|
I've been lurking this thread for months, and now I can finally post my own! This is my brand-new (though currently nameless, if you've got any good suggestions) veiled:   True to his species' rep, he's a grouchy little bastard and the epitome of reptilian "Get off my lawn!"-ness. He's not going brown here because of being misted, he's pissed because someone has dared to open the door to his castle without his permission:  A few moments after this I brought out the cricket bag to feed him. He waited until the last one hopped out of the bag, chased me out while hissing, then turned back green once his door was closed and proceeded to disappear into his pothos and snipe crickets in ridiculous ways that convinced me he was now just showing off. Apologies for so many crappy cell phone pics but he likes to puff up and hide in his pothos if I'm looking directly at him with either my eyes or a normal camera.  Had to take a picture after the lights went off tonight to finally get him looking pretty:  Dude loves his malabar spinach. Water source and a hiding spot all in one. Zoom shot before he could process what was going on:  Shot of the chameleon castle:  The cage top is at about 6'3" or so now, the side table is just there temporarily for electrical safety reasons. I haven't put a screw out to hang the power strip off of yet or picked up some wire loom either, but I plan on making it look as classy as possible. It's just been a bit of a process due to life imposing small and large emergencies on me all at the same time. I originally built the cage a few months ago for a juvenile that an acquaintance was going to give me(they went to a reptile expo, seller conveniently left out the part about chams being ultra-solitary creatures to talk her into buying two, found out the truth when one got the edge and started bullying the other) that wound up not working out in a fairly tragic way, it's just been sitting growing my plants since then and I'd been looking for a resident to fill it. It's 21" square, and 36" tall. I knocked up the stand over the course of a few days last week, haven't decided whether to stain or paint it yet. I'm thinking stain thus far, I lucked out and found boards with a really nice even grain when I bought the materials. When I built the cage I strung it with a couple Fluker's bend-a-branches to make some criss-crossing highways and then trained some plants to grow up and around them. There's the requisite Pothos plant, a Nepenthe palm, and his(and probably my) favorite plant ever, Malabar Spinach. If you haven't heard of this stuff, go call your local specialist nursery and ask about it. Scientific name is Basella alba. If you're South Indian it's in your grocery store and called Alug Bati. It's not only oxalate-free, but human-edible, grows in awful conditions(it survived heat and drought conditions that killed my rosemary bush), and can give kudzu a run for its money in a growth race. Oh and is packed with calcium, vitamins A and C, and a ton of other stuff. It's bad-rear end and he seems to think it's the tastiest thing ever when he's feeling like some veggies. It also shoots out braching vines and new shoots from the root base that are extremely trainable, so one plant can potentially make a giant vine maze in the cage if you prune it right and put half an ounce of effort into training it. Really can't praise it enough, I never saw it on any "safe plant" lists while I was researching what to use but it fits the criteria for a veiled cage's plant perfectly. Anything herbivorous's cage, really. Foxy: Photon is awesome and I love you and Pardalis' collection. If they didn't need so much extra misting and regulation of their environment I'd probably go for a Panther as well, the colors of the different locales are stunning. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Sep 18, 2012 |
#
¿
Sep 18, 2012 07:30
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 15:35 |
|
|
Captain Foxy posted:Nice looking boy! Sounds like he's a standard male veiled for you. Have you tried hand-feeding him, or offering from a deli cup? Pardalis can probably speak more to care than me, since she's the expert, but I know that they do grow to recognize their keepers through feedings. Mine hates me but he's a teenager so he's all 'lol gently caress u mom' right now and will hopefully grow out of it. He relaxes when being misted and does drink in front of me, so I'm getting somewhere, at least. I've progressed to the point where he'll eyeball a cricket for a bit and consider taking it from me before hissing and hiding, so that's progress. I plan on getting some waxworms this weekend and using those in conjunction with shiny new tongs to get him to hopefully chill out some and start associating tasty food with me. He was under some heavy cage stress for a while(adopted him from a PetsMart whose Pet Care manager had no idea what he was doing with regards to reptiles and was keeping him in one of those Zilla slide-top cages that are somewhere between 10 and 20 gallons) and definitely learned to associate negative things with people, so I imagine I'm climbing a slightly steeper hill than somebody who is working with a younger specimen or one that has been treated properly for the majority of its life. He will drink for me if he's feeling thirsty though, which is reassuring. I never expect to have him be willing to climb right onto me like some people's chams will but if we can at least progress to "not hissing and hiding immediately when I open the door" I think I'll be happy. He absolutely lays into his crickets moments after I put the door between us, so he's definitely not terrified into immobility or anything terrible like that. Oh, and my malabar has been sprouting new leaves lately and what do I find after work today? Chameleon head-shaped bites out of every tender new leaf, haha. edit: Oh, and seriously, does anybody have any good ideas for a name? I suck and am uncreative. The only suggestion thus far is "Gene" as he is flashy, generally cranky, and has a very long tongue. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Sep 20, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Sep 20, 2012 06:13
|
|
|
Captain Foxy posted:Poor guy, drat that's terrible care. Glad he's in good hands now. The spinach is probably helping loads with the recovery if the calcium levels are that high. He's on a good path with you since he'll at least consider feeding for you and will drink. I'd imagine with enough time you could 'tame' him to a reasonable level of interaction. To be fair to the guy, he was forced into his position unwillingly(I was a Pet Care Manager too for a whlie and in this district the DM makes you be a PCM before you can be promoted to Presentation Manager; the positions have pretty much zero skill/knowledge overlap. He's retarded.) and corrected everything I pointed out pretty much immediately and asked me to write down the right/better way to do the husbandry. But yeah, it was pretty awful care and I'm legitimately shocked he doesn't have some real signs of MBD. I've been dusting all his food with the ZooMed phosphorus-free Repti-Calcium, how long do you think I should do so before trimming it down to just some of his food? I knew he could use the extra vitamin/calcium to help recover from the stress but I don't want to stray into hypervitaminosis territory either. I have no idea how naming him after a Silurian did not occur to me, I possess and have seen literally every single Doctor Who episode that has been televised and am in general a humongous Who nut.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2012 06:54
