Changing out the substrate

[Eloise's mommy]

How often is it recommended to dump out and establish new fresh substrate in my enclosure?? currently using a cocoa coir and reptile sand mixture. I have been cleaning her cage daily to remove what feces and urates I can but some of the urates are drying up and becoming part of the substrate before I can get to them and I find them hard to get completely out (is this normal?). So I wonder how often changing the substrate out for fresh and new is recommended?? or when is too much of the dried up urates is too much to be healthy in her home??

 

[wellington]

Don't know about the urates part of your ? But, spot cleaning poop and food out, you can keep that same substrate for a year, maybe more, maybe less. All depends really on what goes on. Now, I don't use sand with mine, but I and some others have gone a year before switching it out for new, or refreshing the old.

 

[tortoise007]

I've heard you should change all the substrate once a month.

The rule is: If you don't want to touch it, change it.

 

[CtTortoiseMom]

I've heard you should change all the substrate once a month.

The rule is: If you don't want t touch it, change it.

Haha! I love that rule!

 

[tortoise007]

I made it up. It seems to work!

 

[CtTortoiseMom]

I have a really easy way to change coir and even sandsubstrate. It is so sooty and dusty when my husband and I used to change it that we would wear face masks. So when we were getting rid of the coco coir we used a shop vac and sucked it all up and just emptied the vac in our woods. Saved a lot of time!!! Unfortunately now that I use cypress I can 't use the shop vac.

 

[Rover15]

Honestly there are a couple factors (in my mind anyways)
1. Size of tort vs how much room he has the more room less often you would change it.
2. How you maintain it spot clean, or just leave it.
3. If you ever see mold replace it all

My set up is coco fiber/multch mix on one half long ways, and moss on the other half

I soak the moss ones every other week and mix it up every other day allowing it to dry Out and then on the weeks I soak it I used clean warm water this way it is clean/fresh. For the coco fiber. Multch mis I spot clean and also toss/mix it up

After 6 months I will change it for new substrate but that is because he will have out grown it by then right now my yellow foot is 3.5"-4" roughly and in a setup 36Lx18Wx15H so lots of room to rome

This is just what I do hope it helps

Also once a month would sound quite expensive

 

[Eloise's mommy]

Thanks everyone... I've been spot cleaning it because I cant bear to leave her roaming in her own poo...but when she expells urates there is usually a liquid that comes out with them and that is in there nothing I can do about it...I've noticed that the urates though seem turn into little whits lumps in the coir and seem to stay to the top (assuming she just walks where they are and hasn't been digging) since I got her a flat stone to eat on she has been filling her belly with the treats I leave her and then walking away and leaving me a treat of poo, urates, or both!! sharing little thing she is!! How gross to go potty on your food dish though!! lol

 

[stinax182]

tortoises do pee clear liquid sometimes. and there is nothing you can do about it. like everyone said, it depends on a lot. with spot cleaning, i change the corner she eats in once a month and her humid hide weekly. there's a corner of my leopards enclosure she doesn't go to often so i hardly clean that. she almost always poops in her water dish

 

[Rover15]

tortoises do pee clear liquid sometimes. and there is nothing you can do about it. like everyone said, it depends on a lot. with spot cleaning, i change the corner she eats in once a month and her humid hide weekly. there's a corner of my leopards enclosure she doesn't go to often so i hardly clean that. she almost always poops in her water dish

With my yellow foot I've yet to come accross any white bits so I assume she only pees liquid, her humid hide is filled. With a top layer of moss now correct me if I'm wrong but by by soaking it in freash warm-hot water cleans it. (This was told to me by a pet store owner however it sounds ligit)