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Suggest adding fire-bellied toads (bombina spp., especially orientalis) to the beginner frogs list; they're cheap, hardy, easy to set up, active, somewhat charismatic (compared to other frogs, anyway), and they have a nice call. I have two who are at least 10 years old, they just eat crickets and hang out and occasionally go 'arp arp arp.'
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Jan 18, 2015 08:09
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I don't know for beardies, but with cresties, tail biting seems to be related to using worms/grubs as food items. Especially because of the contrasting colors on tails (an adaptation that makes tail dropping more effective as a decoy when escaping a predator). If you never feed your cresties worms, tail biting seems to not happen.
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Jan 26, 2015 19:59
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Agree cresties don't need UV. Disagree a pet for a child should be kept in a plastic bin: also, cresties are arboreal, so they need climbing surfaces and are best suited to a vertical vivarium with branches, and a soft substrate (I recommend sphagnum moss). Moreover, they need to be misted daily, but the viv needs enough ventilation that it dries out between mistings... and if you are going to feed crickets, a viv that won't let them escape is nice. You can do all of those things with a plastic bin, but a nice setup that lets your son observe his pet's behaviors is better. The gecko will mostly only be active at night, but I've got one that comes out earlier in the evening and another that doesn't come out until after midnight, so it varies. Having a glass setup where you can let it get dark, and then turn on the room light and watch the gecko do stuff in the evening is a nice way to enjoy a pet that is otherwise dormant during waking hours. Exo-Terras are expensive, but they're also really nice. The next step down would be a 20 gallon tank on its side with a sliding screen door top (which becomes the front of the viv). That's a lot more affordable. One thing to be aware of is that cresties can be handled, if they're handled regularly, but it's good to have someone show you how to do it (or watch some videos) and a five-year-old that gets a little grabby may find himself with a flopping bloody tail. It won't kill the gecko to loose a tail, but it can be a disturbing thing to watch happen even for an adult. Cresties that have dropped their tails already are often a little less expensive, so that might be an option for your kid? e. Actually I changed my mind, I agree with FB. A five year old is too young for a small reptile unless it's totally off-limits and he's not allowed to handle it - mom and dad can handle the pet while he watches, but that's about it. Get your son a puppy. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Feb 3, 2015 |
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Feb 3, 2015 21:55
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Edited my post but yeah, you're right. I've occasionally met a five-year-old who could handle a gecko, but they're really rare, and the vast majority are going to get it out when dad isn't around, it's goign to jump and startle him, and then he'll either kill it being too rough, or lose it. I don't think it's necessary to be hostile while saying that this isn't an appropriate pet for a small child, though, or to say poo poo like "but you're gonna do it anyway," like random stranger you don't know is incapable of listening to and accepting advice.
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Feb 3, 2015 22:01
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I just remembered, my little brother had a firebellied newt beginning when he was quite young. He had it in a planted aquatic viv with rocks that the newt could crawl out onto, and we had a family of guppies in the tank that would reproduce and then the guppy babies would be newt food. My brother knew the newt was not a pet for picking up and playing with. I'd think a tank with a firebellied newt or firebellied toads would be OK in a common space, they can nominally "belong to" the kid, the kid gets to put in food items, but does not have unsupervised access, and if worse comes to worst, well, they're very cheap animals. Hermit crabs might also be an inexpensive option? Silver Nitrate posted:I have to do some cleaning today, are there any animals I have that ya'll want to see? I have one of everything. (No pythons) Do you have any satanic leaf tail geckos? Those things are amazing. Last I checked (which was quite a few years ago) they were all wc coming out of madagascar and soon to stop showing up, but there was chatter that a few breeders were trying to get cb going to replace the wc trade.
