# what is the best bedding floor



## meyfabi (Nov 12, 2012)

Hello everybody,
I'm searching for the best floor for my tegu Enki (4 months old) cause i encount 2 big problems. For the moment i have beechwood floor.

My first problem with beechwood is he always eat beechwood piece. i never feed him in his terra (except crickets) and i always have problem with his feces... :-(

the second problem is maybe a rub mark or a skin lesion probably due to beechwood so i need to change!!!




So what's for you the best substrate for Tegu???
Thanks


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## Bubblz Calhoun (Nov 12, 2012)

_Substrates vary from wood chip types, to eco earth or sand and soil mixtures. I usually use just eco earth but last week added top soil and sand to it. 

As for the mark it looks like it was open at one point and is starting to heal, with the way the scales are coming in around it. It doesn't look to me like a rub mark though. I don't know if it was cut somehow or what but would definitely take it to a vet and have it checked out. To try and get a better idea of what's going on, if it needs to be closed to heal better and or whether or not you should take it off of substrate for a while to help it heal and prevent infection. Actually taking it off of substrate and keeping an eye on it for a while would be a good idea anyway just in case._


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## meyfabi (Nov 12, 2012)

Bubblz Calhoun said:


> _Substrates vary from wood chip types, to eco earth or sand and soil mixtures. I usually use just eco earth but last week added top soil and sand to it.
> 
> As for the mark it looks like it was open at one point and is starting to heal, with the way the scales are coming in around it. It doesn't look to me like a rub mark though. I don't know if it was cut somehow or what but would definitely take it to a vet and have it checked out. To try and get a better idea of what's going on, if it needs to be closed to heal better and or whether or not you should take it off of substrate for a while to help it heal and prevent infection. Actually taking it off of substrate and keeping an eye on it for a while would be a good idea anyway just in case._



thanks a lot for your reply! ok for your substrate cause it's a real problem for my tegu.
i'll went to a vet to know more about this strange mark.


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## Little Wise Owl (Nov 12, 2012)

I use a pure soil/sand mixture because I noticed a lot of tegus having problems on the commonly recommended cypress mulch and other wood chips (ingestion, blockage, prolapse, etc)

Soil/sand holds burrow really well and allows them to utilize their natural burrowing instinct.


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## meyfabi (Nov 12, 2012)

Little Wise Owl said:


> I use a pure soil/sand mixture because I noticed a lot of tegus having problems on the commonly recommended cypress mulch and other wood chips (ingestion, blockage, prolapse, etc)
> 
> Soil/sand holds burrow really well and allows them to utilize their natural burrowing instinct.



;-) thanks


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## Ntyvirus (Nov 12, 2012)

Once I build his outdoor pen I'm going to use dirt and sand but right now I have mine on a couple inches of cypress and keep an eye on him when he eats


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## Little Wise Owl (Nov 12, 2012)

> One of our males won't eat if his food bowl is on top of his hide box. Instead, he prefers to poop on the hide box, so we have to put his bowl on the substrate. We watch him eat and he never drops any food on the substrate, so we thought he was safe.
> 
> One day he stopped eating. It was going on almost 2 weeks, with no eating, yet he was having very, very watery stools. Finally he had a great big poop. Right in the middle of this poop was a chunk of substrate about the size of half a banana (no, we didn’t go fishing thru the poop, you could see it sticking out)!!! I don't know when or even how he ate the substrate, but he did, and that's why he was plugged up and why he stopped eating.



From my breeder regarding the ingestion of substrate.


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## Skeetzy (Nov 12, 2012)

I too use a sand/soil mixture. I was so against going this route, since I like the look of nearly every other substrate more, but it's just so much more natural. I will more than likely use it for the life of my tegu.


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