Came home to a nasty suprise

[jbowers]

Hey,

so I just got home to find i couldnt see my ackie in his enclosure. I noticed he has dug a hole in the sand. However, it didnt really look big enough to support him and upon feeling it out it seemed like there was barely any space in there at all, so I decided to excavate it to see if he was ok.

As far as I could tell, and maybe I caused this by digging around in there. The insides of it partially colapsed on him and he was trapped in there. He is out now, and fairly stressed by the looks of things.

Is there anything I should be doing to prevent this happening again? Im using red brickies sand and I thought i'd moistened it then compacted it enough to hold burrows....

 

[jbowers]

Im thinking of taking out most of the mound that i've made up for him to burrow in and just leaving about 3-4 inches of substrate, maybe a little less in order to stop this happening?

 

[licky]

why stop him from doing something normal? im quite sure you would have caused the collapsing. but do what eva u wish

 

[byron_moses]

if u want to allow him to dig ZOO MED do a substrate called excavator whish is clay based sand that will not collapse

 

[jbowers]

This brickies sand is part clay too - should hold burrows. I've thought about it more and the way he acted and how it felt I'm almost certain it had trapped him in there.

I will leave his log in there which he liked to burrow under and still enough sand to make shallower burrows. I just don't like the idea of having a huge amount of weight which can come down, as I don't feel experienced enough to judge if it's damp enough etc

 

[redbellybite]

can you get a hold of plumbing pipe off cuts that are big enough for him to get into? you could make burrows with the pipes he still goes under ground but the pipes are the burrow holes with the sand on top--- no cave ins ...you could put a little sand in the pipes ,so he thinks he is digging it out