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Green and Bahaman anoles, both sold at Petsmart for 7 bucks or so. I once had a 55 gallon setup with 4 of each, 1 male and the rest females, and so many drat plants you couldn't see the ground. Had a few eggs. Went through a ton of crickets. But it was an impulse buy still and the only reason I could use such a large tank for it was because the ball pythons we had had in there were moved to an 80 gallon. Other 'beginner' animals to avoid: sulcata tortoises (I would avoid these unless you live on a few acres actually), box turtles, any kind of water turtle or water snake, chameleons, and any snake that gets over 5 feet. For tortoises, I mostly see small Russians in the chain pet stores, and those aren't bad, but they need good UVB, hibernate, need vet visits, and for most people they tend to be drat boring. An outside enclosure usually is a must. For the Burm ban, I'm honestly on the fence. I don't think most people can keep larger snakes in captivity, similar to how most people can't keep macaws or large fish. But rather than a ban, why not do a registry, similar to how guns have it, and a license is required for certain animals? I know that would never happen but I really don't think 99% of owners can properly care for a burm, a retic, an anaconda, etc.
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Jan 19, 2012 01:22
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 18:53 |
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Small note for live feeding: and this pertains to mice since rats are a good deal larger: it is possible for picky snakes if you are viligant. My ball python trio have never gone onto prekilled after ten years and just do a hunger strike. So when I feed them, one at a time, they go in the bathtub and I toss in one mouse, armed with a snake hook or something similar to swat the mouse away if needed, or to give the thing something to bite on rather than the snake. It can be done. It's a pain in the rear end and my other snakes are prekill-prey, but these three, never.
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Jan 19, 2012 14:17
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Thank you for posting that leechie picture. I don't know poo poo about them, but I didn't think that one looked healthy. As a male lizard, well, how the gently caress could he even support his weight to chase down a female? I just had the mental image of that leechie on a Rascal.
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Jan 20, 2012 05:35
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I want a stalker anole! Maybe one day I'll reset up that 55 gallon anole tank. One male, a half dozen females. It was kinda relaxing to watch.
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Jan 22, 2012 01:45
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I am fine with the ban of imports on Burms and anacondas. We don't need to import those drat things. As for the smaller pythons like balls, I don't think we need to import them either, but how far will the ban stretch, to cover owning and selling, or is that at a state level, similar to piranhas and stingrays? I wonder if PetsMart and PetCo would get behind a ban on ball pythons since I do see them for sale at their stores, but that can't bring in as much business as, say, birds.
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Jan 22, 2012 16:57
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5er posted:I live in the Portland, Oregon vicinity. This past weekend, there was a reptile expo in Wilsonville, one that happens on a semi-annual basis. I've been to a few of them (this time last year, I posted pictures in the previous herp thread of the normal and pastel ball pythons I picked up at one, I can post fresh pictures of them later), this past one was kind of lame. There was more stuff than reptiles available, and to my chagrin, not very many turtles. I was in the market to pick up a turtle, because my son was talking about how cool it would be to have a turtle. The show this past summer was just swamped with baby turtles of all sorts, in buckets and bins all over. This year, all I saw were the tiny assed loggerheads that spent most of their time in the water, maybe a handful of northeastern boxes that seemed like they may've been overpriced, and one young sulcata that was probably reasonably priced for its size but I still didn't want to pay about $250 for it. Avoid sulcatas. They get huge, are big diggers (they can tunnel far deeper than you'd think, and will knock down brick walls), and honestly are pretty dull in color. I recommend leopard tortoises over them any day, and that isn't just because we breed them (just got another clutch laid last week or so too). Russians are a safe bet too, if you can get a captive bred one, and they stay a lot smaller than a leopard, but aren't as colorful as most can get. Box turtles are pretty good too, but for the price you can get a leopard or Russian, sometimes one of each. Our first turtle ever was a box, but this was over 20 years ago.
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Jan 26, 2012 01:10
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For feeding, my trio of balls have eaten in the bathtub for almost ten years now. They know what the tub means. The Brazilian rainbow boas are fed in large plastic totes. The smaller balls and the Kenyans are fed in large plastic shoeboxes. And for the babies, I went to Smart and Final and bought a poo poo ton of deep deli cups with lids. Put some holes in, and presto, 100 feeding containers.
