# Coco Coir Safe for Baby Torts??



## immayo (Jan 17, 2013)

Alright so I figured I'd start this debate because I see a ton of people who swear on Coco Coir for their torts and it being perfectly fine for them to eat. In contrast, I saw the Shelloise thread where the tort died and was found with Coir in it's mouth. My first baby Redfoot was also found dead with the Coir stuffed in it's mouth. So my questions are:

Is Coco Coir really safe for baby torts?
What evidence is there that it is perfectly safe to eat?
Are there any others who can come forward who have also found their baby torts dead with this in their mouths?


LET THE DEBATE BEGIN!!


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## Team Gomberg (Jan 17, 2013)

What exactly is coco coir?

Is it small chunks of wood? Is it strands like the sphagnum moss? Is it fine like dirt?

I have only ever used real dirt and some of the moss. 
I don't think I'd recognize the coir if i saw it.


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## immayo (Jan 17, 2013)

It's basically the outside of a coconut some pieces ground up and some are left stringy. It is really good, like moss, for keeping humidity up.

The exact one I used to use was Eco Earth which can be bought at any Petco/Petsmart.


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## Baoh (Jan 17, 2013)

A little should not be a problem. Heavy consumption seems to be where problems spring up. I have not had this problem myself, but have seen quite a few instances in the collections of others and when breeders received animals back that were said to have difficulty thriving. In the cases of death, a few have had confirmatory necropsies performed where the GI tract was packed with coir and were kind enough to share such information with me.

I never had any trouble, but I started incorporating more soil into the substrate mixes for my young animals.


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## wellington (Jan 17, 2013)

The coir I use is like sawdust. No strings, no chunks. There may not be a perfect substrate. Something like this most likely could/has happened with most all substrates. I would venture to guess that, unless you have a fully planted substrate, like grass or as tightly grown as grass, things like this will happen. I would also venture to guess things like this happens in the wild too. Unfortunately, not every single tortoise is going to live, not in captivity or in the wild. All we can do is use the best products we can and what we prefer and give the best care we possibly can and then, hope for the best. It sucks that we loose some, but that's just the way it is and unfortunately will be. I will always use coir. Never had a problem, mind you though, I only have one leopard.


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## CtTortoiseMom (Jan 17, 2013)

I do not like coco coir because I used it for a year and it just gets everywhere. That said, the post of the poor tort found with it all in it's mouth was the first I have ever heard of anything like that. I have since searched two other forums to see if I could find any similar report's and I didn't. My vote is going to have to be that yes, I think coir is safe for baby tort's.


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## ra94131 (Jan 17, 2013)

wellington said:


> The coir I use is like sawdust. No strings, no chunks. There may not be a perfect substrate. Something like this most likely could/has happened with most all substrates. I would venture to guess that, unless you have a fully planted substrate, like grass or as tightly grown as grass, things like this will happen. I would also venture to guess things like this happens in the wild too. Unfortunately, not every single tortoise is going to live, not in captivity or in the wild. All we can do is use the best products we can and what we prefer and give the best care we possibly can and then, hope for the best. It sucks that we loose some, but that's just the way it is and unfortunately will be. I will always use coir. Never had a problem, mind you though, I only have one leopard.



I completely agree with this post, although I bet even a perfectly planted substrate still presents potential problems. In fact, it is very likely tortoises in their natural habitat face the chance of impaction.

Coco coir can be a mess though...


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## CtTortoiseMom (Jan 17, 2013)

ra94131 said:


> wellington said:
> 
> 
> > The coir I use is like sawdust. No strings, no chunks. There may not be a perfect substrate. Something like this most likely could/has happened with most all substrates. I would venture to guess that, unless you have a fully planted substrate, like grass or as tightly grown as grass, things like this will happen. I would also venture to guess things like this happens in the wild too. Unfortunately, not every single tortoise is going to live, not in captivity or in the wild. All we can do is use the best products we can and what we prefer and give the best care we possibly can and then, hope for the best. It sucks that we loose some, but that's just the way it is and unfortunately will be. I will always use coir. Never had a problem, mind you though, I only have one leopard.
> ...


 Good point, My youngest tort is over a year and when it is outside I still keep it in a smaller confined area and go over it with a fine tooth comb before I put him in because I have seen my tort try and eat pebbles and tiny pine cones!


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## ianedward1 (Jan 21, 2013)

One potential problem that I could see with the coconut coir is it not being re-hydrated or continuously hydrated while being used. Anybody who has ever bought the bricks of coir know that it starts of as this little brick and then you add a liter of water and BOOM you have a bucket full of dirt. Coconut coir does shrivel back up as it dries out and needs to be kept moist to stay at the appropriate volume. I feel that if the coir got too dry and then a small tort ate it, it could become like the pigeons eating rice at a wedding. I also personally believe that any substrate that is so fine that it moves around with the tort is a bad idea (coconut coir, fine sand, dry clay). I think that it is best to mix such substrates with other items to provide and safer habitat. I know some people that use a 50/50 mixture of coir and play sand with no problems whatsoever


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## wellington (Jan 21, 2013)

I really don't think the coir itself shrivels back up. Well, I know it doesn't, mine doesn't anyway. I do have the bricks. Like I said in my other post. It is going to happen, with any substrate there is, as it is happening in the wild too. Actually, unless a necropsy was done to see if there was coir further down the body, no one can say for sure the coir kill the tort. It may have just gotten it in the mouth as he was struggling to stay alive, sad thought. I also would not use sand, as that can cause impaction, coir not. If you have a tort that eats its substrate, the sand will cause a problem.


