Sand mixed with Coconut substrate..?

DPtortiose

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This discussion has been done to death in other parts of the hobby. There were certain keepers who claimed keeping Bearded dragons on sand was extremely dangerous. This was a load of nonsense of course, natural ground types very rarely cause impaction. Improper husbandry does however, a combination of low temperatures and dehydration didn't allow the digestive track to pass the material.

Besides wild tortoise are known to swallow all sorts of large 'invasive' object without any problems. T. hermanni for example are known to eat bird shells, snails, a whole range of beetles with indigestible shields and even small stones. Hatchlings are known to eat sand from the nest to (assumingly) help digestion. It's not so much the material that animal is kept on, but the temperature and humidity the animal lives in.

I can see why cypress mulch would be perhaps preferred over sand, since it's easier to hold humidity, but I sincerely doubt it makes much of an difference with good husbandry.
 

Tom

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This discussion has been done to death in other parts of the hobby. There were certain keepers who claimed keeping Bearded dragons on sand was extremely dangerous. This was a load of nonsense of course, natural ground types very rarely cause impaction. Improper husbandry does however, a combination of low temperatures and dehydration didn't allow the digestive track to pass the material.

Besides wild tortoise are known to swallow all sorts of large 'invasive' object without any problems. T. hermanni for example are known to eat bird shells, snails, a whole range of beetles with indigestible shields and even small stones. Hatchlings are known to eat sand from the nest to (assumingly) help digestion. It's not so much the material that animal is kept on, but the temperature and humidity the animal lives in.

I can see why cypress mulch would be perhaps preferred over sand, since it's easier to hold humidity, but I sincerely doubt it makes much of an difference with good husbandry.

My real life actual first hand experience contradicts your speculation and doubt. Sorry. Once you've seen enough dead animals and sand impaction x-rays, things begin to become obvious. I've seen sand impaction in bearded dragons and tortoises kept under a wide variety of conditions and care routines.

To people who use the arguments that you used above, I can only guess that you have not yet seen what I have seen and learned what I have learned. I used to make the same seemingly logical arguments that you made above. I mean, c'mon, they live on sand in the wild right? Sorry man. In practice in our captive environments, sand is a problem.

This is the same argument we all have about the cfl bulbs. Not all of them cause a problem. The people that have been using them but haven't seen a problem yet argue that they are fine. If they weren't fine, they would have seen a problem with their tortoise, right? This is just like the people who use sand, but have not yet had an impaction.

No one is arguing that every single tortoise is going to have an instant impaction the moment one grain of sand touches its enclosure. What is being argued is that an unacceptably large number of tortoises kept on sand or sand mixes get impacted, in comparison to very few impaction cases in tortoises kept on other substrates.
 

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