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Feb 5, 2015 00:58
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CaladSigilon posted:I've been tossing around the idea of getting a terrarium and some poison dart frogs, but I am a bit worried about two different things: Keep some firebellied toads alive for a year and then graduate to dart frogs, if you're still interested. I've kept darts for years. They can be tricky animals because they lull you into a false sense of security by looking like they're fine, and then suddenly die, sometimes without any indication of why. It can be a slow buildup of nutritional imbalance, or a single day of temperatures outside their habitable range, or a long-term illness you never knew about. In terms of setting them up in a viv, it's not that hard. You do want a planted viv, with bromeliads and/or some pothos and with live moss, and probably a water feature. You need to control for humidity, which means either daily misting by hand, or a pump mister on a timer, or both. You need to keep their viv in a temperature-controlled room, but normal household temps are generally OK (something like a range of 65 to 75 degrees F). And you need a lighting setup that provides UVB inside the vivarium (most glass and plastic filters out UVB, so you have to either shine through screen/mesh, have lights inside the viv, or buy UVB-transparent material for your lid). The best thing to do is get that setup up and running and let it settle for several months, so the plants become established and you can be confident the vivarium's a stable habitat. You can also watch for pesky invaders like snails, slugs, spiders, etc. that are much harder to eliminate if you already have live frogs in there. You need to feed dart frogs dusted fruit flies daily or every other day, and occasionally offer other food items for variety and nutritional completeness. You need to watch closely for signs of parasites, and you need to give them enough room that they don't become stressed. Some species can be kept in groups and some are better off as pairs or alone. You can neglect dart frogs harmlessly for a weekend, but not longer than that, so if you leave town a lot you need someone who can come in and feed them and check on them while you're gone. Also think about how you'll transport your frogs if you need to take them to an exotic vet. A small carrier with wet sphagnum moss and a lid with small holes is fine. This doubles as a temporary habitat while you're cleaning or replanting their main vivarium. You will want to figure out how to catch the frogs without injuring them: a lot of folks use a tube. Most people suggest starting with Auratus - they're less expensive, larger, and fairly hardy. I started with Leucomelas, which are also a robust frog; our first pair of Leucs lived for over ten years. But, I'll reiterate: if you've never kept frogs before, darts aren't the best choice as starter frogs. Firebellied toads cost like five bucks and are super-hardy; or, there are other small frogs that can be kept more easily than darts. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 17:18
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Oh yeah I should add, never buy dart frogs from a pet store, and avoid buying them at big reptile conventions as well. You want to purchase directly from a reputable captive breeder, one which can tell you exactly how old the frogs are, what locale their lineage is from, and will guarantee replacement if the frog dies within a few days of your purchase. Also, especially for your first frogs, buy full-grown adults, not just-got-their-legs juveniles. Far more likely to survive, less likely to have parasites, less likely to be stressed to the point of near-death by the trauma of traveling. Herp show frogs are super-mega-stressed due to the small containers, bright lights, and handling by hundreds of attendees. If you live in California I can hook you up with good suppliers.
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Feb 5, 2015 18:25
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Rolling can be symptomatic of: infection, dehydration, head trauma, hypocalcemia, and other issues. Seconding that you should at the very least call a vet experienced with herps and discuss the issue, and probably bring the dragon in for an appointment.
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Feb 12, 2015 01:33
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Sure, that's also possible, but we already know that this is a recent acquisition and he may also be underweight. Without more information, it's worth pointing out that rolling is a symptom of disease among bearded dragons, because an owner might not know that. We do not have to be hyperbolic like Fluffy, of course, but we can at least help a herp owner be better-informed.
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Feb 12, 2015 01:38
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Well that's good news. 
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Feb 12, 2015 01:51
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This is the Humane Society's page on snakes. It's full of disinformation and hyperbole. It's also completely correct about one thing: the large majority of captive reptiles are owned for less than one year, who typically kill them through ignorance and neglect. I think the Lacy act is really really bad, but I do agree that America has a serious problem with inhumane treatment of animals. We need to do a lot better regulating who can sell exotic animals, and what responsibilities they should have in educating their customers (and refusing to sell to customers who obviously don't understand what they're getting into). This thread is a good example: we encourage first-timers to get their feet wet with hardy, easier-to-care-for animals, we're pretty clear about what constitutes adequate keeping and feeding practices, and we discourage people from casually committing to animals that can (should) live for decades. The whole boa thing is just ridiculous fearmongering, though. 12 deaths since1990? How many people have pet dogs killed in the same time period? Does that mean nobody should keep pet dogs? People decide they don't want snakes any more and abandon them. No poo poo. They do that with literally hundreds of thousands of cats and dogs every year, too. And abandoned/irresponsibly-kept cats in particular have a massive impact on the local wildlife. We don't see the humane society advocating laws to prohibit the sale or keeping of cats, now, do we? So I'm torn. The Humane Society does a hell of a lot of good work, but they're so wrong on this issue. 