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Jan 27, 2012 02:06
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I just want to add a private gently caress You to craigslist responders who 'really really REALLY' want one of my Kenyan sand boa babies. This girl has been in contact with me for loving months, always asking for more pictures and if I was 100% sure on the gender and if I'd guarantee the genders and more. And of course always wanting the price to drop. I finally told her it was tonight or never, so I waited 20 minutes for the bitch to show up. She never did. Come home and there's an email from just before we were to meet, saying tonight was no good, can we do another night, and could I knock another 10 bucks off? 2 anery males for 50 was the first rate. I told her if she really wants them, the price is now $70 for both. And seriously that is still a loving steal. Wholesale pricing, I just need to move them!
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Feb 6, 2012 02:46
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The funny thing is that I haven't really had issues before with CL, so this time just burned me. Unfortunately I'm down to just 6 babies, not enough to send anywhere (most places want 10 minimum) and the pet stores around here are willing to pay perhaps $10 each. One place offered me a whole $20 for the two anerys and a two year old male.
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Feb 6, 2012 16:25
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Hood Ornament posted:Maybe don't sell animals on craigslist? I really usually don't. The pet store that always bought them from me closed up suddenly in December. Two weeks after the reptile manager said he wanted all of the babies I had, since the ones I'd sold them previously moved like crazy. I usually just use craigslist for selling extra shrimp or snails. I have gotten some good deals on aquariums there and sold some supplies, but for snakes, I usually don't. That said, herp content: one of my hognose babies finally shed! And he was ravenous for his meal. Cheshire is a pretty good eater. Alice seems to forget that she is a snake and spends some time hissing, puffing up, and mock striking the pinkie/fuzzy mouse. After some time she realizes she can eat it. But both of them still hiss and puff like mad when I open their cages. Will this presumably go away as they age? I know my albino Kenyan sand boa was like this and then one day the snake Valium apparently hit and he's chill as gently caress.
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Feb 7, 2012 02:32
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Goddamn that is one skinny gopher snake. Yay for Alice finally coming in to shed! And boo on all the balls and sand boas who want breeding season now and no food.
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Feb 15, 2012 01:05
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I want to echo the slow down part. When we first started getting snakes, we started with one, then a week later picked up another; a few months down the road got two more. The next reptile show, a few months after that, another snake and some geckos. We were beginners with any reptile non-tortoise and were drat lucky to not only have a ton of herp-keeping friends but a reptile zookeeper on call for us. That said, I've never seen a beardie 'throw spikes' out; they aren't porcupines. Perhaps he was spooked and blackbearded it up and the kid was scared. Either way, with all your new herps, QT time; clean the cages with bleach and be sure to sanitize/wash your hands every time before and after you handle each one. Most of that crap from the BD's previous owner is crap. Put the stuff aside for now. Also, as tempting as it is, chill on handling for a few days. Your pets have been through some stress with moving, let them acclimate before handling and pictures (on a side note, the PI 'omg animal explodes unless we get pics!' has always loving bothered me, especially for new animals.).
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Feb 19, 2012 13:35
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drat, one of our rescue cats is a black furrball named Night Fury. When my mom saw the movie, she understood the name. Otherwise movie/TV names include: Zuko, Ty Lee, Azula/Toph; Alien, Ripley; Alice and Cheshire. And Chewie the leopard tortoise, so named after some encounters with a rescue dog who was rehomed asap.
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Feb 22, 2012 01:15
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They might take a little time to re-warm up to you, but I wouldn't be worried. I was gone for over a year from my mom's house, and when I came back, all the tortoises bumrushed me come feeding time. They hadn't seen me in about 16 or more months and they did fine.
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Feb 23, 2012 01:01
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I'd like to echo that there are few lizards who actually will tolerate/like handling less than a chameleon. A rhino iguana, for example. Goddamn you little hognose snake Cheshire, for deciding you don't want to eat but keep acting like you do!
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Feb 25, 2012 01:58
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Big Centipede posted:I had a sub-adult female Western hog go for like 6 months without eating, then one day she started pounding mice like nothing happened. They're like balls sometimes in that respect. Yeah, one of my female balls Ripley went a goddamn year without feeding after being bitten by a mouse. No braining, prekilled, color change, rats, etc got her interested. Then one day she fed and it's been good since. Alice is a pretty good eater, Ches is less (then again Alice ate the day I brought her home) and right now the balls and sand boas are in a pre-breeding funk so NO one wants to eat.
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Feb 25, 2012 14:24
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Leachies remind me of fuzzy blue tongue skinks. Speaking of that, Jackie better be done hiding for shedding, I want some pics of the beast.
