Housing: Substrates

[William]

A question for the tortoise community.  I'm going to be getting a Russian Tortoise soon and I have read and reviewed the information on RussianTortoise.org.  The stores near me (and even some resonably far) do no carry the suggested "Bed-A-Beast" coconut coir substrate.  They do have however, EcoSoft coconut coir substrate.  Would that be alright for mixture of play sand for indoor housing?

Thanks in advance.

[kristib]

you can get it online at petco and petsmat .com

[racingzeno]

In My humble Opinion

Petsmart and Petco (usa) are the worst possible places to give your money to. they spew bad advice and do a terrible job caring for their animals. The only worse place is Wal.mart. If you cannot find what you need at Carolina Pet supply (A+ business) then shop around on ebay or other places.

This is my Advice for responsible animal ownership, take it or leave it.

[Joe H]

You can get it at
http://www.carolinapetsupply.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=31&osCsid=f15dcff4ec33c837702a998724140c82

I have a fresh batch coming the end of the week

[t9dragon]

In My humble Opinion

Petsmart and Petco (usa) are the worst possible places to give your money to. they spew bad advice and do a terrible job caring for their animals. The only worse place is Wal.mart. If you cannot find what you need at Carolina Pet supply (A+ business) then shop around on ebay or other places.

This is my Advice for responsible animal ownership, take it or leave it.

What you said might be true. But some people don't have the means to purchase supplies over the internet. I've been in some smaller pet stores that take care of their animals worse then the ones you mentioned. Just my opinion.

[lepinsky]

I've got a question about substrates and humidity.  When I got Boris he was mildly pyramided, so I've been trying really hard to prevent this from getting worse (right foods and not too much of them, humidity, etc).  Half his enclosure  -- the hot half -- is a 50/50 topsoil and sand mixture, and I keep that damp (his water dish is in that half also).  The other half -- the cool half, where he sleeps) is hemp (I think this might be like aspen that you use in the States, but I'm not sure  -- lots of people in England now use hemp for their substrate).  Boris loves to burrow in the hemp and he's much happier with that in his sleeping half than he was when it was all sand and soil. 

My question is, the hemp half is completely dry, and as Boris spends a lot of time in that half -- that is where he sleeps  -- is this OK?  He does bask in the damp soil half, and does most of his eating there, but he doesn't burrow into it and just sits on top, so is he getting the benefit of the humidity there?  I don't think I could have him sleep in a damp environment because it gets very cold in my house at night and I don't think he would do well in the cold and damp, and anyway I think the hemp would go mouldy if it were damp. 

What is it about a damp substrate that keeps them from pyramiding?

Nina

[Joe H]

Hi Nina
How cool does your house get?

I raise my hatchlings on the sand/soil mix. Here is one going on 2 years old



compared to another that was raised in a very dry environment (not by me)



The moisture level definitely plays a role. Here is a research article


However there are some that took the above article to mean that humidity and moicture are the main components and if those are right then you can feed things such as pellets. (just like some feel that you have to dust with calcium...My hatchlings never had calcium powders)
http://africantortoise.com/_sulcatadiet2.pdf

Followng is what I wrote about the cause of pyramiding
http://africantortoise.com/pyramiding_in_tortoises.htm


.

[lepinsky]

Hi Joe,

Many thanks for the two articles  - they were really interesting (and yours was much easier to understand <vbg>).  As for temps, on a cold night the enclosure goes down to betwen 45 - 50 degrees.  The thing is, Boris just loves the hemp for sleeping in  -- he burrows down until he's completely buried each night and is up first thing in the morning.  When it was all soil/sand he only burrowed down about a quarter to half an inch.  I couldn't make the hemp moist (by the way, I gather that hemp is different from aspen, but I don't know how), as it would get mouldy.  We don't have bed-a-beast in England.  I do keep the half of his enclosure that is soil/sand damp (takes a lot of water to do it as it's the 'hot' end of the enclosure and evaporates fairly rapidly).  Is that enough? 

I tried to attach a couple of pictures to show you what his enclosure is like, but kept getting the error message 'Cannot access attachments upload path' (I know the pics were reduced in size and I did what I always do to attach them on threads, but it didn't work).

Nina

[Joe H]

The server is being upgraded...so some things wont work right until they are done

With those temps...what you are doing is good.

Here is a pic of the tort I left out of the last post (or it just didn't show) The one that showed was of a tort kept dry

[lepinsky]

Thanks, Joe.  Beautiful tort.  OK, I'll keep doing what I've been doing and hope that the time he spends in the damp part of the enclosure will give him the humidity he needs. 

Nina

[racingzeno]

Very interesting discussion.

My tort lived in a very dry Habitat and i am now trying to remedy that. I guess i thought, the dryer the better. the article was very good, and i want to thank Joe for translating it into a more readable format. to remedy the situation i am fixing the tort table with live plants (tort grazing garden) and i am getting in the habit of spritzing the tort when he is basking and

... there is a sulcata tort at my local pet store with very bad pyramiding, in fact i was led to believe this was just a feature of the species. I mean that most of the sulcata and/or spur theigh torts i have seen have those big lumps on their shell. Did i understand  right that it is a metabolic bone disease?

...so, for the record. my tort lives in my elementary classroom, and the kids love him greatly, as the Art teacher i see every kid in the school, and they all know Rinpoche the tort. Also I am grateful because i work right next to the table and i can monitor everything (temp, humidity, food, poo) all day.

there is that, that is there.
Zeno and Rin

[Joe H]

i want to thank Joe for translating it into a more readable format.

Actually what I posted is not a translation. Its from my research

. Did i understand  right that it is a metabolic bone disease?

MBD and pyramiding go hand in hand. But you can have one without the other.

For instance the tort in the following picture came to me a few years back. It had quite a bit of pyramiding. Its limbs were weak and had to drag itself more than actually walk. The plastron was soft and had noticable give. If you thumped on the shell, it sounded hollow. Thats MBD. After a year of outside grazing, it walked normal, shell was hard and no longer sounded hollow. But it still has pyramiding