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Mar 11, 2015 02:35
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Pet stores are bad, especially the big national chains, but also a lot of the small local places that mostly sell dogs and cats and a few birds and they have one or two fish tanks with $random reptile in it. But in my limited experience, the very worst are the herp shows, where legions of families with their kids wander the aisles looking at a few hundred herps and then buy an animal, a generic Herp starter kit, food, etc. just to get their 9-year-old to stop begging for a loving Sulcata. The vendors are usually way to busy to actually have an in-depth investigative conversation with a harried parent about the multi-generational commitment of a tortoise, much less dissect the bargain Dad just forged with his son that he can have it but he has to promise to take real good care of it, because I'm not going to do it for you. The condition of the animals often leaves a lot to be desired, too: transport to and from the herp show is stressful, a lot of them are in little tubs under bight lights being picked up and inspected every five minutes, etc. etc. My wife and I used to look forward to going to our local shows (San Mateo and Sacramento, CA) but we stopped a few years back after all the frogs we bought at one died within days, and we had a chance to chat with one or two vendors who work the shows and hear some of their horror stories. I feel bad for the vendors, too: some of them pretty much have to sell at shows in order to make a living, because if they don't, individual sales and occasional sales to pet stores just aren't enough to stay viable. There are a few pet stores that do their best to have educated staff, but there's a lot that don't, and too many that treat all reptiles (and all amphibians) with identical housing/food/humidity/temperature. Two of my cresties are rescues from a local PetCo that was doing their best to kill them, for example (that was in ~2005 or so, and they're still doing great . I don't really know what the right solution or set of solutions are to improve herp & amphibian pet care conditions and survival rates. I'm only sure that ignorant legislative bans are not the right approach. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Mar 11, 2015 |
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Mar 11, 2015 06:03
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I regularly order fruit fly cultures from Ed's Fly Meat (which just renamed to just fly meat, https://www.flymeat.com I think last month). Erin doesn't always have Hydeii but there's always Melanogaster, and you can also buy culturing kits if you want to go that direction. Fruit flies are perfect food for very small frogs because they've been bred (by scientists!) to be flightless, so they behave like ants (which is one of the principle foodstuffs of dart frogs) while being far, far easier to culture and feed than ants. I am now feeding only three dart frogs, but I always have two cultures which I keep a few feet apart so it's less likely that both would crash at once from mites or something. Each culture tends to peak after about three weeks, but will last around six if kept at the right temps and fed-off regularly (to avoid an overpopulation and then pop crash). I'm too lazy to make my own cultures, so I just order two cultures every ~6 weeks, but back when I was doing it myself, it wasn't that hard. The worst part is just cleaning out culture jars for re-use, you have to scrub the chrysalises off the glass and it's kind of a gross job. The best fruit fly medium recipe I ever found was one based on bananas and frozen concentrated grape juice: It's the "power mix" on this page. Holy drat does that recipe produce like nuts, I'd seed a jar with flies and in two weeks the inside surface of the jar would be 100% coated with pupating flies. Notably, the names dropped on that recipe (erin, tracy hicks) are hoary grandpas of Frognet, the old dart frog listserv that's been around for decades now. (Tracy Hicks recently died, RIP, he was a really cool person.) Rice flour beetle larvae also work well for small frogs, but I don't like culturing them because if any escape and get into your kitchen, hey guess what, they'll contaminate your rice, flour, pasta, beans, cereal, and anything else they can get into. Gross. I've also had some kind of bean beetle/weevil, which were fun, you just get a deli cup full of beans, and the beetles do their full life cycle in the cup. Feeding them off was a challenge though, it wasn't always easy to get some out without dumping beans into your frog enclosure. The one thing I would avoid is superworms and mealworms, unless you're 100% sure they're OK with that species. Both types have fairly tough exoskeletons that aren't always easy for some frogs to digest, and they can also both bite. Garden earthworms and wax worms are both much softer and better, although wax worms are quite high in fat so should not be fed too much. The key thing of course with all frog food items is to make sure you're supplementing properly with vitamins and calcium. Many frogs also require UV so make sure you know what your frog needs and you're providing it.
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Mar 20, 2015 18:28
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We were lucky in that all three of our Bombina orientalis turned out to be males, so we've never had eggs or breeding. The only way you're going to control the breeding is by always finding and destroying eggs, or, by separating males and females. The males are generally going to be the ones that call, but the females can make noise too, so even that isn't super easy to judge by.
