bedding

[goblinsly]

Hey everyone,

I decided to change the bedding for my bearded dragons. Right now they have paper towels/newspaper but they basicly move it around and poop on wood ( instead of paper towel ). I found out with 2 solutions, comment which do you think would work better.

1) I bought some food for beardos. And i mixed it and it turned into substance like sand. Now i think that food would be to expensive to fill the whole tank with it, but what about something similiar ? But not sand because i simply dont want to risk impaction. Maybe dog food or basicly something that isnt bad for them. I am completely confident if we put our heads together we can find something. Keep in mind ( even if it was dog food ), that they wont eat it no more then they would eat sand. Basicly something that if eaten in small substances wont be as risky as sand ( i know many ppl use sand with no problem, but as long as there is 1 beardo that has impaction because of it, its enough reason for me to not use it ).


2) And secondly...i see ppl use tiles. Well my beardos cant walk well on sand, its slippy for them. Soo i was thinking, what about 1 piece of rubber that would fit inside from 1 side to the other ? Rubber is soft soo their nails will pinch inside of it and give them some perfect grip. Also it would be easy to clean ? Or maybe that plastic/rubber thing ppl buy for their kitchen, one that can imitate wood ( by looks ) ?

All comments are welcome, and i hope you can help me build a better bedding for my lovely beardos.

 

[hartungs]

I am not sure about the ground up dog food idea. I will leave that one to someone else. But, you were talking about having "rubber" or something like that on the floor. What many folks here do is use non-adhesive shelf liner. It is thicker and softer and does have a "rubbery" feel to it. It is also very easy to clean up.

I am sure others will chime in on this for you....

 

[Seven65]

Good job thinkingoutside the box hehe, I don't know how the dog food idea would work, I'd think it would easily harbour bacteria, or maybe your dragon might poop on it and be inclined to eat near it and i couldn't see water being in the tank working out. And there'd probably be a smell... Just speculation, I don't have any experiance with dog food since I've never had a dog. As for rubber, I guess you could try it out maybe just in a section to see how he'd like it and what cleaning would be like. Good creativity if anything.

 

[goblinsly]

Tnx for replies !

Dog food was just an example ( since i was looking for a foody like substance that when mixed creates sand like substrate ). There are basicly milions of things that when mixed create sand like substance. But the biggest problem as you said is bacteria. If i would be rich enough i could buy enough calcium powder ( without vitamine D3 ) and put it all around the terarium. At least my vet said they cant overdose on calcium. Anyway waiting for more suggestions. Thinking never hurts ( or does it ? :lol: )

 

[TheWolfmanTom]

Stick to shelf liner. Dragons will poop into anything ground up at somepoint or another and you will never get it all cleaned out because the liquis will be absorbed by the ground food. It would be like you decideing to eat out of a cat little pan.

 

[jargonchipmunk]

you could use the same stuff you bed superworms in. Oats, or crushed grain cereals, but I think getting any moisture in the bedding (via humidity, or beardie waste) would be another spawning ground for bacteria. Generally speaking, anything that's okay for beardie to eat is also good for bacteria to eat. Finding a middle ground will be difficult, but I'm interested to see if you can find an alternative that would work. I actually like the slate tile idea, as it is very easy to see waste, and remove it. (I've never owned a beardie, I'm only speaking from my leopard gecko experiences. When I switched to a tile-type bottom for them, cleaning got so much easier.

 

[goblinsly]

Thats true yea, whats good for beardos to eat is good for bacteria.

Shelf liner ? Not sure what that is. Is that a thing you can put over your wood soo it looks like hum, more quality wood ? I will try to find one that is not too smooth.

 

[Seven65]

At least my vet said they cant overdose on calcium.

They can overdose on calcium, I don't know where your vet got his information.