Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is Tripod peaking out of his cage. He is doing great and has been eating very well for the last few days. He is very active now.

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Ed

There are chameleons, pythons, and monitors in my jungle room.

I am increasing the size of the basking spot tomarrow. Thrasher is growing so fast it is hard to keep up.
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Ed

There are chameleons, pythons, and monitors in my jungle room.

WOW,very impressive .you seem to definetly be on the right path!
dave

Thrasher is sleeping in a burrow with his head showing. I thought it was so cute I had to post a picture. He is usually totally hidden when he sleeps in one of his burrows.
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Ed

There are chameleons, pythons, and monitors in my jungle room.

Thrasher is sleeping in a burrow with his head showing. I thought it was so cute I had to post a picture. He is usually totally hidden when he sleeps in one of his burrows.

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Ed

There are chameleons, pythons, and monitors in my jungle room.

I don't have a monitor, but I have a mali uromastyx, and I'm trying to find a good soil for her so she can burrow. I notice the soil you're using seems to hold a burrow well. I mean, even that little tiny part to the right of the picture is held up (the part against the wall that looks like a little bridge). The soils I've tried before don't hold a burrow at all. I was wondering where you got it. Like, if it's made from store bought materials, what did you use. If it's something you found locally (which is what I suspect) what kind of area did you find it at, and how can I tell if a soil is going to be good before digging up a ton of it?

thanks. Also, how deep is your dirt? I only have space for 8-9" deep at best, which means I need a really good dirt for burrowing.

I don't have access to good dirt. I have to buy it. I get the cheap topsoil from Lowes or Home Depot and get playsand from the cement/mortor area. This sand has smaller grains and says moldable on the bag. I mix 2 or 3 bags of dirt to every bag of sand. I have been told that this is not the best soil to use, but it is the best I can get my hands on.

The dirt varies in depth in the enclosure, but i beleive it was about one foot deep right there. I make it very damp and mix it up well. Every once in a while I pour more water on it and remix the dirt. It holds up very well and the argus had burrows all over the cage ranging from 1 foot to almost all the way across the 4 foot cage.

Good luck,
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Ed

There are chameleons, pythons, and monitors in my jungle room.

great pics, i love to see monitors digging burrows like that. i am going to try that dirt mix cause like ryan said, i looks like it holds a tunnel really well. thanks

why do some people think that the dirt you use isn't good? It sounds like it works out perfectly for your monitors. About the sand, what is it composed of? Like, is it silica free and all that? I suppose it probably doesn't really matter much when mixed in with soil, because it won't create dust if you keep it watered (I have heard that silica sand can cause respiratory problems or something like that...that's if you use it plain though). I tried a mix of cheap topsoil and "caribean playsand" and that doesn't hold a burrow at all. What makes this other sand so much better?

I think tomorrow i'm going to try to go out and get some stuff to experiment with.

The reason I started using this mixture was because I didn't have anything better to use. My yard has very little topsoil and it is very rocky. It is hard to get grass to grow here. The dirt you buy at home improvement places have a lot of organic matter that will rot. I am not sure if there are other reasons why other types of dirt are better. I got it because it is the best I can do at my current location and it was cheap and easy to get. It is easy to bring 40 pound bags of dirt and 50 pound bags of sand into the house, dump them in a cage, and then mix it all together. Having to dig up dirt and carry it through the house in a bucket would have spilled dirt and made a mess that I would have had to clean up. If the dirt on my property was better, I may have done just that.

The sand I get is Quikrete Play Sand. I started getting it because the fill sand in the garden centers had large grains. When the monitor was smaller I worried about impaction. I don't worry about it so much now. The smaller grains of sand also seemed like they would hold the dirt together better.

The sand/soil mixture needs to be deep and the under layers need to be moist and packed tight for the monitor to be able to burrow in it. When the monitor was smaller I didn't have as much dirt in there, and he never could get a burrow to hold. Now that it is pretty deep, he can make a ton of burrows. As he grows I will be adding more depth to the substrate.

Two notes about the organic matte in the dirt:
1) I wish I had of started screening the dirt to get more of the large organic bits out.
2) I plan to change the substrate out every once in a while if it starts smelling from rot, or defication that I do not see to clean out.

Robyn at Proexotics has good info on their site. He and alot of the others here have been keeping monitors a lot longer than I have and have had excellent success. Like their site says, you have to play around with the amount of water to get it right. One other thing I would like to add is that you should not put in the dirt and expect burrows to hold right away. I pack the dirt as well as possible (I get my wife to walk around on it), and it still may need time to settle before it hold burrows.

Good luck, I hope this helps

This picture was taken at the same time as the one posted above. If you look closely you can see Tharsher's head in the burrow on the right side. On the left side under the tree you can see the entrance to the burrow. The length of the burrow was aproximately 3 feet and it curved around. There was a big hole under the surface where the 30 inch monitor could hide and turn around. He has 2 other burrow on the other side of the cage too.

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Ed

There are chameleons, pythons, and monitors in my jungle room.

Hey, That sand does look nice.. I have woodchips in mine right now and i'd like for him to have something better so he could burrow. I have a little hide-out for him right now and he tries to burrow in there but only hits the bottom of the cage.

I want to get some of that dirt, You get both the sand and dirt at lowes? Is there a name-brand soil/sand that you get? Also, you mentioned that you put water on it every once in a while.. if you don't, does it dry up and isn't able to be molded?

Thanks, Justin.
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Savannah Monitor - Artimus
Emerald Swift - Jesus
Baby veiled Cham - Sir August De Winter
Green Iguana - King Arthur
Rose-hair tarantula - Bill
Basilisk - Adam Used to be Adam and Eve but there was a food competition because my girlfriend was taking care of them and she didn't know what was wrong until it was too late.

I am not sure what the name brand is. I know it is only a few dollars a bag. The bag says topsoil on it. There is none of the white plant food pellets in it, just black dirt and a little organic matter. I don't use the sand from the garden center, I use the sand from the other side of the store in the cement section. The bag of sand has MOLDABLE PLAY SAND written on it. The sand is the smallest grain sand I could find.

Once you mix the dirt and sand together, make sure it is moist. Pack it down as good as you can. It will be a period of time before everything settles enough for the monitor to tunnel. If the dirt is deep enough the top layer drys out but underneath will stay damp. If you don't water it from time to time, the dirt will dry out and get rock hard. Watering it periodically will also keep the humidity up. Make sure the dirt is deep. If the dirt is not deep, I put a piece of plywood in the cage for the monitors to dig under. It gives them a burrow with out having a ton of dirt. I like deep dirt better so they can put burrows all over the cage wherever they want.

It will take some time before you figure out what works best for you. It will also take time for the dirt to settle enough to be able to hold burrows.

Good luck.

Over time I have learned to go by feel, and I hope I keep getting better.
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Ed

There are chameleons, pythons, and monitors in my jungle room.