A few more thoughts on the bioactive discussion
It’s not ok to go bioactive without planning and careful research.
It’s ok to not to want to go bioactive.
It’s not ok to be unaware of the potential risks of bioactive enclosures.
It’s ok to use tile or towels.
It’s not ok to provide an unstimulating environment.
It’s ok to ask questions.
It’s ok to be a new owner.
It’s ok to not know everything.
The single greatest priority you have as a pet owner is your animal’s health and safety. That means careful consideration of which substrate you want to use. It’s ok to not have the drive or time or desire or permission to go full bioactive! There are other ways to safely keep an animal. However, another part of health is mental health. It isn’t fair to keep an animal in an unstimulating environment, but there are ways to make a tile-lined enclosure plenty interesting! Providing climbing materials, dig boxes, leaf piles, plenty of hides… new things, too- adding a pile of rocks, then taking it away or changing it up a while later… a good light cycle- a little natural sunshine trickling through the glass can really do wonders, so long as the cage isn’t in direct sunlight. Taking your animal outside, if you can do safely, is also great (this is especially true for bearded dragons!) or at least letting them out to roam and explore a little bit. You are not abusing your animal by keeping them on tile! You just have to remember that in the wild, animals are constantly reacting to stimuli. They need to exercise their brains as much as their bodies, but you do not have to go bioactive to do this. Tile and towels can be perfectly fine so long as you keep your animal mentally engaged!
There are also risks involved with going bioactive. If you are going to use dirt from outside, you must be aware of any potential chemical additives. This means fertilizer, this means pesticides. You must be aware of any potential diseases in the area! You must be knowledgeable about what bugs you put in- if you have an insectivore, be very careful about taking in bugs that may have been exposed to pesticides. You must make sure that your fancy new setup doesn’t have the potential to kill your pet. When you brought that animal into your life, you made yourself responsible for its safety. Bioactive setups are wonderful and amazing. In no way is the bioactive concept a negative or bad thing! They are little ecosystems that promote natural behaviors without the risk of predation. However, and I cannot stress this enough, they only do this if set up properly. This means knowing what bugs you put in there and choosing them carefully. This means knowing what’s in your soil mix and where it came from. This means providing hiding spaces and safe objects of interest. A balanced bioactive setup is a beautiful thing. A bad one can kill your pet. They can be easy to set up but that ease comes from a lot of research. And importantly, bioactive is not one size fits all. Different species come from very different biomes; it’s important to mimic what’s natural for them, not just what’s “natural.” If you want to go bioactive, you simply must do the research. Please don’t expose your animals to poorly-conceived experiments of trial and error!
That being said, don’t be intimidated by the challenges of going bioactive. If this is something you really believe in or really want to try, go for it! I have seen some beautiful dry setups for leopard geckos with packed soil and nice leaf litter and little microspots of humidity. I have seen some beautiful dry setups for beardies with loads of climbing logs and plants and all kinds of insects to chase and eat. I have seen beautiful humid setups for cresties and gargs and ball pythons and all kinds of animals. With a little work, it is easy to have a beautiful, functional, safe bioactive setup; you just have to be willing to do that work!
Finally, this doesn’t really need to be a two-sided issue. Bioactive keepers and tile/towel keepers should both realize that the animals come first. The whole animal. Not just the animal’s physical safety! There are multiple ways to keep your animals holistically and both sides need to realize this.
vaporwave
gummygunk
annaxmalina
janainaart