|
|
|
Mine just did his first shed under my care a few days ago, it's hilarious how they go from "normal but kinda dull" to "exploding skin" in a matter of hours. I made sure to mist him down very thoroughly during the few days he was shedding, but it seems like his tail skin is wanting to stick around and slowly, slowly wear off. With other reptiles I have experience with that's not such a good thing, and I'm assuming that is also not so great for my cham; can I do a warm water soak for him like I would a gecko or other lizard, or is that begging for skin infections? He had zero problems with the rest of his body(even the eyebrow area and the top/back of his casque) thankfully. Oh, and here's something I found that could be a great resource for anybody looking to vary their animal's diet: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/3049/2 According to the site the information is gleaned from the USDA so it ought to be fairly reliable as a source. I didn't see any ratings for oxalic acid content but basically all greens contain some degree of it. If it's human-edible the content should be low enough to toss in as a diet enrichment from time to time with no problems.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 29, 2012 20:19
|
|
|
Well, somebody ate their favorite vine into submission, so it's gone outside to rejuvenate and regrow some. I took a cutting and have it soaking in water right now to try and start a second vine up so I can just swap out plants as he ravages them. It was looking really bare and he was pretty unhappy with losing a cage plant, so I swung by Lowes and wound up finding a nice fat schefflera tree on the clearance table for $5! Needs a serious pruning but it's got nice thick branches and bushiness. I gave it a serious washing with the hose first, of course.  He's up in the corner being all pissed off about things changing. He soon decided it was worth a shot and seems to like it alright now:  We're a lot better on the fear and aggression front, he no longer instantly turns brown and hisses when I open the cage door to feed him. Still no dice on the hand- or tong-feeding but(!) he will start eating in front of me as soon as the crickets hit the cage. He'll even eat if he knows good and well that I'm staring straight at him now, which is great. Poops are nice and solid like a monster tic-tac and plain white urates, no wateriness or yellow gunk. There's a small bit of non-white stuff at an end of the urates but it doesn't reek disproportionately or give off any other overt signs of illness. There's less than there was in previous leavings as far as I can tell too so I assume it indicates things are trending towards better health. His coloration is a lot better now on average too! He had a real tendency towards being brownish most all the time (even while sleeping) in the beginning but that's starting to fade and he's looking more like this(even when I walk into the room or open the door):  Though this is still a pretty common sight the moment that cage door opens:  (cue giving me the stink-eye from his pothos shortly after) I do have some concerns that hopefully somebody can help me remedy: I've been told by other keepers that having his yellow stripes out all the time means he's showing stress, and that if he wasn't stressed out he'd basically be that lime green color all over(excepting the permanent horizontal dark stripe right above the belly region). I have never, ever seen a picture of an adult veiled male that didn't have his stripes out or was plain, solid lime green. The females yes, but literally every male photo I've looked at has bright solid stripes out even when they seem to be well at ease. I tried searching for "veiled chameleon stress colors" and permutations on that but am coming up empty-handed. I know the dark spots inside the stripes(i.e. the first photo) mean he's pissed off but is it true that any stripes being shown off basically mean he's unhappy? While I am working against a long history of poor conditions/conditioning and would reasonably expect him to get cranky when any of us are around, I can sneak a photo of him after it's been totally dark for several hours and he's definitely asleep, and those stripes are bright and defined with a nice lime green all over the rest of the body, which is what makes me doubt this particular piece of advice. I worry about him and whether I'm giving good care or not, I'd hate to have taken him from bad care and then provide just slightly less crappy care due to ignorance on my part. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, bonus pic of his first shed with me: DON'T LOOK AT ME I'M HIDEOUS!  edit: I've seen other cham keepers recommend the warm water shower thing every other week or so to help keep them hydrated, is that something I should try with him or is it asking for trouble? He seems to have no trouble chowing down on the fattest leaves he can find and drinks for me reasonably often(I'll also cheat and put a quick spray into his mouth sometimes if he gapes at me) so I don't think he's having any real trouble with hydration, but if it's something that will be a definite plus then I'll start with the lizard showers. I picked up a 5 1/2 foot dracaena off the clearance table as well that would be ideal for doing showers with. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Oct 3, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2012 06:16
|
|
|
I wish I had known about that hose trick when I was still in Orlando, there was a colony of gopher tortoises on the land behind my apartment but I had nothing to peek inside the burrows with safely. If there had turned out to be indigos living there I could have made some researchers very happy. In other news, somebody's shedding again!  (This one just begs for a pair of sunglasses to drop down. I need to learn how to make gifs.)    His blue has been showing much more since the last shed, I'm hoping he goes all pastel on me. Since he's a PetSmart animal I know he came from Reptile Industries in Naples(mass breeder and dropshipper as far as I can tell, ugh) but once in a while you get lucky and they send out animals with pretty good coloration.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2012 22:34
|
|
|