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Apr 25, 2015 21:00
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From the dart frog perspective, line breeding is common and there are arguments for and against it. Wild-caught dart frogs tend to be caught by someone going up some trail or to some village or whtaever and then catching every frog they find in the immediate area. These frogs are all probably fairly closely related, and they tend to all have similar patternation. Then you get these frogs being called a morph. There are a number of species of darts that have a bunch of (attractive and interesting) morphs. The question then becomes: is this really a "different frog" from some other frog of the same species but different morph? Or did you just create a morph by collecting twenty related frogs and linebreeding them in captivity to flood the hobby with 200 F1 frogs, in a way that would not have happened in the wild? It's an important question for conservation reasons. So far, nobody has successfully reintroduced dart frogs to the wild to repopulate an area where a given species has been extirpated. But there is the thought that such a thing might happen in the future. And zoos are notoriously terrible at dart frog husbandry. Where zoos have the advantage is in record-keeping. Most people who buy dart frogs know what the "morph" is that they have, but have no other records of parentage, or locale where the original wild caught ancestors were taken. A much smaller number (but the ones most active on online dart frog forums and email listservs) do have locale information, and a decent number can at least identify the breeder they bought from. Over time (decades), dart frog species and individual morphs have waxed and waned in popularity. It's clear that in some cases, an initial flood of a specific morph from WC animals gets out into the hobby, most buyers are not breeders, and then as they die off, the remaining frogs are too dispersed to sustain a network of true-bred exchange to maintain it... this also takes place as other morphs/species show up and are the new thing that dart frog keepers gravitate towards. There has been a long-standing, very loud and very insistent majority that says "never ever crossbreed dart frogs" because of the desire to sustain populations that could one-day be reintroduced to the wild as "the right frog that belongs here." Many dart frog species are closely related enough that cross-breeding is probably very easy and likely, when males and females are kept together in these tiny vivariums we keep in our homes. If we don't sustain these pure morphs, then perhaps the day will come when we want to reintroduce the frogs but we can't, because they're effectively "gone" from the hobby in their original form. And as I mentioned, zoos do not keep a lot of frogs (certainly not anywhere near the kinds of huge collections that are out there in the hobby), they tend to kill their frogs due to poor husbandry, and just like hobbyists, they tend to focus on a minority of especially colorful and bold species/morphs that attract the public eye. But. Line-breeding is obviously problematic for genetic health. In the wild, frogs readily breed with siblings, and there are usually not horrible consequences right away. But basically nobody knows if the tenth generation of inbred frogs of a specific morph of a specific species of dart frogs is "healthy" in a way that it would survive reintroduction. Linebreeding doesn't just allow negative recessive traits to get concentrated: it also tends to lose genetic traits altogether. The founder effect is critical here because of the WC practices. Frog collectors looking for animals to sell commercially do not take care to collect just one frog from "this" spot, and just one frog from "that" spot that is 100 yards away through some thick jungle, or is on someone's private property, or whatever. So a wild population that has many rare, but extant traits (say, 5% of the population has a given trait) is then represented in the hobby by line-bred morphs that lack that trait, because the collector simply didn't collect evenly from a dispersed area. Perhaps even worse, "negative" traits that would kill a frog in the wild may not be sufficiently disadvantageous to kill it in captivity; so, we may be inadvertently reinforcing "bad genes", spreading them around amongst an otherwise-healthy captive population, without even knowing it. For example, we are probably all creating populations of dart frogs that specialize in obtaining maximum nutrition from fruit flies. We may be breeding away the ability to metabolize and manufacture dart frog poison (batrachotoxin), because we do not offer the food items that the frogs synthesize the toxin in the wild. One of the additional effects of these breeding practices is that there have been some "morphs" that turned out to not be "real." They simply don't represent a consistent patternation found in the wild. They were created by the founder effect, most likely. That doesn't make them automatically wrong to own or breed, but it may mean that it's "ok" to crossbreed members of that fake-morph with other similar-looking morphs of the same species... perhaps even desirable, to gain some genetic diversity in their offspring. In more recent years, there have been arguments back and forth about the real-ness of specific morphs. Hobbyists, particularly the kind of dart frog hobbyist who is active on the major forums and goes to club meetings and attends Frog Day, are increasingly aware of the need to develop sustainable populations in the hobby that are genuine representations - as much as possible, anyway - of threatened wild populations. There are organizations like Treewalkers International who have done preliminary work getting genetic samples and documenting the state of frogs in the hobby. Anyway. That's a lot of words, but the important point here is; among dart frogs, exactly what you breed with what can be important, unless you're certain you will never ever sell or give away offspring of your frogs. Some folks believe that captive populations are never going to be suitable for reintroduction (the idea that we can recreate destroyed ecosystems is itself controversial, but even if we're just talking about trying to restore