Generally our unique pets make poor choices. It’s comprehensible; we don’t all the time make the perfect selections for ourselves both. Luckily, it’s usually simpler to manage your lizard’s atmosphere than to cease your self from consuming that complete bag of chips. With the uromastyx, choosing the proper substrate is a vital a part of preserving them from harming themselves.
Let’s discuss why the uromastyx may have totally different substrate out of your different reptiles.
Your lizard will eat substrate
Uromastyx is a pure digger and burrower. They get pleasure from substrate they will transfer round. What a variety of uromastyx collectors understand, although, is that their lizards additionally wish to eat no matter they’re digging in. That’s proper. Identical to you may’t cease consuming popcorn throughout a film, the uromastyx generally can’t assist itself from mindlessly scooping up mouthfuls of substrate.
If that is the lizard’s intuition, why is it an issue? Instincts don’t all the time lead animals to the best selection. Many substrates, when eaten in massive quantities, may cause impaction in your uromastyx’s digestive system. What this implies is that they get a blockage and may neither expel waste nor absorb new vitamins.
Moreover, even when your uromastyx doesn’t develop an impaction of their intestine, consuming an excessive amount of substrate can cut back their urge for food for wholesome meals, like leafy greens. A simple approach to cut back the quantity of substrate your reptile eats is to serve meals in a dish or on a floor apart from the substrate.
Substrates to keep away from
Some substrates are notably more likely to trigger impaction. Listed below are the worst culprits:
- Wooden shavings or chips
- Crushed walnut shells
- “Sand” made out of calcium carbonate
Probably the most dependable signal {that a} uromastyx has an impaction is constipation. If this occurs, provide moist fruit and veggies to hydrate your lizard, if it’s going to eat. Then, get it to the vet.
Protected uromastyx substrate
Regardless of being a desert native, uromastyx doesn’t do greatest solely on a sand substrate. They often dwell on rock outcrops within the wild. That being stated, they do get pleasure from digging. You may present a considerably pure substrate with a mix of play sand and soil, compost, or peat moss, or a mixture of those.
Earlier than including the substrate, place tiles or habitat décor that gives flat areas as properly, and fill the substrate in round them to assist maintain them in place. This simulates their most well-liked atmosphere and prevents the lizard from getting trapped beneath décor.
One other substrate choice that works properly for uromastyx is millet. Millet is a grain seed that’s bought as fowl seed.
While you use free substrate of any form, you’ll must scoop feces out of the terrarium usually. You must also fully take away the substrate, clear the tank, and place new substrate in it about as soon as a month. This reduces odor and dangerous micro organism buildup.
Regardless of their substrate grazing quirk, uromastyx are a reasonably mellow pet to take care of. Come test them out and get your different uromastyx care questions answered at The Tye-Dyed Iguana.
