Substrate Question (Whats your opinion?)

[The Serpent Merchant]

I kept and bred Bearded Dragons on Desert Blend (Crushed english walnut shells) for years and years and years (9 to be exact). Never had any issues at all. Has a SMALL dust problem, but not that bad IMO and for sure not as bad as sand! It's not too expensive when you buy the largest possible bags locally, or buy in bulk ad pay lower rates on shipping through places like petco.com

Every bearded dragon care sheet I've ever read says to never use crushed walnuts for substrate...

[reptileexperts]

Every bearded dragon care sheet I've ever read says to never use crushed walnuts for substrate...

Used it without issue for a very very long time with healthy dragons and good clutches year after year.


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[aaront126]

I have about 2/3 of my enclosure covered in excavator burrowing clay from zoo med, you wet it then apply it to the cage and can form it to a certain degree, and hardens into a nice terrain, I keep the food and water on the other side where I just have a piece of cage carpet. Never had any ingestion issues with it and it's been a couple years. depeding on how big your tank or whatever is it can take a lot I think I put 3 10lb bags in 40gal breeder tank.

[xbikez]

Kitchen towels...

[Herpenthusiast3]

X2 for the tiling. Makes clean up so much easier!!! Yes I know I need to vacuum.

[Don]

I wanted something low maintenance and effective. I went to Lowes and bought some indoor/outdoor carpet and cut it to fit the cage bottom. It gets dirty, I pull the old one out, put the new one in and then hose off the dirty one for the next cleaning.

[Mustangfreak]

I put tile in my bear dies viv. I adopted him from a fellow military member over here in Germany, and he came with sand originally.

He loves his tile now, and the new reptisun 10 bulb instead of the generic uvb he had.

[reptiolive]

Tile is the way to go!
I went to a local tile/carpet store and asked for their left over samples. I was able to find three that fit my custom build quite nicely. SO easy to wipe up and keep clean. I hate the messiness of sand. Once you go the tile route, you won't go back. No risk of impaction due to sand, and it keeps your baby's nails trimmed down! Plus there is not a need to replace it when it gets dirty. Give it a try!