areas that are damaged but not completely ruined, it's unlikely that whoever is in charge of such an endeavor would appeal to the general hobby - notorious for poor or nonexistent documentation - for individual frogs for such a reintroduction). In which case, who cares whether you tried cross-breeding? Maybe you'd come up with an interesting new pattern that would be commercially successful. Others believe that a day may come where some species - and by extension, some morphs - only exist in the hobby, and perhaps only in small, dispersed numbers within the hobby, especially for the less-popular, less-charismatic dart frogs. In that event, it may be that the only way we save a morph from outright extinction is if every individual of that morph has been purebred within the population of that morph. I personally think that there's a gray area. I suspect that 99% of the work of saving dart frogs from extinction will and is focused on habitat preservation, and that if we get to the point where a morph is only alive in captivity, we have probably lost that frog. Sooner or later. Until someone somewhere reintroduces dart frogs and then verifies over the span of a decade or more that the reintroduced population has survived, we simply can't know how much genetic diversity can or must be preserved. The controlled, peer-reviewed studies of morph DNA drift, founder effects, sustainability of CB populations, etc. just haven't been done. Hobbyists should be engaged and involved as much as they can be, but can't be expected or relied upon to keep a given morph absolutely "pure" but also healthy and avoiding excessive inbreeding. But people who own exotic dart frogs (and by extension, exotic pets of any kind) that breed them ought to at least inform themselves of the issues, so they can make intelligent choices about whether and how they choose to cross-breed, document it, and share their offspring with the world. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Apr 28, 2015 |
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Apr 28, 2015 20:03
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I think the only reasonable answer is "it depends." -If the animal is an endangered or threatened species, or if it's illegal, than absolutely not -otherwise, if the animal's quality of life will be significantly degraded in captivity, then it should be kept only if re-release is likely to kill it -otherwise, if the keeper can be responsible, there is good information available on how to provide a healthy habitat (healthy both for physical wellbeing and for mental comfort), and the animal's keeping can be safe for the humans around it, then it's probably OK. It's easy to type out a list like that, but beyond the first point, it's a whole bunch of judgement calls and guestimates in most cases.
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May 6, 2015 06:52
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Fraction posted:She usually just climbs/jumps up to my shoulder and then chills there for a bit. Her movement is pretty slow (cooler room temp than tank temp), but her jumps are fast. She doesn't really fire up while being handled her, but when I handle her at different times of day/different days she's usually different shades. Put a drop of honey on your fingertip and see if your crestie will lick it. Also, you're feeding some kind of gecko diet, right? Put a small amount (a few drops maybe) into a very small dish (a bottlecap maybe) and, without moving fast to startle the gecko, hold it riiiiight under her nose. See if she'll lick it. When I feed my geckos, the food is usually viscous enough that I can see lick-marks later. It's OK if the food is a bit more watery, since that keeps them hydrated, but it may also cut down on the scent a bit. If you're concerned about eating, get an accurate gram scale and weigh her every other day for a couple of weeks. If she's not losing any weight, she's probably doing fine. e. if you're feeding crickets, make sure they're no longer than the width of the gecko's head. A little smaller than that is best. Put them in when she's awake, and you will usually see a vigorous hunting response the instant she spots a cricket moving. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 17:17 on May 28, 2015 |
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May 28, 2015 17:13
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Fraction posted:Ha, so I ordered a scale and... only her body fits on, not her tail. Get a plastic tub or something, put it on the scale, and push the tare/re-zero button. Now you can add gecko to container safely. And weight is usually given in grams. I think that might be 0.81 ounces, which is about 23 grams, which based on memory, so please check this would be a decent weight for a 10 or 11 month old crested gecko? How old is yours? A full grown crestie is around 35 grams, but they vary a fair amount in fullgrown size so don't freak out if you're a bit behind "expected" weight. The key thing will be to weigh her once or twice a week to see if her weight is steadily growing, stable, or dropping. e. Oh and bear in mind that sexually mature females will lay eggs occasionally, which will correspond to a sudden drop in weight from just before they were laid. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jun 5, 2015 |
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Jun 5, 2015 20:31
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I managed to convince her to stay still long enough to weigh her, and she's 0.81. Is that about normal? She'll be uhhhhh about four-five months I guess by now.
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Fraction posted:Having a bit of a problem getting/keeping my humidity levels down. I bought a hygrometer, and my readings are usually between 80-100%. For cresties it's app supposed to be the 60-80% range. I have three live plants and a handful (was two handfuls) of moss stuff in there, misted twice a day, temps usually around 20-23C. Thoughts? Everything FB said is right, but one thing you can do is make sure there's reasonably good airflow in/out of the vivarium. What's your ambient humidity in the room you keep the viv? If it's a lot dryer, but your viv is staying super-humid, that's a sign of inadequate airflow.
