Im finding little balls in my encloser
- Thread starter Truntle
- Start date
ZenHerper
Well-Known Member
What is your substrate and where did you get it?
What kind of substrate are you using? Those look like the moisture beads found in potting soil..
Yes, or fertilizer pellets used in garden centers & nurseries.
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- Nov 4, 2012
- Messages
- 220
Not sure on what they are, pics of the whole setup would help though, how big is the cage?
Chubbs the tegu
Well-Known Member
Agree.. looks like moisture beads
Does your tortoise also have an outdoor enclosure? Is there a California pepper tree anywhere near the outdoor enclosure?
Chubbs the tegu
Well-Known Member
Im not gonna lie.. when i read the name of this thread i thought u had a male
I was just waiting for you to chime in. Yep, saw it.?
Chubbs the tegu
Well-Known Member
U kno me to well Mark
Truntle
New Member
Home depot, mulch, when I pop the balls they have liquid in them
Chubbs the tegu
Well-Known Member
Im just gonna leave now
Truntle
New Member
ZenHerper
Well-Known Member
They look like either hydration pellets or slow-release fertilizer.
Either are theoretically harmless to come into casual contact with, but neither should be eaten. Pick out all of the ones you can find and change out the substrate to coco coir packaged for reptiles with a top layer of fir bark chips or cypress mulch.
I suppose they could be a plant seed or slug egg, but if you have not seen them before and your set up is indoors, my money would be on hydration pellets that have swelled up when you added water.
ETA: They may be slug eggs.
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- Dec 28, 2016
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I think they are some bug's eggs. Lol
glassbird
New Member
A lifetime of working in family owned commercial greenhouses makes me believe that they are fertilizer pellets. They are really a marketing technique...fertilizer could be added to soil/potting mixes much more efficiently by smaller, less visible methods...but people like seeing them. They feel like they are getting something extra.
As to what they contain is anyone's guess. I would definitely not allow them in an enclosure. (I have seen my tortoise eat similarly-sized Styrofoam pellets that had stuck to the long fur on one of my cats, and then fell into his enclosure on the floor as the cat ambled by.) Whatever is in your pellets will do your tortoise no good.
As to what they contain is anyone's guess. I would definitely not allow them in an enclosure. (I have seen my tortoise eat similarly-sized Styrofoam pellets that had stuck to the long fur on one of my cats, and then fell into his enclosure on the floor as the cat ambled by.) Whatever is in your pellets will do your tortoise no good.
Chubbs you silly person, toted don’t have balls ?
I would not chance any of it, I'd be replacing the medium first off.
Fertilizer,
Moisture Pellets/balls,
Snail/ slug egg's NO thanks.
Too risky with all of it, just go with the fir Bark
Fertilizer,
Moisture Pellets/balls,
Snail/ slug egg's NO thanks.
Too risky with all of it, just go with the fir Bark
It‘s possible what you are seeing are seeing are fertilizer “prils”. The most common brand is Osmocote.
This why I say that bought-in-a-bag soil should never be used for tortoises. There is no way to know what is in it.
You should have no trouble finding orchid bark in bulk here in SoCal at a nursery. Not a hardware store, but a nursery. If not, you can buy the big bags of repti-bark on Chewy.com.
He really needs a much larger indoor enclosure, or he needs a temperature controlled night house with a basking lamp for outside. Its all explained here:
The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise
I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. What is...
tortoiseforum.org
