Tom's response to "Garden State Tortoise" Video

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

I realize we're 10 pages in at this point. So incase there are others who have only skimmed the thread let me reiterate why I started this from the beginning. I believe the reason we see impaction from sand and other substrate is partly if not mostly husbandry issues. My thoughts were if I could figure out what those were we could improve our husbandry minus the sand. It was never intended to be a let's all add sand to everything thread. There are so many people using sand without issue that I wanted to compare and maybe see what they were or were not doing. I have realized there are many variables here and have found this discussion very enlightening. It was never in defense of adding sand.

Fair enough, thanks for the clarification🙂

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

It makes such a great soil additive. Keeps the soil airy, plants thrive in it, keep nails filed down, encourages more natural digging behaviour, etc etc. Inside once its "cycled" its creates really stable parameters. My outdoor pens would be a muddy mess right now without it. My indoor is just a replica of my outdoor setups.

I guarantee the problem isnt the sand. Its feeding off the substrate with high moisture produce in a dry environment. Which will cause issues regardless. This is just a hill this guy has decided to die on for some reason.

All those benefits you’ve listed can be provided with safe substrates that don’t have the added potential risks though no? not just impaction, irritating the skin and eyes for example😕

 

[Tom]

Tom I have seen pictures of aquariums and open top indoor enclosures with only sand as a substrate. I believe they were always keeping sulcata. I'm not sure where this idea came from.

Yes. I remember those days. Bearded dragons and leopard geckos too.

 

[wellington]

It makes such a great soil additive. Keeps the soil airy, plants thrive in it, keep nails filed down, encourages more natural digging behaviour, etc etc. Inside once its "cycled" its creates really stable parameters. My outdoor pens would be a muddy mess right now without it. My indoor is just a replica of my outdoor setups.

I guarantee the problem isnt the sand. Its feeding off the substrate with high moisture produce in a dry environment. Which will cause issues regardless. This is just a hill this guy has decided to die on for some reason.

You have zero proof to say you guarantee the problem isn't the sand!

 

[TammyJ]

There are NO BENEFITS to sand as a substrate for tortoises. Maybe for the keeper, but NOT for the animal. I think I may already have said that though. I just don't want this thread to end. Sorry, Dana. @EppsDynasty

 

[Tim Carlisle]

I just don't want this thread to end.

Playing out like a TFO version of a soap opera? "Like sands through the hourglass..."? 😆

 

[TammyJ]

Playing out like a TFO version of a soap opera? "Like sands through the hourglass..."? 😆

That's excellent 👍

 

[TammyJ]

Happy Birthday!

 

[wellington]

Playing out like a TFO version of a soap opera? "Like sands through the hourglass..."? 😆

Happy Birthday

 

[EppsDynasty]

@TammyJ .... I did think this was winding down a little , then BOOM, it blew up faster than our local fire. And it does resemble a Soap Opera a bit.
@Tim Carlisle Today Is Your Day and I Hope It is as Special as You ! Happy Birthday

I tried to explain the complexities of Sand and the many types, with no real standard. It seems the responses here on this thread are the same, no real standard and pretty complex. As it seems I have repeated myself, again, I am on "Audience" list now.

 

[mark1]

you could not make an acceptable soil without sand...........

how many people reading this have dealt with any kind of obstruction in your tortoise???

every line or picture below is a different case along with the cause of the obstruction, 8 different cases, the only 8 i looked at.

• On the basis of radiological examination, it was decided to a case foreign body in stomach and plan for surgical removal of foreign body according to body condition of tortoise
• 
  
• Necropsy examination of a male giant Aldabra tortoise (Testudo gigantea Schweigger), reported to have died suddenly, revealed an upper intestinal obstruction due to a 180'clockwise torsion of the intestine.

• Evaluation of a dorsoventral survey radiograph revealed a round mineral opacity in the pelvic canal (suspected to be an obstructive cloacal calculus) and gas distention of the gastrointestinal tract
• 
  
• The colon showing a large mass of entangled polythene and cotton material (Arrow) obstructing the lumen
• 
  
• Three full-thickness longitudinal incisions were made along the antimesenteric border of the intestine. One hundred and five stones were removed.

