Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought a big bag of pine bark mulch (no fertilizaer) for my boa, and was curious if it would be a problem housing a couple adult beardies on it. I'm going to be feeding them mealies from a bowl along with their greens so feeding on loose crickets and accidentally ingesting some bark really isnt a concern. Is there anything I need to worry about?

I would not use bark or anything too large as substrate. I use calci-sand which seems to work really well. My BD seems to eat bits of it, but I know that he can digest it, which may not be quite so easy as bark adn may cause blockages. How old is your BD?
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Be Happy

AndyD

Bark is not a good substrate for bearded dragons. It retains moisture, allows bacteria to grow and can be ingested. Also, pine has resins that can be irritating to many animals, including reptiles. I actually would recommend not even using it for your boa. Instead for the snake, use cypress mulch or aspen ships.
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PHLdyPayne

Bark is not a suitable choice of substrate for beardies. Even if you dont feed in the cage at all, beardies are curious, and they explore by using a behavior called Tongue-tasting. This alone will be enough to get them to injest some of the material. It wont take more than a couple pieces of bark to cause a fatal impaction.

Calci-sand is also an unsuitable substrate. Although the packaging claims it is digestable, it is not. There is no FDA for reptiles, and packaging can spew whatever lies the company wishes. They could say the sand would make your beardie grow an extra leg and still be able to sell it! Calci-sand clumps together into a jagged, hard boulous in your beardies intenstines, and can cause serious damage to their intestines, as well as causeing impaction.

The only really safe substrate choices for dragons are substrates that cannot be injested such as shelf liner, paper towel, tile, lineolium, or carpetting.

Here is a link to prove to you that cali-sand is not digestable

http://coloherp.org/cb-news/archive/vet-med/CalciSand.php
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0.1 Bearded dragon (Hannabil)
0.1 mexican Black kingsnake (Morticia)
2.1 Leopard Gecko's (Pogo,Jeffrey Nothing, Louise)
0.0.1 Tokay Gecko
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn (Autumn)
1.0 Blood Red Corn (Virus)
0.1 Bullmastiff (Asha)
4.1 Cats (Poe, Tucker, Abhid, Felicity, Emmy)

I went with calci-sand after talking to a local breeder. As for the "use shelf liner or newspaper, blah blah... Of course beardies dont traverse the dunes of the australian outback or anything, right? Sand looks pretty to boot, and is the closest substrate to what they live on in the wilds.

Oh, and they're both adults. The male is a sandfire orange and the female is a normal phase.

Most likely beardies in the wild don't live as long as those in captivity. If you want your pets to live long healthy lives, do what's best for them.

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3.4 Chavez, Lou, Little Lou, Olivia, Lucy, Lilly, LittleGirl

Cali-sand has a much higher risk to cause impaction than regular sand. Washed and sifted children's playsand is what is typically recommended as the best sand to use with dragons. Another bonus is it is also much cheaper than calci-sand, being about $5 or less per 50 pounds.

Bearded dragons in they natural habitat do come in contact with sand but most of it is quite hard packed, mixed with rocks, vegetation and other variations in terrain. They certainly don't come into contact with calci-sand in the wild. calci sand is coarse granules of calcium carbonite which doesn't digest in significant amounts to be considered 'digestable'. the calcium powder we use to dust crickets for our bearded dragons it eat is much more digestable as it is very very fine.
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PHLdyPayne

Thanks for the info on calci-sand...I'm gonna have to think about this more.....
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Be Happy

AndyD

Calci-sand carries a high risk of impaction: Fact

Also, beardies in the wild do not live on loose sand. They live on hard packed sand that is akin to rock.

Do your research before trying to use excuses such as that please

Sometimes doing what is best for our animals means we cant use the option that is "prettiest"

If you do use sand, only washed, screened, fine grain playsand is acceptable
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0.1 Bearded dragon (Hannabil)
0.1 mexican Black kingsnake (Morticia)
2.1 Leopard Gecko's (Pogo,Jeffrey Nothing, Louise)
0.0.1 Tokay Gecko
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn (Autumn)
1.0 Blood Red Corn (Virus)
0.1 Bullmastiff (Asha)
4.1 Cats (Poe, Tucker, Abhid, Felicity, Emmy)