What are the best substrates?

I'm a new beardie owner, and I don't really have any strong opinions about substrate, but if there truly is any sort of risk involved with loose substrate, then I'm not willing to take it. Especially not with my juvenile. People advocating for loose substrate have definitely been in the minority, in my novice experience. The fact that pet shops advocate for its usage as well does not inspire any confidence in it for me, personally.

You can claim healthy beardies don't get impacted all you want, but the study that Brittany26 provided states otherwise, and I will definitely take a properly controlled study over rote experience. There's a reason we trust allopathic medicine over anecdotally claimed home remedies: because sheer experience is not as valuable as controlled evidence.

Hello,

Seems you have already researched a fair amount on substrates.

I can share my experience being tile + paper towels and that my beardie seems happy with this setup. Paper towels are quick to soak up moisture and relatively cheap/easy to clean a mess. If she poops right after new paper towels, I will usually rip at a perforation and replace with new ones and clean the tile under the poop. I usually replace all paper towels once a week and bleach/bake the tiles in my oven to disinfect. This may be over kill on cleaning, but she seems to enjoy her tank and works well for us.

As far as cleaning the tiles, make sure that no bleach smells/residue remains when going back with the dragon. Some people seal their tiles if you go that route. I assume this is due to them having a porous surface and keeping any liquids from remaining after cleaning.

I have never tried newspaper, but since I have 2 human kids, I have plenty of paper towels :lol:

Hello,

There indeed are very many risks with a Loose substrate that clearly aren't worth the risk (see my post: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=243890&hilit=+Sand#p1857889).

I'm glad to see that You are taking time to consider which substrates would be best for your beardie and Researching that.

Matang613":1x68el2t said:

You can claim healthy beardies don't get impacted all you want, but the study that Brittany26 provided states otherwise, and I will definitely take a properly controlled study over rote experience. There's a reason we trust allopathic medicine over anecdotally claimed home remedies: because sheer experience is not as valuable as controlled evidence.

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I wholeheartedly agree with you on that. Brittany26's Study was excellent.

In my opinion, the best substrate is Slate tile or paper towels. Slate tile looks very nice, Easy to clean, and there isn't much risk involved with tile. Paper towels are very cheap, Sanitary, and If you use multiple layers your dragon can burrow in it.

You can also use Non adhesive shelf liner, Linoleum, Newsprint, Carpet, or Even hardwood flooring or those tiles that look like that.

Good luck on Your search on a good substrate.

I didn't see any study, just a reference talking about GI problems and a little mention of sand. I'm a long time owner [ almost 25 years ] + have bred beardies. Kept them on no substrate as babies, older dragons on both newspaper as well as sand + sand/soil mix. I've never seen one problem at all. One of the most reknowned breeders in the world with dragons sales in more than 10 countries [ Tammy from Draggintails ] has noted the same. And she does this for a living, is a true expert and her care sheet notes that her dragons are all on children's playsand with not one impaction. This is with 10's of 1,000's of dragons. As for scale rot + fungus, that doesn't happen on sand either. It's a dirty tank, whether loose or solid substrate that can cause scale problems. I've seen yellow + black fungus cases on this forum for the about 10 years + I don't think a single one was on sand.


My tanks never smelled, as a matter of fact a dragon " home alone " on tile that poos in his tank will have a nasty tank + smear it everywhere [ one owner right now on the forum considering rehoming because of the mess + smell ] so the dragon on tile is exposed to as much mess , probably more, than on sand . Yes, you do have to scoop the poo out of sand it but it's not an impossible task. A dragon that is bathed + drinks the water can ingest the same bacteria in it's system this way just as easily as a little lick of sand. As for heavy ingestion of sand, this may occur with the calcium sand [ which I would not recommend ] because the dragon likes the taste + possibly be calcium deficient. Most cases of impaction ARE caused by inadequate hydration , heat + diet. Aside from being unnatural, tile is what would cause joint damage being hard like cement. They walk on hard packed as well as loose sand + soil in the wild and don't live on rocks which would be more like tile. Beardies love to dig, it's one type of enrichment that sand/soil gives them in their tank and is a 100 % natural behavior.

The bottom line, I wouldn't pressure or insist people set up dragons with sand but it's not really accurate to say that sand is a health threat. Bathing can be a health threat for them, just Google " bearded dragon drowned " and you'll see a number of incidents. So there are risks in many different aspects of care, no one risk should be blown out of proportion.