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## ianedward1 (Jan 21, 2013)

wellington said:


> I really don't think the coir itself shrivels back up. Well, I know it doesn't, mine doesn't anyway. I do have the bricks. Like I said in my other post. It is going to happen, with any substrate there is, as it is happening in the wild too. Actually, unless a necropsy was done to see if there was coir further down the body, no one can say for sure the coir kill the tort. It may have just gotten it in the mouth as he was struggling to stay alive, sad thought. I also would not use sand, as that can cause impaction, coir not. If you have a tort that eats its substrate, the sand will cause a problem.



I just added water to a bucket of coir that I had sitting around because it had dried and began clumbing into small rocks on its on. A few sprays from the sink and it increased by probably 50% in volume. A problem that I had when I used coir once was because it is so light on its own it tended to cake onto my tort's face, plastron, and tail whenever he would come out of his water bowl or poop. I didn't like the idea of a massive ball of dirt and poop causing a blockage around my tort's tail. The mixing of sand into the coir is how my friends avoided the problem. Also realize that this is not the ultra fine sand that pet shops sell and is notorious for impactions. If your tort is eating that much substrate though then you may have some behavioral type of problem and probably just need to keep him on alfalfa pellets.


Also Boah stated that he has seen necropsies performed where the GI tract is filled with coir and did cause the impaction


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## wellington (Jan 21, 2013)

No tort should ever be kept on pellets of any kind. Thats old school and bad husbandry. As for the coir. Maybe it's the different grades of coir. I don't know. I ordered mine off the internet. came wrapped in plain plastic and in bricks. all i know about is, is that it was tort safe and is very fine like sawdust. I also don't have a problem with mine sticking to my tort and shriveling. Now I wish I remembered where it came from


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## Tortus (Jan 21, 2013)

The bricks are so small because they're mechanically compressed by a machine. When you add water, you're just undoing that compression and it expands to its normal volume. 

I don't see where mine shrivels up when it drys out. But I try not to let that happen. I pour cups of water on it every other day or so. Keep the top sprayed so it stays dark and heavy. Things like that.

As the tort walks on it daily it will get compressed a bit more. But not much in my experience.


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## ianedward1 (Jan 21, 2013)

wellington said:


> No tort should ever be kept on pellets of any kind. Thats old school and bad husbandry. As for the coir. Maybe it's the different grades of coir. I don't know. I ordered mine off the internet. came wrapped in plain plastic and in bricks. all i know about is, is that it was tort safe and is very fine like sawdust. I also don't have a problem with mine sticking to my tort and shriveling. Now I wish I remembered where it came from



But if they were eating so much of their substrate that they were impacting as was in the case of the necropsies Boah metioned, then what more could you do then give them something more edible :/ . Better for a tort to eat a pellet than choke on dirt imo


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## Tortus (Jan 21, 2013)

Coir isn't dirt. 

If a tort is eating tons of it, it may be lacking fiber in its diet. I add finely chopped hay to the food, moistened. I haven't noticed it eating any substrate since then.


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## wellington (Jan 21, 2013)

I do understand the one Boah mentioned, was probably eating it. I agree, something may have been lacking in its diet. Members have used minerAll to stop their torts from eating stones, I think it was stones, and it has worked. I have seen members post that torts may try to eat dirt for the lack of something in their diet. Each tort is different. Thats why observing your tort is so important. What might work for one, may not work for the other. There are too many good substrate to use, that pellets should not be used. They mold very easy and do not hold humidity, keeps a tort way too dry. Pyramiding, is not only an unnatural thing in most tort species, but pyramiding can also be a sign of MBD which can also come with being too dry and dehydrated.


Forgot, the tort that started this post, that had coir in its mouth, did not have a necropsy done. It's only one tort so far that we know of that probably was eating the substrate. But even then, the owner should have been able to see this and should have corrected it. Observing your tort, very important.


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## argus333 (Jan 21, 2013)

i dont like that stuff just so messy, and turns to almost mud when wet.


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## immayo (Jan 21, 2013)

As far as my tortoise that died (making story 2 on this forum) he hadn't been eating much. I wasn't on this forum at the time but I had tried to contact the seller on what they had been feeding it and got no response. It hadn't been eating it's substrate normally, I woke up one morning to find it dead with the substrate packed into it's mouth. This is why I believed he died from suffocation on the substrate. I don't think it was impaction that killed my tort, but I also didn't know you could get a necropsy done on them. Poor little guy is buried in my yard.


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## mattgrizzlybear (Jan 21, 2013)

Really all substrate is chokeable, it is just which one looks tastiest...


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