• Upon further inspection and dissection, the foreign body was found to be composed of plant materials with the absence of mineral materials and, thus, was interpreted as being a phytobezoar​

• ​

• ​

• Aperture of celomatic cavity of the yellow-footed tortoise (Geochelone denticulata) with exposure of the stomach and initial incision. (B) Diverse foreign bodies (nails, toothpicks, stones, pieces of plastic, glass and crockery​

 

[Alex and the Redfoot]

you could not make an acceptable soil without sand...........

how many people reading this have dealt with any kind of obstruction in your tortoise???

every line or picture below is a different case along with the cause of the obstruction, 8 different cases, the only 8 i looked at.

• On the basis of radiological examination, it was decided to a case foreign body in stomach and plan for surgical removal of foreign body according to body condition of tortoise
• 
  
• Necropsy examination of a male giant Aldabra tortoise (Testudo gigantea Schweigger), reported to have died suddenly, revealed an upper intestinal obstruction due to a 180'clockwise torsion of the intestine.

• Evaluation of a dorsoventral survey radiograph revealed a round mineral opacity in the pelvic canal (suspected to be an obstructive cloacal calculus) and gas distention of the gastrointestinal tract
• 
  
• The colon showing a large mass of entangled polythene and cotton material (Arrow) obstructing the lumen
• 
  
• Three full-thickness longitudinal incisions were made along the antimesenteric border of the intestine. One hundred and five stones were removed.

• Upon further inspection and dissection, the foreign body was found to be composed of plant materials with the absence of mineral materials and, thus, was interpreted as being a phytobezoar​

• ​

• ​

• Aperture of celomatic cavity of the yellow-footed tortoise (Geochelone denticulata) with exposure of the stomach and initial incision. (B) Diverse foreign bodies (nails, toothpicks, stones, pieces of plastic, glass and crockery​

I haven't faced any issues. But my experience is not very relevant - I have my first and the only tortoise. Guess, I'm lucky with all that cypress mulch pieces sticking on her food.

EppsDynasty definitely saw some with JoJo and the others.

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

I tried to find theories on the internet as to why sand seems to be a bigger problem in captivity vs wild:

• "Perhaps eating sand is the result of something missing from the captive tortoise's diet. We hear reports of wild tortoises eating sand, but what they are actually eating is the fine, silty mineral earth around the base of desert plants. This fine silt has nutritional value and does not seem to cause the impactions that sand and gravel can." https://tortoise.org/general/health.html
• "In nature, some tortoises are known to engage in occasional ingestion of stones (lithopaghy) and the (often incidentally with food) ingestion of soil (geophagy). This behavior is thought not to be a problem under natural conditions and may arise because of various reasons including calcium deficiency, parasite control (Jennemann 2010), digestive aid and “marker” droppings (Sokol, 1971; Murphy, 1973; Luckenbach, 1982; Obst, 1986). “Pathological lithophagy” is also reported in captive conditions where disease may result in substrate consumption and coprolith formation (Rhodin, 1974; McArthur et al., 2004; Mader, 2006; Jennemann, 2010). Hunger has been implicated as a reason for this (Jennemann 2010), and anecdotal information suggests that dehydration may also sometimes be involved. In captivity, however, and in particular in vivariums, substrate ingestion is widely reported as a negative feature of environments where the substrate easily attaches to food or may itself become a target. Broadly, the term “pica” is used to describe the deliberate ingestion of nonfood items, and a general cause is thought to be under-stimulation (Frye, 2004). Pica-related coproliths and other obstructions should be considered serious and potentially fatal (Sokol, 1971; Luckenbach, 1982; Obst, 1986).---Prevention of pica may not be simple because although plain substrates such as paper can be used they do not allow for natural digging and other behaviors. Also, although more natural substrates such as a sand/soil mixture for Mediterranean tortoises offer some behavioral opportunities, these can be difficult to manage in small artificial conditions." https://meridian.allenpress.com/jhm...viation-of-a-Gastrointestinal-Tract-Impaction

I found this case where impaction was determined to be the cause of death: https://www.tortoise.org/general/impact.html

 

[EppsDynasty]

@Alex and the Redfoot is 100% correct. I can not believe I did not remember. Jo Jo did have a whole bunch of "Sand" in her system. As a newbie we were VERY WORRIED that something might not come out like it was supposed to. She also had numerous Duck feathers in her system that made the concern of puncture a real threat.
@Alex and the Redfoot .... Ya Got Me!
I still consider myself a spectator in the audience, think of this as a Streaker that jumped outta the stands and just ran out of the stadium before being caught.

