hi i have had spike for 3 month now, he is ace!
Now at the moment i have him on wood chippings ( he is 6 month old now) and keep reading about how if he eats them it can kill him (compaction i think), anyway so far any time he has has a bit of wood chip in his mouth he spits it out so no probs but im still a bit paraniod and want to use something else.
so i was thinking about this while eating some pistacho nuts and realised i had loads of shells, now i eat about 4 bags of these a week and think that i could do the whole tank in a month (4 ft tank)
so my question is, would pistacho nut shells be a good substrate for a beardie? surely if he eats a shell thats better that a bit of wood?
dont worry i have not put any in with spike because i dont want to hurt him
any thoughts?
We recommend against ANY loose-type substrate (crushed walnut shells, wood chips, sand, etc).
Beardies like to lick anything and everything in their environment.
That can lead to injestion and possible impaction issues. Additionally, loose substrates tend
to be very bad for cleanup and often allow bacteria and other parasites to flourish.
While pistachio shells might be *slightly* more digestable than wood chips, it's still not
really a good idea. Plus, I doubt they'd be very good for waste absorbtion and cleanup.
We recommend that you use a solid substrate. Newspaper, paper towels, non-adhesive shelf liner, and slate floor tiles are all good.
I really like slate tiles as they are easy to clean and disinfect, are only a 1 time purchase, and the roughness of the slate helps to keep sharp little nails naturally filed down a bit.