Substrate

[KaHane]

Just curious about what people use for substrate and digging medium for their monitors? We use soil mixed cypress mulch, topped with leaves for our indo species and for our Aussies we use soil sand mix. Things have worked out for us using this for a few years and wonder if there's any better stuff out there. I'm sure there must be better substrates, and wonder what other's use. Jon? Jeff? any input would be great :)

[Jeff_Favelle]

Just Ackies here and we use soil, sand, with a pinch of vermiculite. Pan fry on......er, wrong recipe. :D

Yeah, just those 3 things (experimenting with percentages) and they seem to be ok. Notice a tunnel that was all the way to the bottom (12 inches) and fairly long, and it held up. So far so good, but the real test is for eggs.

[KaHane]

Jeff do you use anything to heat the soil? We've used heat cables for pipes on one side, and it heats it to 80's. I'm sure you will get eggs from them, we have and it sounds like your substrate is similar with ours.

[Jeff_Favelle]

Ha ha, don't jinx me man!

The soil naturally heats up from the flood lamps, but at night, after the lights go out, we have heat tape (11 inch) that goes on and is at one end of the cage with 1/2 above soil level, and 1/2 below. It heats up nicely until the lights come back on in the morning.

[CDN COLDBLOOD]

I find that straight soil works best, preferably a brand that is not too dusty (ie. Quali-grow). Sand does nothing to enhance the tunnel holding ability of the soil, in fact, it probably makes it worse. Sand is used by gardeners to airate the soil, making it more "fluffy", not to compact it. As for vermiculite and cypress mulch, there is no added benefit to the monitors by adding this stuff, it's more debris for your monitors to ingest while eating. And they do ingest a lot of debris. There is no real added benefit in using these mixes, it's just overkill (more expensive too!). In reality, all of these mixes will work for egg laying as long as they hold a solid burrow, they are just unnecessary. Hope this helps a little. Here's something to look forward to Jeff...................

Brandon (Canadian Coldblood)

[Jeff_Favelle]

Yeppers. Its all about the burrow. Try to make one yourself in it. If you can't, then your monitors probably can't either.

[NiagaraReptiles]

There's a lot more to it than just holding a burrow. It has to have a few other things for it to actually be a good nesting substrate.

Soil composition can consist of many different things, some soils work better than others and this also totally changes between species (for the most part).

I've been fighting this battle for some time now and I think I'm getting somewhere with my latest dirt, but will need a few more months of testing to know for sure.

Find something you think will work, use it with your monitors and see what they tell you about it. Lots of digging doesn't always mean it's a good thing ;)

Best wishes all,

[V.aw]

For my substrate for my african monitors. (3 blackthroats and 2 savannahs) i use organic top soil mixed with playsand and cypress mulch.


I poor down the soil, then put down sand (layer it) then poor down the cypress, then repeat the process until its about 2 feet deep. Every couple of days i poor some water onto it so it becomes absorbed into the substrate so it holds a burrow well, and raises the humidity down inside the monitors burrow. Works real well. My albigs have tunnels running all over their enclosure.

[KaHane]

Sounds like everyone has a good substrate mediums that work for them. we have been using our mix and have bred our monitors for a few years. I guess whatever works use it:)

[NiagaraReptiles]

A "working" substrate can be many different things depending on what the goal is. There are MANY substrates that work well for burrowing, but fewer that work well with nesting ;)

[KaHane]

Just curious, Jon what type of dirt do you use?

[NiagaraReptiles]

That varies depending on speceis and age/maturity.

For my breeding groups of ackies I use a sandy loam type dirt that I discovered at a construction site. I've also found some good looking dirts up near Orangeville, but haven't had a chance to test them out yet.......soon :)