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Im on a neverending quest to find the perfect substrate for my leopard tortoise-he's about -6or 7 months old now. I was using cypress mulch bark/chips and newspaper for the bottom-Im thinking of using alfalfa and timothy hay for half the tank and a cypress mulsh soil type substrate for his little cave-any suggestions? Another question-I notice the paper was brown yesterday-i dont know if it was pee or really loose stooles-I notice I need to put him in water to make him go poop-I soaked him this morning and its amazing how much poop came out-it was not as solid as usual-any suggestion.

This I have an idea on. Major reason for loose stools is too much wet food. You really shouldn't feed him or her fruit, but should you feed cucumbers(they love them) do so in very small amounts. When he goes it should be fairly well formed, yet fibrous. Don't worry about him going in his water. They will terrorize you by doing that. It's not really different than having to go and putting your hand in warm water. It drove me nuts for a while, but I just ended up realizing that they love the water and love to go the bathroom in it. I just dump it in the toilet, rinse it out and give him more. What I end up doing is replacing it when I get up in the morning, right when I get home, and before I go to bed. Usually though, if you replace it at night, in the morning it should still be clean. Heavey sleepers they are. Pay attention, he probably goes in there because he can, but if the water was removed, he will probably still go. I don't think it's a health issue, just habit. Hope this helps.

I use to use cypress bark/mulch. But 2 winters ago they started getting sick and often. Though i had a draft in the room they were in so moved them to a better insulated room with a new heater. Still were getting sick and the one never seemed to get better. Me and my bet were at a loss and me and the boys were tired of getting and giving shots. I finnaly took out all the substrate and things cleared up. Come to find out as i was cleaning out the cypress bark something had contaminated 2 large bags i had gotten and was eating the bark and producing mass quantities of dust. Now they are on washable outdoor carpeting from home depot. Have not been sick since. Hay i've heard is also a good substrate but just straight hay, i've had had dust problems to.

Decide to work with it- I soak my tort almost every morning when I get ready for work. My male tort will take a drink of water, take his dump, shortly after I flush it in the loo. This keeps his tortoise table cleaner longer. This method also helps me keep an eye on his fecal health : )