Substrate to mix with coco coir

[Nate1224]

I have a two year old Hermanns tortoise and at the moment his substrate is some type of bark. It’s not quite humid enough for him so I am going to switch to coco coir and topsoil but there is no “organic” topsoil in my area. What else can I mix the coir with to keep it humid?

 

[Maro2Bear]

Greetings. There’s really no need to mix anything in….but, perhaps you can find some medium orchid bark at a garden center? Coir, orchid bark, cypress mulch all work well. Id stay away from any “garden soils” since you have no idea what you get - some plants used to produce garden center ”soil” are toxic - not meant to be used with animals, but for growing plants.

 

[Tom]

I have a two year old Hermanns tortoise and at the moment his substrate is some type of bark. It’s not quite humid enough for him so I am going to switch to coco coir and topsoil but there is no “organic” topsoil in my area. What else can I mix the coir with to keep it humid?

Any other substrate will not affect humidity. You just need to keep your current substrate more damp. You need to dump water into it so that the lower layers are wetter and the upper layers remain somewhat dry, but wick the moisture up from the bottom. How much water and how often varies with every enclosure and seasonally too. You need around 3-4 inches of substrate for this to work well.

To hold in humidity, you must close in the enclosure. There is no way to do it in a cool dry room with an open topped enclosure. All the substrate in the world won't do it.

Soil should never be used as tortoise substrate.

Coco coir will work but it is messy.

If you are using fir bark now, that is the best there is.