Mostly amphibs and other herps that dwell in the underbrush/leaf litter of dense forests, or spend large amounts of time underwater are what need the 2.0 uv lights. Plants also absolutely love the 2.0 lights as they put the majority of their energy out in the spectra that most plants photosynthesize the best with. The 2/5/10 rating refers to the percentage of energy given off by the bulb in the UVB spectrum(more or less), which is the portion that both catalyzes vitamin D sythesis in the skin and causes sunburn in excess amounts. Imagine putting a Finn or Swede and sticking them in the middle of the Sahara desert buck naked and sans sunblock, and that's a decent analogy of what you'd be doing sticking a 10.0 light over a pygmy cham or dart frog's enclosure. Things that live in the understory but still get decent amounts of sunlight (i.e. arboreal chameleons, iguanas, tegus, birds, etc) and animals from temperate areas (the slider family of turtles, North American skinks, various anoles) need(or in the bird's case benefit from) a 5.0 light because it most closely mirrors the volume of UVB that makes it from the sun to their skin on a normal day in their natural environment. 10.0 bulbs are for sun-worshippers like uromastyx, pancake tortoises, bearded dragons, and other desert animals that live in tropical deserts and bake in the sun all day and are exposed to intense amounts of visible and UV radiation. UVA is the spectra basically between the highest blue humans can see and the lowest spectra of UVB, and is a visible spectrum for basically everything that isn't a mammal or lives in dark environments. Its importance with regards to herp keeping is that a lot of things don't look right to herps(primarily food insects) if they can't see the patterns that only show up under UVA light exposure. Also Foxy you made me have a serious  moment earlier saying they needed a 10.0 bulb, glad it was a typo. Although if you were to try keeping things like Chamaeleo namaquensis(I don't even know if these are legally available in the pet trade, seems like desert chams might not be the worst things to take a shot at, desert animals being far more forgiving on average than tropical ones) a 10.0 would pretty much be what you'd need.
Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Oct 9, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2012 01:51
|
|
|
Hype - it's the saliva, pythons have tiny amounts of anticoagulant and even a(verrrry tiny) bit of some of the same venom enzymes that cobras produce in their saliva. Having big long gently caress-off teeth helps get it deep enough in so that they can work for a comparatively long while until your antibodies lock them up and deactivate them. Boas, on the other hand, don't have hardly anything in their saliva in contrast(though last I heard all constrictors do share some basal salivary proteins with both vipers and elapids). Foxy - just the veiled, though if it were feasible I'd probably be one of those nuts with a jungle room in their house and a miniature zoo running around inside it with misters hanging down from the ceiling. I know a bit from: A)Reading my rear end off when I was a pet care manager at PetSmart and getting surprise-shipped a veiled, realizing their official procedures and care guide for it were basically crap, and wanting to make sure I took good care of it along with the rest of my animals. I also had a panther breeder who would stop in when Armstrong messed his cricket order up who I would chat up and extract as much info from as possible. B)Education-wise, I'm a biologist who got their degree from a Florida school. You pretty much can't escape learning about herps of all kinds when you do a bio degree in Florida; I personally worked with sea turtles for a couple of summers doing nesting surveys and all kinds of fun things. Fun fact, anybody buying an Oustalet's whose seller can't absolutely prove it was captive-bred is most likely getting one from an escapee's colony discovered in the Pembroke Pines/Hollywood area of Florida a few years back by an acquaintance of mine. Hell of a first paper to publish. Oh, and a tip for anybody in the Orlando metro area - go look up The Chelonian Institute, Peter Pritchard runs it in Oviedo and he's pretty drat respected when it comes to chelonian reasearch. Guy's described more species of turtle than probably anybody else and is always looking for good help(which translates excellently into solid resume material) at the institute. He also houses one of the largest specimen collections of chelonians around in a historic old house maybe 2 miles north of the UCF campus along with a large number of all manner of turtle and tortoise species. </derail> C)My girlfriend is a herp keeper at a fairly large and prominent zoo here in TX(I'd be more specific but they're really really uptight about being discussed whatsoever online), so practically everybody I know down here is a zookeeper and I get curious about things. So I've picked her and her coworkers' brains quite a bit(she specializes in amphibians but she's been doing general herps for quite a while. Hot-certified, too.) e: I've heard of the light-staging trick before, it's pretty cool if you've got access to a UV meter. If you took consistent samples and kept your light cycle the same after a couple bulbs you'd be able to pinpoint the exact days to swap bulbs with a spreadsheet and basic Excel analysis tools. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Oct 9, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2012 06:34
|
|
|
Hype posted:Wow, that's crazy! I had no idea there was any difference in boa vs. python saliva. That certainly explains how a python whose head is the size of my thumb could leave a bruise, but not an 8ft. boa. Pretty interesting stuff! Here's an article regarding venom content of ratsnake saliva. Pythons/boids are generally regarded as the most basal extant group of snakes, so the idea is their common ancestor had some type of venom, or at least a fairly developed precursor to it. When I find something specifically dealing with boids I'll put it up here.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2012 16:55
|
|
|
