Leopard Gecko - Habitat

[cracksolja]

Its me again! with my usual Questions

I have a couple of ideas I wanna run by but I feel there pointless but I just want some general opinions of people...... ill give a little story first tho........

As it stands I am looking to make my Vivs a Tad more umm "natural" to the animal being a Leo........

Now I read there form Pakistan an india etc - As far as I'm aware there countrys that are filled with sand, I dont want to use sand but I want to make my place look a tad realsitc... IE Rocks and stuff!

What I want is kind of like a "rock stairwell" so to speak were the leos can sit on a purch like a parrot but rocks if you get me like a 3 way height rock stair well like you may see in mountains Im finding it hard to explain!

Basically flat service with an inch to climb to get higher to a second flat surface with an inch more to get to a higher flat surface......

I currently use reptile carpet but curious to know what I could add to the flooring to make it look more Pakistanish so to speak!

I want to get some Rock Hides

But im having difficulty finding anything like what I want

My geckos like to climb there logs and fake plants so I wanna provide like a mountin like Viv were they can climb various things without the risk of falling obviously would be taken into deep consideration!

I was thinking of the following but I decided against it as it is just as messy as sand!

Getting some kind of substrate soil substrate from Exo-terra like eco earth or something and growing some Reptile-safe grass so they can weave and hide in grass but I thought this could get a bit complicated so i opted against it!

So I wanna go with the kind of rocky look a desert look but just cant fiund the correct type of rocks and stuff !

[pugger]

clay cat litter the inert type is quite good, used it for 13yrs and had no problems it looks a bit like stone rubble, as for rocks you could make some out of plaster of paris then paint them with watercolours if you split hemp rope down with some selotape at the bottom it looks a bit like an old clump of dry grass......!

[lola]

This is good, it's like one of the questions I was going to ask - being a newbie and all that! We're collecting a new vivarium at the weekend and want to make it look fun but 'natural' too... The idea of using the grey clay cat litter - do you mean the fullers earth stuff? My leo is about 6" long, dunno how old that makes her, would she try to eat it and if so would it do any harm?

Can you use broken bits of paving slab - the sandy coloured ones, not the local authority type! and make different levels with them perhaps? What about bogwood or pieces of plank, made to look older and weathered with no splinters - can that be stacked or fixed together to make a kind of step arrangement somehow??

[crosby]

I've used roof slate and slate chippings before, looks natural and retains heat very well.

[cracksolja]

Thanks for replys - Well I looked into my viv last night wondering what areas I could improve - However there is one area I CANNOT CHANGE!

As Im under the asumption my leos really like it iv done it in a kind of "Dry Rain Forest" way - With 2 coco hives at each end (width wise) at the cool end and by width I mean from glass doors to back of viv

With log hide kind of like a tunnel hide I got form pet zoo good size for 2 geckos at once then I have a plain piece of log woof I picked up at my aquatics store going diaganol accross my log hide which gives a touch of height then 2 BIG fake vine plants covering the log hides and the top of the viv

And then spread open but carefully put around the entrance of the coco hides looks good and all 3 of my leos rest in there at night and of a day in the moist hide or sitting at the edge of there water ball

I also added to really long pices of thick wood that come of the floor hovering above the heat mat I hope for them to use to kinda crawl along and find some kind of way of getting a lighter shade of heat than on the heat mat!

[pugger]

Originally Posted by lola

This is good, it's like one of the questions I was going to ask - being a newbie and all that! We're collecting a new vivarium at the weekend and want to make it look fun but 'natural' too... The idea of using the grey clay cat litter - do you mean the fullers earth stuff? My leo is about 6" long, dunno how old that makes her, would she try to eat it and if so would it do any harm?

Can you use broken bits of paving slab - the sandy coloured ones, not the local authority type! and make different levels with them perhaps? What about bogwood or pieces of plank, made to look older and weathered with no splinters - can that be stacked or fixed together to make a kind of step arrangement somehow??

i have kept many different herps on inert clay cat litter they have eaten it......and did not die, just dumped it out......!

[lola]

Got any photos of your set-up cracksolja - sorry if they're somewhere else and I've missed them....