Ate some substrate concerned parent lol

[Shorty1212]

Hey guys I know this has been addressed a million times but I’m concerned my little guy ate a piece of my substrate(forest floor) while he was eating a dubia. I didn’t actually see him because he wasn’t facing me. I was hand feeding him some Dubia roaches for a treat which I’ve done several times and normally he takes them and a couple of chomps and down they go. But this one he dropped and then chased it down and ate it off the ground and I’m just assuming he would have gotten some of the substrate with the bug? I’ve had a beardie for a long time and switched to a rough slate tile for my substrate because of this reason. But I don’t think you can do that for a bluey especially my IJ because of higher humidity requirements? Anything I should be looking for signs from ingesting substrate and has anyone had success with an IJ on a substrate that can’t be ingested and retain humidity? Thank you

[Janella]

Hi there. It should be fine. These guys ingest eggs whole, shells and all. Since you didn't see your skink actually ingest anything either...I wouldn't worry too much. I have known skinks with known ingestion of substrate do just fine. You can always feed insects in a feeding tube or something similar to avoid ingesting any substrate. As for substrate, I would either use what you have or my other favorites are Zilla jungle Mix with reptibark on top or plain top soil with reptibark on top.

[Shorty1212]

Thank you for getting back to me I appreciate it and I’ve only had him for a week and a half and he’s a youngster still so I’m just slowly easing in to getting him use to me and he’s let me hand feed him some Dubias and let’s me let his back when he’s eating. But I don’t want to take him out to feed him yet because he’ll get stressed I just love these guys and I worry about him like my children lol. If I were to find topsoil does it need to be something specific or different from gardening soil at Home Depot? Obviously no fertilizers but is there anything else to look for?

[splashy07]

I use paper as substrate until they are at least six months old. Just to be sure nothing like that happens and to monitor their droppings. I wouldn't worry too much though, think of what the little things could ingest in the wild while chasing a bug. These things could probably digest a cinder block.