Bobbaganoosh posted:Interesting subject! I enjoy following Dr. Fry's research and insight on the Venomdoc forums. A large garter snake chewing that left blood inexplicably dripping from my wrist years ago piqued my interest on the subject. It was clear then that garters certainly have something anticoagulant going on. Dr. Fry's research certainly shed light on questions I had from that day. Yeah, I can personally attest that California Kingsnakes have it as well. My friend's adult king decided that my left elbow smelled good enough and that she was going to eat it(I have ferrets and apparently missed a spot when I did the surgeon's scrub before going over there). I didn't even realize she was trying to eat me until I felt her tugginng the loose skin in an attempt to ratchet her jaws up further around my elbow. Took a good 30 minutes to get her off of me(she apparently had turned on her summer metabolism over the weekend and was HUNGRY, VERY HUNGRY NOW) and another hour before the bleeding stopped. No tears or slices in my skin, just a bunch teensy little punctures I couldn't even feel all bleeding like a mofo. I personally think Dr. Fry is basically correct with his "all snakes are venemous" hypothesis, seeing videos of colubrids nabbing slugs or lizards and seeing them freeze up and not even twitch post-bite heavily suggests an active mechanism of shutting resistance down. Having a salivary component that makes the nerves go haywire or drops blood pressure significantly so the snake can constrict(or just swallow alive) the prey item would be a huge evolutionary advantage for a constrictor. It wouldn't have to be built like a brick shithouse(i.e. boas and pythons,) and could efficiently hunt for prey rather than just sitting around waiting. They might not have purpose-built fangs and giant glands, but neither do the loris, european mole, and shrew family, and they're all quite venomous if you're the right(or wrong, depending on perspective) animal.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2012 16:03
|
|
|
Got some video if anybody feels like watching it. He actually nabbed two at a time right before I could get the camera going; boy does he ever turn bright green and yellow when he sees that cricket bag coming. This is extra nice because my cameras can actually focus on him when he does, half the reason most of my shots are crappy cell phone pics are because my other camera can't decide where or how to focus on him(which is a credit to his abilities, I suppose). Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Oct 12, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2012 06:31
|
|
|
Once I get home I'll take measurements of the one I built, it was pretty cheap overall to build(the screening was the most expensive part). Another good thing about it is that you can scale it up to a much taller cage without changing more than 2 cuts. It's basically always better to have more than less room, plus with a tall cage you can put taller plants in and let your vines go absolutely crazy to make a cham jungle gym. Though if you go with mine, do yourself a favor and silicone some vinyl linoleum to the plywood before you screw it onto the cage frame, and then generously silicone every seam and crack. I have accidental automatic drainage in mine as a result of this oversight. e: Also poo poo like this is why I fought tooth and nail to avoid having chameleons in my department, and flat out refused to sell the ones I was forced to take on unless the person could tell me exactly what they needed. Virtually nobody that's interested in having them is willing to put in the efforts and equipment needed to care for them once they find out what it takes. e2: Since I've been curious and it's germane to Shachi getting that thing back into health, what have been the best gut loading diets in your experience thus far? I've been using romaine, sweet potatoes with tiny drizzles of molasss, apples, melon scraps, and half a tomato left over from dinner the other day (which virtually disappeared overnight, god drat do crickets love tomatoes). I haven't tried dog food yet but I do have high-quality cat food (nature's variety Prairie Chicken kibble) which I plan on tossing into their food bowls as well. Oh, and some summer squash and zucchini ends as well. Basically all my produce scraps(minus onion/onion family). Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Oct 12, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2012 20:13
|
|
|
Personally I'd just mist him generously for the time being, but see what Pardalis/Foxy say. If you're going for a 4 foot cage, I'd say just throw down on a full 6-footer and let that ficus grow up nice and tall. Plus you won't have to build as tall a stand as I did with mine. If you do the 24" dimensions, home depot has some nice double-lamp shop fixtures for very cheap that you'll be able to toss fluorescent growing light bulbs into, they'll really help your plants flourish more than a UV bulb alone would, plus the near-UV spectra of light they emit at the top end will help him see truer colors and thus be a better eater(typically). Anyways here's my cut list for my own cage. These are in 1x2s so if you're doing 2x4s you may have to adjust some: Walls: 21 1/4" x 4 32 1/2" x 4 19 9/16" x 4 Door: 36" x 2 18" x 2 Floor: 21 1/8" x 21 1/8" piece of plywood. Mine's 1/2" ply, I wouldn't go thinner due to sagging risks aggravated by the misting. e: make sure you dechlorinate the water, and mist him with warm water to start off with. Warm water tends to be received far better than room temp or cool.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 13, 2012 00:46
|
|
|
Mine only eats worms when I've fasted him for a day, otherwise I get that  look from him when I toss it into the dish or pick it up with tongs and wiggle it for him.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2012 22:46
|
|
|
Don't bother, they're a massive pain in the rear end and at least one room of your house will reek, and all will likely be overrun with tiny crickets. Just order them in bulk at the desired size and make a nice cricket keeper or two instead, it's far more economical. My keeper is just a cheapo sterilite tub with holes cut in the top and side with nylon screen thoroughly siliconed on, with a bowl for dry food and a bowl for fresh veggies. I toss egg crate material and paper towel/toilet paper tubes in it for hiding places and have very few losses so long as I keep the veggies fresh. You can also get the cricket pillows, or cut cellulose sponges to fit inside of a large plastic jar lid and keep them damp to ensure there is plenty of water to drink. Clean water sources are pretty key for keeping crickets alive, they are basically sweathogs and will dehydrate and die far quicker than you'd ever expect; they also will poop on everything so using things that are bleachable in your keeper (i.e. no metals) is a very good idea.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2012 06:30
|
|
|
Since we've moved over to the subject of feeders, would anybody mind posting their favorite sources for feeders? It's easy to find companies to supply crickets and the common feeder worms, but for things like mantids and roaches everybody just wants to sell you colony starters, which is only good for the portion of keepers (and more importantly, their girlfriends or wives) who are okay with keeping an active colony of cockroaches or other bugs in their house. I know I'm not particularly enthused about the idea of a few hundred roaches breeding in my place, regardless of how well the colony tub is built. /\Oh hell yes she knows it's feeding day. They can smell that prey defrosting before it's even fully thawed yet.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2012 14:41
|
|
|
Somebody was not too happy about getting an extra misting today. He even bit the spray wand a couple times when I was getting the base of his tail and his feet, yeesh. (Apologies for blurry photos, neither my cell nor my actual camera will take a decently in-focus photo of him it seems. Speaks well of his outline-breaking abilities, but what a pain when I'm trying to show him off)
