and Budzoboy I'd highly recommend you get your beardie off that sand and onto a non particle substrate like I mentioned. Putting him/her on sand is a very big risk.budzoboy":8jjlsyv0 said:this is mine....washed play sand below, I built a 3" high platform
and placed a 12 x 18 tile on it.
food and water are both off the sand area
water dish removed later, as she kept dragging it off the platform!
Taterbug":3w42mudb said:I think I’m one of the few on this board who support loose substrate; just not all of them. I have been using a bioactive substrate for my dragon for 4+ years. I wouldn’t use tile or a solid substrate unless he was ill and I wouldn't use sand either.
Bearded dragons are not especially prone to impaction or any of the other maladies attributed to loose substrate. They are prone to poor standards of care that lead to those maladies. I sincerely doubt it is a matter of captive population generics either - but that does make people feel better rather than the fact that small cages and inadequate light/nutritional provision is to blame...
Before you choose a loose substrate your husbandry needs to be exceptional. Lighting, nutrition, space and enrichment are huge factors in health and a healthy dragon is much more robust than a compromised one.
Bioactive is totally possible in smaller enclosures but dragons are relatively large and semi-arboreal Lizards. A 4x2x2 is the minimum enclosure size, though bigger is better and vertical space will be used if furnished right. For a dragon I found a 4x2x2 was too short for practicalities sake (no climbing space) not from a bioactive being functional perspective.
Beardies are smarter than many give them credit for but intentional substrate ingestion is a thing, especially so with nutritionally deficient or mentally unstimulated animals.
Substrate is a small part of husbandry. There isn’t an easy out though, if you want a loose substrate.
Due to the high occurrence of endoparasitism, skin diseases and metabolic bone diseases in this present study, regular veterinary controls in bearded dragons including parasitological faecal examinations and optimisation of feeding and housing are necessary to improve the standard of health of bearded dragons kept as pet lizards in Europe.
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