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Originally Posted by JeffnDes
This I do believe is a problem especially using sand as your substrate. I know that when we were keeping dragons on sand there was increased temps. inside the cages, as well as ambient room temps. I do believe that sand does much more damage then good and not for impaction reasons at all. It retains the heat, similar to a pizza oven that uses bricks. But not only does it retain the heat, it also creates an extremely dry situation that can very easily turn into the problems that Tammy has posted in the quote above. But not only that it is very unsanitary IMO, if parasites are a problem which they will be with high temps. you can never rid the cage of them. But there's more, the super fine dust that gets airborn when the dragons move on it or when your sifting poop out, all gets breathed in by the animals AND you.
We found out early on that it easier to maintain cages and keep them clean looking, (only to the naked eye) using sand. I know sand is popular because it is esthetically nicer to look at. However I do not reccommend people to use sand for the reasons stated above. We now only use news paper. It is a pain to keep changing several times a day but we believe it is very sanitary and it's fairly simple but still rather time consuming. I would think the only thing better would be shelf liner that can be bleached daily. This was a PITA for us especially in the winter months so we have moved strictly to using paper. Aside from that we also wipe the cages clean several times daily using surgical scrub with a 2% Chlorhexedine solution. We dilute this to 1/10 (1 part chlorhexidine to 10 parts water) solution and have a spray bottle that is labled and we refill when needed. When the paper is removed so are the dragons, cages are sprayed on all sides and floor then wiped clean with paper towels. The old paper and towels are discarded. New paper is installed along with the dragons. We also use whole eggcrate pieces under the basking spots. The dragons like laying on this and these are also disposable.
All in all, this is much more work then sand, it is also more expensive (news papers, masking tape, eggcrats, and cleaning solution), but IME, it is a far better solution to sand. Just some random thoughts, but maybe it can be helfull. Also for us like Tammy mentioned, we really need to update our own caresheet as well. We'll get to work on that this weekend  |
LOL. This is a perfect example of how different things work for differrent people in different situations. I STARTED raising all my dragons on newspapers, and eventually ceramic tile. It was FILTHY and DISGUSTING. I spent hours a day soaking and scrubbing poop-covered dragons (they liked to smear poop everywhere - quite the artists they were), cages, glass, rocks, food bowls....ugh. It was not healthy, and in no way sanitary. Then I switched to sand. As long as you stay on top of things, it is very easy to keep clean. Just make sure it is deep enough to absorb all the liquids when they poop (so no puddling occurs on the floor of the cage) and scoop out after they poop. MUCH better. Do a full change every month, and you're good to go. And of course, some brands of sand are going to kick up more dust than others...so you have to be caerful what you buy.
Jamie