|
|
#
¿
Oct 23, 2012 02:21
|
|
|
Olive Bar posted:I now have a Pac Man frog (not sure what kind) in my possession. I have no experience with amphibians and would like to make sure I'm giving him/her the best care, my questions: 1. Wait and see if it starts calling is the easiest way. Males will also develop rough dark patches on their "hands" called nuptial pads. 2. I personally hate using moss because of ingestion dangers(friend lost an animal to sphagnum moss scarring its intestines). I use the super-finely-ground coconut coir like this because it's rot resistant and holds moisture for a good long time. It also starts changing color as it dries out so you can tell when it's time to re-moisten. 3. Go buy an undertank heater pad similar to this and stick it on one end of the tank, preferably the same end you have the frog's pool on. We have a 6x8 pad on one end of the 29-gallon the pyxie frog lives in and he loves it. Don't bother with an over-tank heat lamp, it'll just dry things out faster and make the frog uncomfortable. 4. Give it calcium/d3 powder on basically all its food. Make sure it's phosphorus-free though. And check the IU rating of the D3, since it's a fat-soluble vitamin you can overdo it and cause hypervitaminosis if you don't watch it. We use the ZooMed repti-calcium w/D3 for all the animals at my place and it's pretty good stuff. Somebody who's a frog nut can probably tell you the best one for that species though. 5. They get large enough to eat an adult mouse eventually. Don't feed them live mice though, it's cruel and only assholes do that. When it's big a thawed pinkie every other month or so will be a good treat. Watch your fingers when it gets bigger as they have odontoids that will cut the everloving poo poo out of your fingers. As in "ah poo poo I need stitches" cut you up. And they literally will eat anything in front of their face that moves, they don't care how big the thing it's attached to is. 6. Looks okay from the photo but that's a difficult thing to say conclusively from a single photo of one side of the animal. If you notice the frog developing anything gauzy or filmy over one or both of its eyes, it's getting an eye infection and it's most likely been kept in bad conditions. You'll need to treat it with antibiotics(We did tetracycline baths to cure the eye infection the pyxie came down with a day or so after the girlfriend got it at a show). 7. Chill out, it looks alright. Though you should invest in a 2.0 UV bulb for it, amphibs need UV just like reptiles do. Just not quite as much as their skin is more delicate. I say get a linear one rather than a coil. For food, do mainly crickets with soft worm treats every so often. I personally say skip hard-shelled larvae like mealworms as they basically just swallow, they don't crunch up their prey as well as lizards do. Feed your crickets nice things for a healthier animal. edit: If you have a small tank at the moment then don't keep an undertank heater under it(danger of overheating), just shine a lower-watt light bulb at one side of the tank, preferably the one with its pool. It needs to have a heat gradient just like any other herp does. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Nov 18, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Nov 18, 2012 03:20
|
|
|
That's pretty much the basics, you should go do your reading for the specific species you've got(it's in all likelihood an Argentine but double check anyways). There's some things that you could do differently but you won't be providing a bad environment with what I posted. I recommend getting it a good sized hide hut it with a good wide door and keeping at least double its body height in bedding so it can burrow down to its little heart's content. Don't have too deep a pool as they aren't great swimmers and can actually drown. Also training it to start tong-feeding might be a good idea. Don't hand feed it basically ever, it will end in blood and embarrassment.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 18, 2012 04:57
|
|
|
Photon is absolutely gorgeous. Beldar seems to have begun puberty(judging from the sudden appearance of sperm packets dropped or rubbed on branches and screen) and is accordingly cranky, contrary, and doing his best impression of a goth teenager with his typical colors lately. So no pretty photos without majorly pissing him off first and letting him feel like he's run me out of his domain.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2012 07:25
|
|
|
Foou Manchu posted:So this weekend was the Taylor Reptile show, apparently the biggest in Michigan (michigoons represent!) and I've been wanting a snake for a while now... needless to say the first dealer that put a Kingsnake in my hands got my money. Now the proud parent of a Striped Kingsnake, who after seeing him feed today, is going to live long and murder many (already dead) mices for me. Super excited! I'll tell you this: if you handle anything remotely small and fuzzy and you're not absolutely sure about the snake not being hungry, do a full-on surgeon's scrub of your arms up past the elbows before you handle it. It doesn't really hurt to get bit, but those little bastards are tenacious and will hang on for dear life in my experience. They're also extremely friendly for snakes, so you'll have a tv/computer buddy for sure once it's old enough.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2012 22:51
|
|
|
Celery Face posted:Thanks, a lot of vegetables that are great for beardies aren't usually kept in the fridge and can be difficult to find at the grocery store. Green beans aren't on the other hand so that's good to know. I haven't really given him any fruit for treats that often but one thing that Waffle goes crazy for is shredded carrot. I can't give it to him too often because of all the vitamin C but he just chows it down like a pig. As another approach to combating food shortages due to parental laziness, collards(and the mustard family in general) love cool weather and ought to grow like mad in BC(if your profile is accurate). So do plants from the pea family. You might try wrangling a seed packet or two out of the parents next time they go to the hardware store, they only cost a buck or so. I'm assuming you're somewhere in the vicinity of Vancouver, so you probably won't even have to water on a regular basis. The internet says to plant the seeds a month before the last expected frost for collards.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2013 16:04
|
|
|
Celery Face posted:Thanks for the tip, I've got a garden in my backyard so it shouldn't be too difficult to grow some collards. I live near Victoria actually so the weather is pretty neutral most of the time but it still gets cold during winter just like anywhere else in Canada. Kale and most of the other good greens love to grow in cool-to-cold weather as well, go hog wild!