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Feb 26, 2012 07:15
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Trilineatus posted:Do you guys know of any other animal that would do well in a poison dart frog style vivarium? What about vampire crabs?
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Feb 27, 2012 22:07
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peanutbutterunicorn posted:I just moved in with my brother. He has what I guess to be about a 50 gallon terrarium (converted aquarium) with an iguana. The main body of the iguana is about 8-9" and his tail is just as long, so that puts him close to around 18-20". He has had this iguana for at least a year, and I have been doing some reading saying that they are supposed to be growing faster than his has. I'm just going to leave this here: http://www.anapsid.org/iguana/index.html
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Feb 27, 2012 22:08
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peanutbutterunicorn posted:^^thanks, I will give that a read and subtly show it to my brother..^^ In short, iggies should be nowhere near broccoli. You want salads like spring mix. No iceberg lettuce, no butter lettuce. Lots of greens. Check over the site, Kaplan has some good salad recipes.
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Feb 27, 2012 22:50
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Maaaaaaaaaaaan I want some sallies! But they cook here in AZ.  I might have to settle for some lungfish or bichir to get the looks-like-it fix.
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Mar 2, 2012 04:06
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Celery Face posted:My dad said I can't get a snake or a reptile in general because he hates reptiles, one is enough, I should ask for something more "girly" for my birthday and we aren't running a zoo. When I was a kid, decades ago, I wanted a bearded dragon for my birthday. We already had tortoises, and my dad hates snakes. So I figured a dragon would be easy to ask for. But I knew how he worked. If I asked for a huge impossible thing, and then a small thing as an alternate, I'd get the small thing if this was for my birthday. So I asked for sugar gliders, OR a bearded dragon. Guess who ended up with a breeding pair of loving marsupials when they were barely on the market, and the few people that had them said to feed them fruit and baby food? gently caress girly pets. I wanted a bearded dragon and got stuck with evil things who belonged in a drat zoo.
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Mar 13, 2012 03:09
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Don't take it to a chain store because they won't be able to take it. When I worked at PetsMart we had people regularly try to drop off their unwanted pets. Fish in buckets, rabbits and cats found crammed into cages, you name it. Oh, and the famous walk the dog in the store, take off the leash, and walk out minus doggie. Looks like a sulcata to me too.
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Mar 15, 2012 02:24
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I loving love these amphibian pics. Thanks for them, makes me want to go scouting for cool poo poo. But in AZ most cool poo poo can and will kill you. Okay, snake people, level with me; what snake eats guinea pigs? Or better yet, why would you feed your snake guinea pigs? Aren't they, like hamsters, pretty fatty animals? Wouldn't rats be safer, and are easier to procure? I'm just wondering as I might be adopting a guinea pig at the end of this month, and the adopter asked me a few times if I had any snakes that would be able to eat a piggie. I told her no, because last I checked ball pythons, Brazilian rainbow boas, hognoses and Kenyan sand boas can't devour more than a piggie foot. So what snake loving does? All I could think were ill-fed larger snakes like Burms or retics.
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Mar 19, 2012 06:13
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Sweet CupnCakes posted:I own burmese pythons and I have read on the burm forums that guinea pigs are used to fatten up females before breeding. Piggies are higher in fat then other food sources so it is not recommended to feed burms all the time. So I imagine that people have heard piggies are used for food and get scared when trying to give a pet away. This is what I was wondering. I'm always seeing ads for piggies listed as not for snake food, and I couldn't think of what morons would keep a snake on a steady diet of piggies. Anyway I'm probably a good rodent hypocrite because my mice are breeders and feeders, and I've had pet rats but none of my snakes will take frozen ones. Won't feed guinea pigs but if I had a large enough snake, rabbits would be all right. As for AZ wildlife, I used to live at a zoo and there were scorpions every loving where. I don't know what kind nailed me, but my leg went numb for half a day. Since I could still walk, although funny, and didn't have health insurance, I went on my day. I was later informed that next time, have a doctor check me out so I don't go full on body numb. Who knew, right?
