" i am consistently amazed that i, much less,well..like...every/anybody else, didnt reach the same concept, or that over the decades folks have been keepings these, or ANY burrowing animals, captive, that that way of considering what constitutes at least adequate housing with regard to very nature of what a burrow needs to be hasnt become standard husbandry."

Guy, you should do just the tiniest amount of research into the history of animals in captivity, most of these concepts were originated in the 1960's although this type of info has been around for over a 100 years, granted it's been ignored by many, many people but it's nothing new.
The concept of an enclosure being an animals environment or habitat and that it must have multiple homes within that environment was the lifelong work of Heni Hediger, you know "the father of zoo biology" also called the "father of animals in captivity", he was promoting deep substrates for burrowing animals in the 1950's, published, verifiable accounts.
(Not to mention the FACT that Hediger came up with 99.99% of the husbandry concepts promoted here.)
But then so was Hagenbeck in 1910....oh and Gardner in 1890...hell Gardner recommended "deep sandy loam with a vegetable layer(leaf litter)" for large African lizards (niles? he doesn't say) in 1890, that's EIGHTEEN ninety NOT 1990!!!
I'd recommend reading the book that FR's old boss wrote
"A different Nature" by David Hancocks. He's been the biggest promoter of Hediger's work to ever be involved with animals, it's a great overview of the men who did the real groundbreaking work and how their insights have been ignored by most...you'll learn who REALLY came up with these concepts, not who's copying and parroting them.
Ben

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