I recently decided to try sand as a substrate for my button quail Spankie. He is a few years old and has only been on paper bedding and bark. I liked the bark but it was hard to keep clean. I put 10lbs of sand into the bottom of his tank and placed a bowl of paper bedding for him to sleep on. I have seen many conflicting reports on using sand as a substrate, but I chose to try anyway, hoping it would prevent his feet from getting so nasty. So far he really likes it, especially dust bathing. I am concerned, though, that he'll eat too much of it and become impacted. He's always eaten sand if it's available, but he seems to do so in excess, so I had only given him the bath bowl while supervised. Is impaction a real threat to him? I do have paper bedding, which I can switch him to, but I'm hoping the sand will be okay.