|
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2013 21:49
|
|
|
Wow, what an rear end. Does she not believe in neutering/spaying cats and dogs because "omg puppies/kittens are the bestest evar!!11" too? The nutritional demands of some species are a massive pain in the rear end when they're gravid, I'm glad for you that it's an easy gecko species. I know if my cham was a female and somebody bred her without my express consent there'd be hell to pay.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 23, 2013 18:05
|
|
|
Yeah, just handle it a lot regardless. Socialized snakes are so much better than angry, bitey snakes.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 30, 2013 04:05
|
|
|
I would also point out that if you have the slightest amount of skill with tools, you can build an enclosure big enough to hold large snakes for way, way cheaper than buying them. The most expensive parts are going to the glass/plexi windows, the poly sealant for the boards, and a roll of metal screen. E: Yes, I know I'm not helping. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Feb 9, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2013 02:37
|
|
|
Dr. Clockwork posted:Has anyone here ordered from backwaterreptiles.com? If so, would you recommend them? Their prices are outstanding, but that also concerns me a bit. They're a California dropshipper hiding behind a shell company who purchased their business license in south Texas. Don't buy from them. e: In fact, here's a quick Google search that is absolutely bursting with reasons not to buy from them: http://www.google.com/search?q=backwater+reptiles+drop+shipper&oq=backwater+reptiles+drop+shipper&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
|
|
#
¿
Feb 19, 2013 03:36
|
|
|
Bollock Monkey posted:These are a couple of super basic questions before I go away and do more research, so I hope nobody minds! Firebelly toads are probably the A-1 best aquatic frog to start out with. I can tell you that all the ones I've taken care of loved to hang out on top of their Fluval or sit in front of the outflow right where the water pressure begins to spread out. They don't need a full paludarium, but most people like to do a water side and a dry side for them and put some easy-to-grow plants in there to make it look nicer. They eat like champs and aren't particularly noisy(they sound like small children quietly imitating a dog bark), and they're pretty to boot. No heaters (strictly) necessary either, they range out into Russia and northerly China, room temp is just fine. e: if you want to go balls-out on something, look into dart frogs. You basically have to construct an artificial rainforest with bromeliads and such, they're badass looking if you're willing to go the distance. Little pricey to set up, but very very cool.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 19, 2013 19:48
|
|
|
To chip in, you could do Budgett's frogs as well if you like the idea of having a carnivorous pet rock. Surinames and Budgett's basically do their best leaf-litter and rock impersonation til something tasty moves in front of them, then they gulp it down. They're both pretty forgiving in terms of water quality(nitrate wise anyways, ammonia will kill amphibs dead in a hurry regardless of species), and don't really need a huge amount of space. If you want something that's actually going to move though, don't get these frogs. They will also bite the poo poo out of you once they get large enough, so if you wanted to be able to pick up your frog easily they're not the best idea.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 20, 2013 19:26
|
|
|
OneTwentySix posted:I haven't ever kept ACFs, so I can't give any advice, but this site should help (http://www.xenopus.com/husbandry.htm, mediocre caresheet and live animals). They really shouldn't be too hard if you've kept fish before; stuff the tank full of java moss to help filter the water should help, too. Having a larger tank is always good, too, since there's more water and less concentration of any ammonia or nitrates before bacteria take care of them. As a counterpoint to this, if you've ever walked around/touched stuff in swampy or wet areas of the US you and your amphibs are probably chytrid-positive as well. It's an incredibly pervasive and durable fungus, and there are precious few areas around the world that are certified negative still. Frogs are funny with it, some (like Bullfrogs) can just about have a second skin composed of nothing but chytrid infestation and do just fine, whereas things like Panamanian Golden Toads keel over and die if somebody even thinks too hard about chytrid in their presence. Last I heard ACFs were suspected as a main introduction vector in several areas from affected lab animals being released, or spread the fungus to the wild through careless lab techs and researchers not practicing proper biosafety. e: I would personally love to see what happens when you chuck a dead wallaby in with a bunch of hungry Tasmanian Devils. I can only imagine it to be comparable to several furry meat vacuums dog-piling the corpse, shrieking and growling like demons.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 22, 2013 23:57
|
|
|
I would love to see that paper. The last time I was really looking at chytrid I found a neat map showing the calculated epicenters of the different strains that have popped up in South America and Australia, but that's probably old and out of date at this point.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2013 02:13
|
|
|
