And actually, if you watch enough of the Chris videos, you will see a lot of things he does that is not good for tortoises. One major one is mixing species. Aldabra, Rad and Sulcata all in winter housing.I’ve never said it was the sole issue for a cause of death, maybe others have but I haven’t.. me and other folks on here advise new people daily on ways to fix their husbandry, even then there can be lots of confusion on how to actually apply the information to a set up, if the coir is maintained the way that’s advised on here(which is much easier to explain than the way to properly use sand to minimise risks) I don’t think ingesting some coir is an issue..we can’t control what kind of diets and supplements everyone has access to, even when linked to the right stuff, so if it’s true that some will eat sand when there’s a slight dietary imbalance, I wouldn’t want that to start becoming a common problem we start seeing amongst the common problems we see already😕
I will however steal some snacks.. @Chubbs the tegu wouldn’t share their popcorn with me😂
If common husbandry mistakes weren’t a thing of existence, and never would be, I might see things differently.. I understand the notion of ‘well if there’s other mistakes happening the tortoise will get sick or die anyway’, not necessarily untrue I’ll give you that, however again, do we really want to throw sand into that delicate mix as an added factor to chance? Or does it make more sense to recommend things we know minimise unnecessary risks?
We can’t guarantee everyone watching that video is going to be able to mimic what Chris is doing perfectly, lots of people watch stuff and take snip bits of care information.. we can’t take for granted everyone would use it correctly, therefore no guarantee the sand wouldn’t come without some unnecessary risks.. Toms methods come without the potential sand problems.. it might seem small, but it just makes sense to not recommend it and not potentially contribute to the vast amount of issues we already see?
Lightning cannot be controlled, purposely adding sand can be
I’m not arguing that once you know how, and are up on everything, that it isn’t easy to decently duplicate a wild setting, but again, this doesn’t come easy or natural to everyone, we don’t get a say on the types of people that should or can own tortoises.. same with any animals.. it’s about catering to a wide variety, to give as many tortoises a healthy a life as possible
PHEW! That was a big one.. did anyone even make it through that?!🤣
Without actually going to each individuals property and seeing it all with ones eyes, one never really knows if the tortoises are being cared for properly.