 

[Fluffy]

@Alex and the Redfoot is 100% correct. I can not believe I did not remember. Jo Jo did have a whole bunch of "Sand" in her system. As a newbie we were VERY WORRIED that something might not come out like it was supposed to. She also had numerous Duck feathers in her system that made the concern of puncture a real threat.
@Alex and the Redfoot .... Ya Got Me!
I still consider myself a spectator in the audience, think of this as a Streaker that jumped outta the stands and just ran out of the stadium before being caught.

The fact that she was able to pass all of that "junk" is amazing. Also makes me wonder why she wasn't impacted? Especially when you started feeding her real food.

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

You can either provide what that animal needs or you need to get something else. Its not the substrates fault you stuck an animal in too small of a box & fed it the wrong diet. I mean is putting a piece of slate down to feed off of really that hard?

Its so wild to me. Most would commend keeping animals in a naturalistic way, but here we are.

Toms way works & so does Chris's.

See I agree with the sentiment of this response and understand where you’re coming from.. however I fear there are multiple things that aren’t being taken into consideration.. we seemed to have homed in on the impaction risk, but I’ve read about it causing respiratory problems, irritating tortoises eyes and skin.. now again perhaps with top notch perfect husbandry, those risks are minimised, however I stand firm on the fact we shouldn’t be encouraging adding sand or encouraging others to house their tortoises on substrate with sand added within the community. This isn’t aimed at you @Fluffy don’t worry😉

Look at it like this, maybe you’re right, maybe it’s all down to how the tortoise is looked after that depends on how the sand could affect them. I think you've been a member long enough to see how many new folk we get here that have errors in their husbandry, some more extreme than others, we already deal with common health problems amongst tortoise thanks to these errors, do we really want to encourage adding sand into the mix? That could exacerbate even more issues amongst the community? Again I understand the sentiment of ‘give the tortoise what its needs and it won’t be a problem’ but you and I know we live in a far less than perfect world here, some of the most ‘experienced’ owners come along to this forum who have been following painfully outdated methods, as well as new owners. Why, in a community that still ultimately has many years of improvement to go through, would we want to encourage another potential risk factor for a benefit you can happily achieve in a much safer way?

I’m still firmly of the opinion that purposely housing on sand isn’t something to strive for, and I think encouraging others within the community to do so is incredibly irresponsible giving the current climate we’re in🤷‍♀️

Ultimately despite some of the disagreements on this thread one thing unites us all here, our love for these animals and their well being, the ‘benefits’ of the sand do not outweigh the potential risks you could cause most captive tortoises out there. If you choose to add sand, that’s on you as a keeper, but to encourage others to do so, like Chris making YouTube videos of them on it, is not a responsible thing to do imo, I see no benefit, but potentially lots of issues caused to the average keeper.
This community isn’t just made of folks with decades of keeping experience, everyone is starting somewhere, I hate the thought of a very confused keeper who is keeping their desert species bone dry, seeing videos like that and thinking ‘oh ok sand sounds a good idea’ then boom they end up with a potentially poorly tortoise. It’s just not worth it😣

To sum up, despite the fact things may have a gotten a little tense between a few people here🥲we all know damn well we’d still be there for one another if we had an issue with our tortoise, and that is why even when things get a little tense, this forum is the place to be❤️

 

[wellington]

See I agree with the sentiment of this response and understand where you’re coming from.. however I fear there are multiple things that aren’t being taken into consideration.. we seemed to have homed in on the impaction risk, but I’ve read about it causing respiratory problems, irritating tortoises eyes and skin.. now again perhaps with top notch perfect husbandry, those risks are minimised, however I stand firm on the fact we shouldn’t be encouraging adding sand or encouraging others to house their tortoises on substrate with sand added within the community. This isn’t aimed at you @Fluffy don’t worry😉