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Jun 22, 2015 19:17
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Internal to a house could be really different from outdoor ambient humidity. Central forced air heating can dry out the air a lot, for example. 
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Jun 22, 2015 21:25
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Yeah these geckos come from New Caledonia, a temperate island. They naturally experience regular rainfall and dry cycles, but I'm sure occasionally it rains for a week, just like it does in any similar climate. They can deal with a few weeks of humidity no problem, and too humid is better than too dry (too dry and you can get stuck shed). Unless she's obviously sick, I'm sure she's fine.
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Jun 22, 2015 22:46
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Order 100+ at a time from one of the online cricket places, like flukers or whatever. Set up a bin in a garage our outside or something, ideally where they can't overheat or underheat, have adequate ventilation, and won't attract nuisance bugs. Buy them on the smallish side and feed off of them for a couple weeks, then dump out the bin, hose it down throughly to flush out the horrible dead cricket gunk, and start again. That's what I used to do. Nowadays I just suck it up and buy 40 crickets a week at .13 a cricket because I got sick of dealing with the dead-cricket loam at the bottom of the bin constantly.
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Jun 26, 2015 19:05
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Yeah I order a couple of cultures from (formerly Ed's) Flymeat.com. A culture of melanogaster kept at room temperature will produce flies for 4-6 weeks. During the week when the culture is peaking you will be needing to feed off at least a teaspoon full of flies a day; if you don't feed them off fast enough, the culture will crash faster. If that's too many for your frogs, just move them into a different container with a bit of banana or whatever, because the key thing is to reduce overcrowding and the amount of flies that are just dying of old age in the culture. This makes the cultures last significantly longer (like, 2-3 weeks longer). Hydeii are usually not available, but when they are, I always get one (I'm normally ordering two cultures at a time). They produce bigger flies more slowly and last a bit longer... 6-8 weeks, I find. Tadpoles eat fish food and algae and stuff. You should remove the adults as soon as you see eggs, because they'll eat eggs, tadpoles, and froglets if they feel like it. Froglets really need live food and flightless fruit flies are some of the best. You can also order pinhead crickets (these are crickets that are just a few days old) and they're good food items too. Dust flies/pinheads with vitamins and calcium every third feeding or so. Crickets should be gutloaded, and if you want vibrant red bellies, include carrots in the cricket diet to provide carotine. I've also heard of folks using various mineral supplements that contain "color enhancing" minerals. On the advice of a breeder I purchased a bottle of "Blair's Super Preen vitamin supplement" which is intended for birds. There's nothing alarming in the ingredients list but I eventually decided I didn't care enough to give it a try and risk overdosing a frog on some random vitamin that they shouldn't have too much of. In any case, bear in mind that frogs are "quantity not quality" breeders. They produce dozens or hundreds of eggs because most aren't expected to survive. If you lose a few tadpoles and a few froglets, that's not such a tragedy. Some just won't thrive and some will be unlucky and that's just the ciiiircle of liiiiiiifffe. e. Oh, one more thing. I'd ditch that blue gravel. You see this in pet stores constantly, and a lot of care sheets fail to mention it too, but: Bombina are circle-tongued. They have little stubby tongues that do not come out of their mouths. As a result, they cannot spit out something they've already got in their mouth. Combined with their vigorous hunting action, and they can sometimes swallow substrate. Consequently, Bombina spp. should never be housed with substrate that A) can be swallowed but B) can't be passed. Use aquarium sand, and/or large pebbles too big to swallow. I know from hard experience; I lost two frogs when I first got my firebellied toads, and one was definitely from impaction. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Jul 1, 2015 |
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Jul 1, 2015 18:18
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My girls love a sandwich container with a hole in the top, provided it's half-full of just slightly damp "aquatic pond planting medium." I squirt it once or twice when I mist and that seems to keep it the right dampness for them. Except when I just don't bother, and they lay in the sphagnum moss.
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Jul 17, 2015 02:54
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2,988px × 5,312px Lemme guess: cell phone pics, posted from cell phone.
