Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[Dan]

Ok so it's been quiet again lately so i thought i'd try to liven things up again


I use a coconut bedding with a layer of flax on the surface for retics which like high humidity. I find this combination works really well.

So what types of substrates are you guys using for what types of herps?
_________________
TFA

The future is bright, the future is a net like pattern.................

I'm NOT an expert, so if you don't want to know my opinion don't ask!!

[BIGUN]

With the bloods i use news paper in the viv(financial times )
and in the humidity box i use sphagnum moss.
Have used a coconut mulsh brfore, but found it made a mess of the viv.
It also used to get all over the place when i handled them.

[nicky]

my leopard gecko has a mixture of large flat surfaced rocks and coconut fibre which i completely dry out after soaking sos to get right conditions for her,
coconut fibre again for tarantula,
kitchen roll for corn (recycled),
and a mixture of rocks and gravel for toads to create wet and dry areas,
and finally tortoise on shavings...

[Scott W]

another good question Dan,

I use corncob granules for almost everything! Bearded dragons, monitors, rosy boas, leopard geckos, gila monsters.

Yemens have newspaper, cresteds have newspaper. Venomous all have natural substrates ranging from sand for the horned vipers to bark chip and peat for the copperheads and nose horned vipers.

I have just recently started to use calcium sand (fine lime stone grit which is used as horse and cow supplement), this is very dusty but seems to be working well for all my desert animals (leopards, dragons and monitors) I may well switch from corncob to this for most animals.

[Scott W]

just updating...I've basically switched now to the calcium sand...it's a little dusty but seems to work great.
_________________

Please DO NOT pm orders for reptiles, send email instead scott@captivebred.co.uk

[jim_radley]

My Ackies have 12" of substarte.
This consists of:-
40% Sand
40% Wood Chips (The stuff that looks more like match sticks, not square chips)
20% Soil/Compost

It used to be 60% sand and 40% compost, which worked well although their tunnels frequently collapsed so by adding the wood chip (Desert substrate) it now allows them to create a burrow system.

[Dan]

ok so i dont know if this will work, but i'll have a go.

As i said earlier i use flax which is similar to aspen, but different

I've had the camera out tonight to try to show you what i mean, although i have no aspen to compare it to, sorry.

This pic shows a handfull of the flax i put it in a tub so you can see it a bit better. You can see the dried leaves from the plant and the odd seed here and there but mainly you can see it is made up mostly by the stalks which are dried out :





The next two are just close up shots so you can see it a bit better :






This final shot is a pic of one of the larger stalk pieces, so you can get a feel for how big it is:


_________________
TFA

The future is bright, the future is a net like pattern.................

I'm NOT an expert, so if you don't want to know my opinion don't ask!!

[Scott W]

Dan is this made from Hemp?

I used to use something very similar looking that was a hemp product, had a very 'chilled out' smell to it , I use to take great pleasure in opening the vivs to smell it .

It too was not dusty but if it got humid I would sometimes find mushrooms growing....lol.

I stopped using it for lizards as the crickets could hide too easy.
_________________

Please DO NOT pm orders for reptiles, send email instead scott@captivebred.co.uk

[Dan]

Scott, this is made entirely from a plant called flax.
There are a few common uses for it including horse food and for clothing production but the main one is oil production.
Flax is the plant that they make linseed oil from.

While i haven't had mushrooms from it i have had the odd stalk grow up from the seeds in the first week or so because of the humidity, these die off rapidly though.

Interesting website about it:

http://www.purplesage.org.uk/profiles/linseed.htm
_________________
TFA

The future is bright, the future is a net like pattern.................

I'm NOT an expert, so if you don't want to know my opinion don't ask!!

[Si]

I have to say that I try to keep my vivs as natural as possible.

Admittedly, I keep my babies (beardies and various snakes) on kitchen towel, but all my adult snakes are on chippings, or a mixture of chipping and the expandable soil type stuff for the arborials and othe higher humidity species.

My adult beardies are on play sand - but livefood is fed out of the viv so I know who is eating what.

All my snakes are very good strike feeders and feed supervised, so I don't see injestion of chippings an issue.

I know that on other sites (on recently colsed one in particular) I would be jumped on for doing this, but I am sure a lot more people do this than will admit to it.

Si
_________________