It will freeze to death outside, I can pretty much promise you. If you want to keep it, geckos aren't very hard; given the distribution of it look up Tokay requirements and that ought to put you on the right track. They wouldn't hibernate(mammal thing), but they *might* brumate. I really don't know and quick searches aren't turning up much, they don't seem to be a popular pet in the english-speaking herp world. That being said, office buildings typically have a lot more bugs than you think, they just rarely come into sight unless your workmates are filthy and leave food out everywhere. My impression of office building maintenance has been "out of sight, out of mind"; my old job(which was working for a humongous defense corporation who had a higher net profit than many countries' GDPs. If it flies and/or explodes and kills people either intentionally or accidentally they have a hand in it) had mushrooms growing out of the floor/wall of the men's room, and all they did was chop them off and bleach the area of floor and tile that looked off-color. God knows what is lurking in those walls still.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2013 19:11
|
|
|
Does anybody know whether pea vines are safe for reptiles to eat? Beldar has eaten his Malabar Spinach vine literally down to the dirt and I need to get something else in there for him to munch on. I'd do the normal veggie clip thing, but he doesn't go near anything new in his cage for at least a week, and seems able to tell the difference when I switch out the wilting leaf for a fresh one. Won't go near fruit or squash slices at all either, and I can't annoy him into biting them either unfortunately. I've got some collards planted in pots, but they're still seedlings and seem to be much slower growers than the snap pea vines. Aside from these, I wonder if kudzu would be a tenable cage plant for chams; legality issues aside(in some states, anyways) it grows fast enough to bounce back from being chewed on regularly, it's full of vitamins and minerals, and the flowers are pretty and good-smelling to boot. The only thing I can see that might sink the idea is that they like to grow large storage taproots, which may not play well in non-gigantic pots. In other news, I get to deal with medicating Beldar for the next couple weeks  He has had shed issues on his casque all winter long, and had shed layers on the edge that stuck fast and damaged the skin underneath. Some bacteria managed to get in and infect what I hope is just the dermal layers, poor guy has a slightly swollen left casque half with some reddish tight spots near the leading edge of the damage. Vet put him on baytril and silvadene cream, thankfully his crankyness makes oral meds easy to dose. Applying that silvadene cream is tempting the fates, though. Thus far I've just waited til he's fast asleep, and then ambushed him with a q-tip smeared with the stuff before he can process what's going on and try to take my finger off.
Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Mar 4, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2013 06:13
|
|
|
Malalol posted:
That looks like tail rot to me, snakes aren't supposed to have a black shriveled tail tip. And beardies get fatter and lazier as they age, it will chill out
|
|
#
¿
Mar 10, 2013 20:38
|
|
|
Pepsi-Tan posted:Nature is kick-rear end. How warm do you keep your place on average? Also what percentage/type of UV bulb are you using? It's generally good to put them shining at the same general spot so he can get his UVB while he heats up, but not be forced to sit directly under the heat lamp in order to soak up UVB. If you do the clamp-lamp thing where the bulb is relatively close to the animal, I personally wouldn't go higher than 30-40 watts. And that's assuming the tortoise can't get any closer than at least 4-6 inches from the bulb. Reptiles don't detect gradual heat changes very well, and you can cause thermal burns if you have too hot a bulb too close to where the animal can get to. Definitely, definitely put a thermometer right where the tortoise will be basking and make sure it doesn't go above 100 maximum. As far as the UV bulb goes, get a 5.0 bulb and have it situated less than a foot away from the intended basking area. Buy the ZooMed ones, they're a little pricier but they hit the "sweet spot" better than most other brands do(unless you're throwing down for the mercury vapor lamps, which are a whole other ball of wax). MAKE SURE YOU WRITE THE DATE YOU START USING IT DOWN. Replace it after 8 months earliest, 12 months latest. As far as plants go, you could plant a little section of that cat grass, it should be fine for snacks and grows pretty quick. Any vegetation you put in there is going to get eaten into oblivion, however, so don't figure on having permanent tank decoration plants. Tortoises absolutely LOVE squash vines and leaves in my experience, so you could try those as well. They'd likely work best as a potted plant you can just drop in from time to time for him to chow on, then retrieve for recovery after he's done savaging them. I love tortoises, I just wish they weren't generation-spanning pets that I'd have to will to my future children. If I had land, I'd love to have a big-rear end securely-fenced field area with a water hole, and a sulcata or other big torts roaming around. e: Revised my wattage. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Mar 21, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2013 18:17
|
|
|
Pepsi-Tan posted:drat, thanks a lot, I was using too high wattage of a bulb. By the way, this time of the year my room stays about 70~75 and during the summer it's in the 90s and can sometimes go a little higher, I do live in Southern California. An especially warm/cold part too. Well, which bulb though? The heat lamp is NOT a UVB source, period. Torts absolutely require UVB to stay healthy, if you're running just 1 lamp to produce heat then you're doing it wrong and not providing the correct environment. UVB need to be situated so the animal can get right up close to them(like an inch or two closest distance) if they choose, they don't put out much heat and past about a foot from the bulb the UV has dissipated too much and won't do any good. Also don't shine it through glass, any glass that isn't specifically labeled as "UV Transmitting" will absorb 95% or more of any UV radiation hitting it. It's somewhat pricey stuff too, so you'd definitely know if