Toad keepers-how deep is your substrate?

[nicodimus22]

I give my American toad about 3 inches of Eco Earth, but she never burrows, even for the winter. I have a big hide and lots of ground cover, and she seems content with that. If I noticed her burrowing, I would give her deeper substrate, but it's always in the 70s in that room so I suspect she just doesn't feel the urge.

[victorsgrace]

Condolences on Rufus, Gail.

My two guys are wildcaught and when they first came inside, Louis went completely underground for to-three days, all the way to the bottom, until I took him up and fed him (they were both undernourished when found, so I needed to get something in him). At that time I was keeping them in a Fauna box and their substrate was around 4 inches. Birger just made a preferred hole for himself, which was about 2 inches deep and never burrowed any further.

Today I keep the guys in an avarage of 2 inch deep substrate. What I do to conpensate for possible lack of depth is to variate the depth of the substrate. I gave them each a small pot, that I dug down halfway in tipped angle, filled the "ground" in the pot with substrate and covered the back and body of the pot with substrate. Otherwise I have supplied them with artificial shrubbery, live moss-pads and two branches, one that's placed over the corner of their watertank.

Every evening or second evening their mosspads, plants and branches are sprayed with water to mimic nightfalls natural himidity in DK, besides a change of the waterdish.

They seem very pleased : They have their preferred spots. Birger prefers to hide under the plank in his waterdish and Louis prefers to burrow 1½ inch between the two pots or find a hidden place, under one of the mosspads. As for hibernation goes, they first went lazy and both dissappeared under mosspads or a 2 inch dug hole, on their way to hibernation (because the light was fading, even tough the temp was stable). This went on for two-three weeks, but as the temp remained stable, they snapped out of it.

They are also very active, trotting around their enclosure alot during the early morning hours, dusk- and nighttime. <3