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Aug 23, 2015 22:17
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I was disappointed that this was pretty clearly a survey about snakes (and maybe a lizard or two) rather than a survey about herps and amphibians, as advertised. Where were the "identify these four frogs" photos? I can barely tell a snake from a stick and I like it that way. I also thought all four thingies shown were non-venemous, but there was no "zero" option which was a dead loving giveaway you idiots. So I guessed that was a gila monster and put 1, and then I thought better of it and used the comment answer to tell them they're idiots. Also lectured them about having like 10 options and none of them are "more regulations, save more animals please." Soooo many questions about collecting animals in the wild. Is that really super common? I had to squeeze in my answers that are to the effect of "I take photos but don't touch wild animals" but I guess it's OK to collect roadkill if you really want to. I hated that all the "It should be OK to collect blah blah" combined collecting by scientists with collecting by amateurs, because I wanted to tell them I think permitted scientists should be allowed to collect threatened species, but not random joes. A good survey in the sense that it was long and thorough and we need more herp surveys, but a bad survey in a lot of ways that are completely typical of people writing surveys who don't know how to anticipate the full range of answers the public might want to supply.
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Aug 31, 2015 06:04
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Good lord. See, this is just the sort of animal it ought to be criminal to sell people at goddamn expos. HKR you have basically bought a small alligator. I mean, not as dangerous as an alligator, they have calm temperaments in general, but you're going to own a 50-pound carnivorous lizard. Do you have a big back yard you can 100% secure? I sure hope you don't plant to keep that animal confined to a cage for its whole life, because that's not OK. I just read a few care articles that imply you can get away with merely a huge enclosure, but let's be honest: keeping a 6-foot animal in a 8-foot enclosure is cruel. A time may come when you have to figure out how to keep it from escaping your house or yard. And they're quite capable of climbing so keep that in mind. You will not be able to have that lizard sharing space with cats - it will probably eat them. You're going to have to plan your entire living arrangements around it. I hope you own your home, because renting when you own a giant lizard may prove challenging. I'm curious to hear what the breeder told you at the expo. Did they warn you? Did they raise an eyebrow and ask probing questions about your plans for the future? Did they at least ask you if you knew what you were doing and had done any research before buying this thing? I'm sure 90% of the ones sold at expos wind up dead before they're 2 years old, because random expo-goers impulse-buying herps are usually unprepared to properly care for them... especially when they're buying them for their kids, assuming the kids are going to "learn responsibility" and "care for it themselves." Which is part of what pisses me off about herp shows, actually. Good responsible breeders/retailers should be screening customers and only selling challenging animals to people who have clearly prepared themselves - and planned in advance.
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Sep 1, 2015 19:20
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That's a weird idea to me. Don't they have a lot more space than that in the wild?
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Sep 4, 2015 05:12
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I'm sort of surprised your local reptile pet stores don't just show up, adopt them all en-masse, and then make bank reselling them. Some of the animals you list are pretty expensive.
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Oct 2, 2015 18:23
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Cresties: Ghost, Fire, Brimstone, and Sulfur. Brimstone's the male, the rest are female. Our gargoyle is named Lichen. Our Phyllobates bicolor is named Goldie, but I call her Goldie Hawn. We had two Dendrobates lucomelas (bumblebee dart frogs) named pumpkin and butternut, but they're both gone now, and our remaining leuc doesn't have a name. One of the two firebellied toads is Redbeard, but the other isn't named. (We stopped naming frogs, they're too fragile, and also often hard to tell apart.) Might as well mention the cats, too: Bean, Sophia, Doofus, Gentleman, Billie Jean, and (ugh, but we didn't name her) Sweetie.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:09
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Females also lose a little weight every time they lay eggs. I wouldn't be too concerned about a crestie not eating enough unless it's refusing food for over a week, or if it's losing substantial weight; but, you should be offering enough food that the gecko isn't eating every last drop every time.
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Nov 11, 2015 08:09
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Knormal posted:So I broke down an picked up a rescue veiled chameleon from a local reptile group. She was found in an abandoned house along with another chameleon who was too far gone and had to be put down, and also a bearded dragon and a leopard gecko. I've got the cage set up and she's eating and seems to be settling in nicely, but I have a question about hydration for any chameleon people here. From what I've read veiled chameleons aren't as sensitive about humidity as some of the more tropical chameleon species, I bought one of these drinking fountains to provide constant access to running water, is that alone enough, or do they also need the daily misting? Most of the care sheets I've read seem to suggest the misting is only to provide them with drinking opportunities and not about keeping humidity in the cage. A veiled may not drink from any water source, or may drink from running water. It needs lettuce or some other high-water-content greens daily to provide additional moisture. misting is mostly to help with shedding but the chameleon may leaf-lick as well. Some folks set an ice cube on top of a screened enclosure for dripping water to drink, or set up a pump-based dripper.. A screened enclosure is ideal because they need to dry out. They are native to Yemen, a desert environment, and should be housed accordingly. The most important factor is the heat lamp. A temperature gradient is essential and must be a light (not a ceramic heater and not substrate heater) because they naturally bask in hot sunlight and orient to it visually. They also need UVB and should have arboreal climbing structure at all times. Feed dusted gutloaded crickets, as many as will be eaten in ten minutes, daily. Supplement with other insects. I always dusted my lettuce too, with vitamins and calcium. My chameleon preferred romaine. Any live plants may be chewed, so do not put potentially-toxic plants in with a veiled. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Nov 24, 2015 |
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Nov 24, 2015 03:05
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I used to just spike a big romaine leaf on a branch and Mr. Chameleon would come tear into it whenever. Also, a feeding dish for crickets? Hm. I can't quite picture that but ok. I used to put cricket gutload and moist paper towels on the floor of the cage and then just toss 30 or so crickets in there, and whatever he didn't eat immediately he'd get to eventually. How big is your enclosure?