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Mar 20, 2012 14:11
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I have to say overall that our beardies were easy to care for, but since I live in AZ, they got a lot of natural sunlight in a nice aviary-like cage we had in the backyard. And a good cage inside, but goddamn when you have a male and several females and they all want to be handfed, gently caress, at least the snake doesn't ask for that! Speaking of the snakes, my female hognose Alice is in shed. Again. She just shed a month ago! Cheshire by comparison is totally dwarved by her now. He only wants tiny pinkies; she will take fuzzies with relish. And last year one of my Kenyan sand boa females dropped 18 babies. One of them was pitiful. I mean, the others were all X inches long and super eager and dashing around. This one was at most .5X in length but was zippy too. I kept this one back when I sold the lot of them, and amazingly enough, this little fucker eats mice that even Ches turns his nose up at. Bugger is growing FAST. Time to set up real tanks soon for the trio of anery female babies and their future husband, Weapon Brown, the albino Kenyan I got a year or two ago. I hope their babies are pretty, but that's years away still. Oh, and with beardies, I remember that our adults got pinkie mice here and there, and they loving loved mealworms and cooked chicken, and goddamn they would suck an egg out of a garden hose if that was the only way to get it, but most of their diet, while adults, was greens. Since we usually had leopard tortoise babies year-round at the same time, we would go through several large containers of mixed baby greens and standard mixed greens. Every week, for a while, it was close to $20 for veges that no human had a chance to eat. I remember the puzzled looks from the cashiers at the grocery store when I dropped off another load of salad for the second time in the week, and here I wasn't losing any weight!
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Mar 25, 2012 07:07
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After seeing me feeding all the snakes today, my mom said she wouldn't mind parting with her Brazilian Rainbow Boas. There's four of them, one male and three female, and the issue comes from the largest, Azula. See, we got Azula from a neighbor years ago, and she had one eyecap stuck on. He'd done everything he could, and the vet said just to leave it. So she was blind in one eye. Now she is apparently blind in the other. She eats like a drat pig and isn't the most handable snake (mostly because we were trying to breed them and not mess with them during the cooldown and wakeup, etc) but I'm wondering if there's an ethical issue in selling a snake with two eyecaps on. She wasn't born with one covering, so it isn't genetic, and in every other way she's a stunning snake. But my mom is worried about this.
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Apr 2, 2012 00:34
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Goddamn and here I can't loving GIVE away my excess live mice. I bred them mostly for my picky ball trio, who refuse to eat prekilled, and to have live pinkies on hand for my sand boa babies. But it is very very rare for any male to end up with his back ruined, either because I mostly feed out the males, or they're so drat southern-style inbred that they don't loving care. Celery, is this a 40 breeder or standard?
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Apr 5, 2012 02:14
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:I dunno man. I bred mice briefly for a friend (who was using them as feeders for a stubborn ball). One went missing. Turns out I'd mis-sexed one. I found it's body, minus his head, hidden in a pile of shavings. Mice are crazy. Once in a very very great while I'll find a dead one that's been eaten. Usually this happens when (a) I am not home to feed them twice a day and no one else feeds them, despite me leaving notes reminding to FEED THE ANIMALS THAT TAKE UP AN ENTIRE ROOM IN THE HOUSE or (b) someone decides to be funny and toss a new mouse into an established tank. I have way too many of the drat things though and can't GIVE them away. When pet stores around here sell feeders for almost $4 each, it's loving insane.
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Apr 5, 2012 04:00
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rear end Crackers! posted:My crestie died today Not a terrible person, no. You might want to find out why she died first, though, and totally bleach out the cage, before using it again. For my corns, I had them in a 40 breeder. That seemed good for them.
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Apr 11, 2012 02:40
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I just realized that my female hognose Alice is twice the size of my male, Cheshire. Probably helps that she gorges as often as I feed her and he's loving picky about everything. And yea, I sold our Brazilian Rainbow Boas to a guy who breeds carpet pythons, and he was rather excited to get these for pretty cheap. In fact he was amazed at how calm and handable they were when I had warned him we didn't handle them much. I don't know if he was expecting them to nail our hands when he inspected them, but the snakes were pretty chill (and no I didn't cool them ahead of time) and he's posted me with updates. Hopefully he'll have good luck breeding them.
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Apr 23, 2012 03:42
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Psychobabble! posted:Hey all, i'm about to pick up a ball python tomorrow and I weird issue occurred to me. My boyfriend and I work nights(3:30-2am to be specific), so we're generally out of the house for 12 hours a day. Because of this, I was gonna pick up a timer to turn the lights off. However, he's being kept in our room(because I don't trust my two cats, and they're shut out of my room during the day). Will us coming home at 3ish in the morning and turning on the room light be a problem? Should I drape a blanket over his tank for the few hours that we stay up? I'm just worried about the blanket getting too heated up by the lights and stuff(I generally keep a night light), or him not having oxygen. Will it not really be a big deal? We normally stay up till 6 on the weekdays, later on the weekends. Ball pythons are nocturnal and don't really need a day light. None of mine have had day lights for years, once I realized that they were fine with just the room's blinds barely open.