something you had was made out of it. If your bulb is 8-10 inches away, then you may be able to keep the bulb you've got now. Just put a thermometer under the basking area after it's had time to heat up normally and then see what you get. Above 100 = tone down your wattage. If you're not sure if you have a UVB lamp or not, you most likely don't. A lot of the basking spot lamps provide UVA, but not UVB. There is a very important distinction between them, namely: UVA does not catalyze vitamin D production in the skin. Poor vitamin D levels = sick, deformed torts. Here's a link to a ZooMed 5.0 UVB lamp: http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-Med-ReptiSun%C2%AE-Compact-Fluorescent/dp/B00061V4PI If you don't have a fluorescent bulb with a very, very blue color that has 5.0, 10.0, or similar marked on it, then you do not have a UV bulb and need to buy one very soon. The link goes to a compact fluorescent style, you can get them in the normal tube shape as well. Russians should do alright with a 5.0 bulb. You said it gets very hot in your room, you may have to start regulating the temp in there a little better or move the table to a spot that won't get up in the 90s all day. They like to bask in a nice warm spot, but they need to be able to cool down as well. You could cook the guy or heat-stress him to illness/death if there's no cool side of the table to shed body heat at. On the flipside, if it gets really cold in your room during the winter then either a red lamp or undertank heat pad stuck on the side of an appropriately-sized hide box might be a necessity in the wintertime. The whole point is to make an environment that the tortoise can use to keep its body temperature between the specific range it likes.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2013 20:36
|
|
|
Pepsi-Tan posted:I do the outside thing anyways, because he likes to run around and eat poo poo and wreak havoc. Let slip loose the turds of war, and all that. If you're giving him a good hour or more of direct sunlight every day then the UV bulb isn't critical to get right away. Plan to get one anyways though, better safe than sorry. Maybe toss a bit of calcium and vitamin D3 powder onto a piece of banana once a month or so to supplement him, make sure you keep your vitamin D powder in an opaque container in a relatively cool place - light and heat cause it to break down and become useless. You're probably not borking your tortoise, they're tough, hardy animals. Go do your reading though, it's invaluable. And yes, it's in all likelihood a heat/UVA bulb. If you had a UV bulb that was ranging up into the 50+ wattage range it would be putting out enough UV to easily blister and peel the tortoise's skin and give you a pretty decent sunburn from across the room. Branch his diet out a bit too, dandelion greens have a good amount of oxalic acid in them, which binds calcium in the body and prevents its use. You might think it will be expensive, but good news - grass and forb-type plants(i.e. most lawn weeds) are free and exactly what they like to eat in the wild. All that crabgrass in the lawn is actually free food! SoCal has a ton of native grasses(and most of them are kind of pretty), you could score seeds at a park or somewhere else you see them grow and grow them in a corner of the yard/pots if you were inclined. That could have the added bonus of attracting other things like native birds/etc to make things more interesting in the back yard. But don't pick anything that's been treated with pesticides/herbicides, or is close to a place that has. For example, if your next-door neighbor has a lawn service come and douse their place down with chemicals, don't feed him stuff picked from your yard. Also stay away from plants by the borders of golf courses and anything within 50 ft of a road, all kinds of nasty poo poo gets into the soil and picked up by the plants' roots. He's probably getting a lot of this when you have him outside, but it bears mentioning anyways. Tortoises are basically small shelled cows diet-wise, they're built to eat a ton of low-quality, lovely plant food and extract every last bit of nutrition from it. Malalol - After seeing the volume and frequency that torts poop, I'd argue "turdis" is pretty appropriate. Ever seen what a full-grown sulcata or Aldabra puts out? Turds of war indeed. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Mar 22, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Mar 22, 2013 14:43
|
|
|
Action Yak Police posted:I need some turtle help. Some human antibiotic ointments are okay to use on reptiles, this stuff was recommended for light abrasions/cuts by the vet I used to take my reptiles to for care at PetSmart(the one Banfield vet I've ever felt comfortable with, actually, the guy had a whole room of various reptiles at home that were in fantastic shape), and if you can get ahold of it silvadene cream is so safe you can even use it on eyeballs if necessary. Silvadene cream is awesome, it's very gentle and safe to use on most anything but does a number on everything microbial.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 6, 2013 19:29
|
|
|
Yes, let it heal on its own if it looks like everything's going fine. If you want to do something to make yourself feel better about it, giving it a rinse with sterilized(boiled and cooled) saline water wouldn't hurt.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 7, 2013 01:37
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 15:35 |
|
|
Yeah it takes a solid smack with a hammer to crack one of those things. I wouldn't give them to much outside of a hyena or one of those club-footed mantis shrimp as treats. Quick edit: you could feed it the little black pond snails that swarm in aquariums, their shells are thick enough to give a satisfying crunch but thin enough to not worry about causing a blockage. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Apr 8, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Apr 8, 2013 02:53
|
|