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Nov 24, 2015 07:47
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Oh, OK yeah a juvenile. They grow fast. Mine went from a one-week-old hatchling to a full-grown adult in around six months, and it did most of that growing during the first four. Definitely provide lots of crickets, more than you might guess she'd eat, and make sure you're dusting with a quality calcium + vitamin supplement because she's building bones like crazy. When Mr. Chameleon was around four or five months old, he'd go through 40+ half-inch crickets in a sitting, daily.
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Nov 25, 2015 06:41
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I found that crickets almost always climbed up the sides of the screen towards the light at the top. But yeah, I did tend to find some wedged in between the screen and the base. Mostly because my cage was a home-made affair and I stapled the screen to the frame I'd built, so there was kind of a gap for a cricket to squoosh into.
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Nov 28, 2015 07:19
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How are you measuring temp? The undertank pad heats the glass, it does not (appreciably) heat the air in the tank. You need to directly measure the temperature of the glass on the inside. There is a risk involved, and that risk is overheating and burning your animal. So the best thing to do is get your setup put together, get the heater on there, and let it run for a while and then check temps. Ideally on a hot day. Actually even better is to make sure the temperature is controlled with a thermostat, so you can let the temp rise to exactly what you want and then have it turn on and off to maintain that temp.
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Dec 11, 2015 20:03
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Heat can be transmitted in three ways: radiation, convection, and conduction. A heat lamp mostly transmits heat through radiation. It also heats the air, which then transfers heat to the animal via conduction (warm air against the skin). Hot air convects within the enclosure, moving heat to places that the lamp isn't shining. Deep in the substrate, however, only conduction from the surface is providing warmth. With a heat lamp you will often see higher air and surface temperatures with lower substrate temperatures. An undertank mat mostly transmits heat via conduction. The hot mat heats the glass or floor material, and that material directly heats anything in contact with it, such as a snake or some bedding. Gradually the warm substrate will heat the air. However, assuming you have good ventilation, the warm air rises and leaves the enclosure to be replaced by cooler air - convection is working against you, so you will often see lower air temperatures vs. warmer substrate temperatures. So, if you directly measure the temperature of the substrate or floor, you'll probably find it's a lot warmer than the air in the tank. With a lamp, you'll tend to find that the surfaces exposed to the lamp get quite hot (which stimulates basking behavior), while the bottom of the substrate will tend to be cooler... and since the lamp is directly heating the air, cool air entering the tank to replace hot air is getting heated more efficiently. With different animals and different setups, each approach has its merits and drawbacks. Some animals respond to the sunlike lamp to trigger a basking response. Others naturally burrow and do well with a warm burrow heated via substrate. Some animals do not as easily "recognize" that one or the other is too hot for them. So the specifics matter. In all cases, though, appropriate use of a good quality thermostat with the probe placed at the point of maximum potential heat contact with the animal gives you the ability to prevent a dangerous potential burn site.
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Dec 11, 2015 22:23
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Here is a review of some different reptile thermostats in common use.
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Dec 16, 2015 19:02
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How are they dying? Crickets die by the shitload regardless, but for me I had to figure out two key things: -Keep humidity down -Don't give them liquid water to drown in because they will If they're kept in a glass tank it needs a screen lid, or it'll get way too humid.
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Dec 20, 2015 07:01
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 02:41 |
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Make sure your friend understands that a wood turtle can (read: should, if properly cared for) live for 50+ years (source. Is she fully prepared to take responsibility for this animal for most of her adult life, probably into her retirement?
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Dec 28, 2015 20:39
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