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Apr 28, 2012 20:48
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Stuff is usually cheaper at herp shows. Everyone is in competition with each other to unload the most poo poo the fastest. I had a breeding trio of corn snakes who were always flighty. By comparison, my milk snake pair, despite rarely being handled, are really loving laid back. Almost as laid back as a ball python. They're great eaters and I hope to have some eggs from them this year. But for such long and lanky snakes, they are pretty chill.
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May 3, 2012 01:38
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If you block off the nose and part of the face, my female hognose Alice really does look like a rattlesnake. And she's hit a growth spurt and keeps trying to escape her cage. I had her out today, and she alarmed me by stretching and opening her mouth a few times. She just got done shedding a week or so ago. Standard stuff? Her future mate (I hope) is so much more laid back.
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May 8, 2012 03:10
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Speaking of long lived, and I will post pictures once I get some, when I was a kid we got a female box turtle who we named Tonya. I was maybe 6 or 7 then. When I was 9 she laid eggs, and we still have her two daughters, Cheetah and Tank (screw the names, we were kids, all right?). I'm turning 31 this year and the three girls are still as active as ever. That might not be as impressive as our leopard tortoises. Our first pair were bought back in the 90's when wild-caught specimens were all you could get. So C and J were adults when we got them. I was probably 9 then too. And they truck on. In fact summer nights are bound with the echoing grunts of C trying again to mount his lady love. In fact, despite the other females we have now, C still only goes after J and no one else. Chelonians. Freaks.
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May 18, 2012 03:55
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So out of curiosity, how bad of a pain are we talking if you get nailed by a under-a-year-old hognose? My female Alice has gone from being flashy to freaking the gently caress out and going hood-open and tail rattling any time someone walks near her new cage. Goddamnit snake you should not be more flighty than the loving milk snakes!
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May 24, 2012 06:21
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All right, having issues with eggs. I've had my milk snakes for 3 years now, and they bred last year with about six eggs. I was unaware of the eggs and when I sprayed the female down, well, she was sitting on the clutch and they all molded. This year she was with the male longer, and...all I see are duds. Yellowy eggs and these ones aren't sprayed or wet or laid in a bad area (though she did ignore the eggbox again, bitch!). So my question is, is my male sterile, or is this a common thing with milksnakes to have clutch after clutch of duds? My sand boas are a different category for ease of breeding and when I had my corn snakes, they bred and hatched just fine. Milksnakes, though. edit: The snakes are three years and a few months old, and I found four slugs here, last year it was seven. Is this just a bad pairing or perhaps a female who can't successfully lay? Cowslips Warren fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Jun 3, 2012 |
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Jun 3, 2012 02:03
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Big Centipede posted:First clutches are often duds in my experience, and the second bad clutch could be a fluke. If she's ignoring the laying box, try stripping her cage bare except for the box when she's about to lay. I saw them wrapped up at least 4-5 times during the space of two weeks or so. I wonder if she didn't use the lay box because they were all slugs?
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Jun 3, 2012 05:23
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Question regarding ant poison. So the loving ants have decided to invade my mouse room. This is a problem since, not only do I keep pet small mammals like Dexter the guinea pig there, but all my feeder mice are in this room. I can't find where the ants are getting in at but I suspect it is from the front yar and up through the baseboards. Today I cleaned the entire room with a ton of vinegar and vacuuming, and now I need to find a way to kill any fuckers left over. All I can find that is safe and isn't direct poison is DE, Diatomaceous Earth. I know there's food quality grade that is fine for humans to eat, but is it safe if the dust gets on the mice or in their food? I'd rather have ants than dead snakes.
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Jun 4, 2012 20:00
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 18:53 |
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Thanks, now to find corn starch! I'm worried about one of my female Kenyan sand boas; she had 11 babies last year (the year before she was on a break and the year before that she had 12 babies) and since then she hasn't seemed as into eating or as large prey. Rather than adult mice she goes after several fuzzies or hoppers. She's also started acting strange, mainly by letting her lower half flip upside-down and just chills. She still hides, no breathing problems, but she might take up to a month off eating. Is this all because it's kinda breeding season now and she and all the others are taking a year or two off?
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Jun 5, 2012 03:06
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