn't resist the thread with the "natural" statements...gets me every time....lol!

Hope all is well with you!
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Tracey
Tracey's Beardies
www.beardiecrazy.com
"Whining is not only graceless, but can be dangerous.
It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood" ~Maya Angelou

They probably do get impactions and die in the wild too. I mean, think of the sucess rate for any given species. The reason they have so many babies is because hardly any of them are going to make it to maturity to have babies of their own
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1.0 green iguana-Deitrich
1.1 Common Boa-Un-Named, Ursula
1.0 Ball Python-Anabell (go figure!)
1.0 Red Tegu-Uteg
1.0 Albino Cal King-Pig
0.1 Mexican Black King-Morticia
1.1 Bearded Dragons-Unnamed, Hanabil
1.0 Albino San Diego Gopher-Unnamed
0.1 Hermans tort-Esio
1.1 JCP-Milton, Medusa
1.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn-Unnamed
0.1 Snow Corn-Unnamed
1.0 Hypo Okeetee Corn-Unnamed
0.1 Motley Okeetee-Unnamed
1.0 Western Hoggie-Wyrm
0.0.1 Rose Hair Taruntla-Unnamed
2.0 Leopard Geckos-Reptar, Pogo
4.1 cats-Tucker,Poe,Abhib,Emerald, Felicity
0.1 Bullmastiff-Asha

By taking animals from the wild, nothing we do is quite "natural" anymore.

However, we can at least "try" to do our best to make them comfortable.

Beardies in the wild have a large choice of different substrates. There is not just either rock, hard dirt, dead grasses, loose sand. There is a little bit of everything.

There is a reason why dragons do the "wiggle, jiggle" thing before they go to sleep...They even do it when they fall asleep on me. They "nest".

This behavior comes from animals that choose a place to sleep, then "conform" it somewhat to their comfort.

You cannot conform a hard, flat surface.

Even beardies in the wild don't choose the flat, hard surface to sleep on. They go hide under rocks and such, in the softer dirt areas. They "nest" to get comfortable.

Now if people choose to keep them on paper and stuff, its their choice and I RESPECT that. It is a lot easier maintenance.

BUT MY POINT WAS, that I can choose differently, and I should not get flamed and preached at, or told I'm killing my animal.

Again, sand can be done RIGHT. It's a LOT more work and maintenance when DONE RIGHT. And I STILL believe my beardie prefers it MUCH over paper.

IMHO
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reps-r-us

I'm willing to bet that most compactation are caused by the following:

- wrong food (to much hard-shelled food items)

- to much food

- dehydration (wrong food)

- to big food-items (also causes immobilization)

- wrong temps

all in all: WRONG HUSBANDRY

imho
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reps-r-us

You are so right, all those can cause impaction. But can you honestly say that sand does not cause impaction also. I never said it was the only thing that causes it, just one of the many. I really don't think this is worth fighting over, no one's mind will be changed by any of this. I hope you all have a wonderful day!!

No fighting at all.

My point was ONLY that "sand bedding" or other bedding then paper CAN be done right.

I'm tired of people having to be scared to admit of using sand or even to recommend it to people, when there clearly is a way of doing it right, and no shame in it.

The only flames I've ever seen in this endless debate are directed towards people that like a "more" natural approach.

Yes, we can take sand away, cause it "can" cause problems...lets take food away, cause it "can" cause problems, why don't we make it real easy and use a stuffed dragon, then nothing can go wrong.

I'm not fighting, I'm simply saying that "I" love the sand bedding and that "it can be done right", also much more work for the caretaker.

And I'm not a beardie murderer, I take very good care of my fellow and it does make me feel better to see him enjoy his surroundings.

Again, everyone has their own opinions, perfectly fine and I respect that. But I'm tired of seeing others being flamed and ridiculed about their choices.
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reps-r-us

I agree that sand can be good in some circumstances. Obviously, if your beardie is notorious for trying to eat everything, including their substrate than sand is not going to work. But, if you keep if clean, and have a beardie who has no intrest in eating it then i dont see the problem.

I keep both my adults on very fine grain washed playsand and they love it. At night if it gets to cold my big female will crawl under her basking branches and dig herself into the sand that is still being warmed by the UTH. She loves to dig in the sand also, i could not imagine keeping her on anything else. That having been said, if she started "tasting" the sand a lot i would switch her.

When my clutch hatched i kept the babies on newspaper just because they are so much more delicate and a little less adept at hunting than their parents are.

