- Joined
- Jul 9, 2009
- Messages
- 53
So just when I thought things were going well with Pablo's enclosure set up... we ran into a bit of a road block. Right now he has a mix of roughly 70% top soil, 30% play sand with a 2-3 inch layer of coconut bark (T-Rex brand coconut bark... not the brick type) on top. My husband has severe asthma and bad allergies (BIG part of the reason we got a tort since he can't be around fur or feathers) and he says he's having issues breathing in the room where Pablo's enclosure is. The first few days we had Pablo he was in some type of bark mixture... but since we weren't sure what it was specifically and since we upgraded his enclosure to a much bigger size, we had to go buy all new substrate materials. It seemed like the tree bark stuff was causing my husband's breathing issues, but it isn't much better with the coconut bark. Has anyone heard of someone being allergic to coconut bark? He says that he read that it can be a dusty substrate. I didn't think that would be an issue since we keep it damp (Pablo is a Russian Tort.) Any advice or suggestions on what we should try? Is the bed-a-beast stuff less dusty than the bark? Any other products that might work? We're trying to avoid tree barks since my husband is allergic to a lot of different types of trees. Is just sand and topsoil okay? It seems like the bark makes it easier for Pablo to burrow, so I'm not sure how just sand/soil would be.