Look at it like this, maybe you’re right, maybe it’s all down to how the tortoise is looked after that depends on how the sand could affect them. I think you've been a member long enough to see how many new folk we get here that have errors in their husbandry, some more extreme than others, we already deal with common health problems amongst tortoise thanks to these errors, do we really want to encourage adding sand into the mix? That could exacerbate even more issues amongst the community? Again I understand the sentiment of ‘give the tortoise what its needs and it won’t be a problem’ but you and I know we live in a far less than perfect world here, some of the most ‘experienced’ owners come along to this forum who have been following painfully outdated methods, as well as new owners. Why, in a community that still ultimately has many years of improvement to go through, would we want to encourage another potential risk factor for a benefit you can happily achieve in a much safer way?

I’m still firmly of the opinion that purposely housing on sand isn’t something to strive for, and I think encouraging others within the community to do so is incredibly irresponsible giving the current climate we’re in🤷‍♀️

Ultimately despite some of the disagreements on this thread one thing unites us all here, our love for these animals and their well being, the ‘benefits’ of the sand do not outweigh the potential risks you could cause most captive tortoises out there. If you choose to add sand, that’s on you as a keeper, but to encourage others to do so, like Chris making YouTube videos of them on it, is not a responsible thing to do imo, I see no benefit, but potentially lots of issues caused to the average keeper.
This community isn’t just made of folks with decades of keeping experience, everyone is starting somewhere, I hate the thought of a very confused keeper who is keeping their desert species bone dry, seeing videos like that and thinking ‘oh ok sand sounds a good idea’ then boom they end up with a potentially poorly tortoise. It’s just not worth it😣

To sum up, despite the fact things may have a gotten a little tense between a few people here🥲we all know damn well we’d still be there for one another if we had an issue with our tortoise, and that is why even when things get a little tense, this forum is the place to be❤️

Totally agree. Except, so many that participate in these kinds of threads, don't chime in on the others from newbies that have been asked over and over for years, but us older members answer over and over again. Older members have seen it all and older active members for the most part answer those thread again and again.
Not at all saying the older members have any more experience in tortoise keeping them newer members, just that we have many more years of the forum and all the newbies bad care.
Adding in sand to the newbies that has everything wrong already would be a big disservice. It also would need a lot more explaining then just saying you can use sand. There is really only a handful of members that daily participate in helping to answer threads or help out newbies.

 

[mark1]

i’m still firmly of the opinion that purposely housing on sand isn’t something to strive for

is somebody here advocating to use sand as a substrate??? is keeping them on the same substrate that they live on outside acceptable ??

actually looking into this it's appearing soil/sand is one of the least risky substrates........

anyone have an impacted tortoise? one x-ray? one documented case of a sand impacted tortoise?

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

is somebody here advocating to use sand as a substrate??? is keeping them on the same substrate that they live on outside acceptable ??

actually looking into this it's appearing soil/sand is one of the least risky substrates........

anyone have an impacted tortoise? one x-ray? one documented case of a sand impacted tortoise?

I don’t think anyone is advocating to use sand solely as the substrate, but that there should be no issue in encouraging keepers to mix it in, something I, and the many others who help new struggling members daily agree with.

As I’ve said previously, I understand not every location has soil that isn’t sandy, if that’s your natural environment that cannot be helped. But it doesn’t change the fact purposely adding sand doesn’t provide any benefits that outweigh the potential risks for the average keeper. Again I’m not just talking about impaction.

Hopefully you understand where I’m coming from🙂

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

I found one case of sand impaction with x-rays. The article implicates that this was a soil like product that contained high levels of sand and also small white calcium chips. https://www.homebredhermanntortoises.com/about

There are probably a lot more xrays, since I saw some on google photos but when I went to the site the content wasn't free.

is somebody here advocating to use sand as a substrate??? is keeping them on the same substrate that they live on outside acceptable ??

actually looking into this it's appearing soil/sand is one of the least risky substrates........

anyone have an impacted tortoise? one x-ray? one documented case of a sand impacted tortoise?