Anyway, I agree that sand can be a perfectly good choice in some circumstances provided it is a fine grain, the beardie is large enough and has habits that fit with a sand substrate, and the owner understands the extra work that is involved.

Oh, and as long as its not calcium sand, of course

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1.0 green iguana-Deitrich
1.1 Common Boa-Un-Named, Ursula
1.0 Ball Python-Anabell (go figure!)
1.0 Red Tegu-Uteg
1.0 Albino Cal King-Pig
0.1 Mexican Black King-Morticia
1.1 Bearded Dragons-Unnamed, Hanabil
1.0 Albino San Diego Gopher-Unnamed
0.1 Hermans tort-Esio
1.1 JCP-Milton, Medusa
1.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn-Unnamed
0.1 Snow Corn-Unnamed
1.0 Hypo Okeetee Corn-Unnamed
0.1 Motley Okeetee-Unnamed
1.0 Western Hoggie-Wyrm
0.0.1 Rose Hair Taruntla-Unnamed
2.0 Leopard Geckos-Reptar, Pogo
4.1 cats-Tucker,Poe,Abhib,Emerald, Felicity
0.1 Bullmastiff-Asha

Yes I believe that sand substrate can be done with a low risk of impaction. In fact I have raised several clutches of beardies on it with no impaction or death but the one thing this argument for sand is missing is the fact that sand can never be sanitized once it is exposed to feces. So in effect every time your dragon has a bowel movement he is loading the sand with infectious organisms. Regardless of whether you treat for parasites or not your dragon will always have some sort of parasitic load. What you can control is the proliferation of these parasites. In capitivity many animals develop superinfections. This is basically an extremely high parasitic load in fact it is the second or third highest killer of BDs with Fatty liver disease topping the list. They develop these superinfections by constant contact with their feces.

So to my point when using sand you can never completely remove all of the fecal material in the sand regardless of what method you are using to clean or sift your sand. Therefore it is much more likely for your dragon to develop a superinfection on a sand substrate than a shelfliner substrate where it can be spot cleaned by initially removing as much fecal material as possible with a paper towel and then wiping down with a chlorox wipe and then allowed to sit for at least 30 seconds. After that the the spot can be wiped up and diluted with just water, novlasan, or Natures choice disinfectant all of which are BD safe.

This is my most compelling reason for using Shelfliner and being a Microbiologist and doing my own fecals I have definately noticed a difference in my animals fecals. Again and as Always this is just my opinion from my experiences.

Cleopatra Snow Hypopastel
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AlphaDragonZ
www.AlphaDragonZ.com

Again, this is easily taken care off, if you are willing to invest the time and money.

First of all, I don't "sift" the sand.

I have a large and solid scoop that gets the mess and everything around and under it. There isn't a dirty grain left...as a matter of fact I remove a large amount of perfectly clean sand every time I "scoop"...

I have clean and sifted playsand next to the cage, and refill often.

I take fecals to my vet twice the year...I would more often if I noticed a problem with my dragon.

"If" there is a parasitic load, you can easily empty a large cage of the entire sand...with a shopvac, takes about 1 minute.

Then wipe down and sterilize everything with Nolvasan. Keep things to a minimum while treating, and replace with sand once things are taken care off.

Works for me, I have exchanged the entire sand before, not because the dragon was sick (the only time he was sick, was right after shipping him to me) but simply because I wanted to.

Took only about 5 minutes between using the shopvac and having clean playsand ready.

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reps-r-us

Oh no, here we go again.
Cricket

ok first things first i agree with you totally about sand being natural...and impactions from sand are only a problem if your bd is not fed properly...other wise if hes healthy the sand passes directly through them.and as far as shelfliner..how the heck is that more sanitary?does not the dragon smear poop all over the place as well?in that case you would need to disinfect EVERY time it poops...lokk around at reputable breeders on the web they ALL use playsand...and i have found the best sand is at toys r us its 5 bucks for fifty pounds and its washed no dust at all and is pure white and clean...again ask reputable breeders such as dragons den herp or sundial or captive bred specialties who breed tons of bd they all use sand its more natural and its VERY safe as long as the bd is taken care of correctly...and bd can get impactions from ANY substrate if they do not get the proper vitamins and uvb

Hi
am also a sand user.
i know if beardies r kept steriel and not have any bad/goodbacteria in the gut they have more change to get sick.
young kids who got dogs when they where small have les change for astma .
they build up a own defence to deal with those invaders.
if you keep them to steriel you have a problem.
i know a shop who sold 300 euganas to a zoo.
that man kept them so steriel when they iravied in the zoo they got no defence and got killed in quick time .

byeeee