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Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Zandorv posted:

I've given her all the info I've gotten here and she's agreed to get a tortoise instead. She needs one that stays small, though, and is good for beginners. What would goons recommend?

Ask her who she's leaving her tortoise to in her will. Make it clear it's not you.

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Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

I like to use a nice thick layer (say, two inches or more) of sphagnum moss. You can easily change out the poopy spots, it retains moisture nicely when you mist and then releases it, it's naturally antibiotic, and the gecko buddies like to snuggle down into it at night. It's also good padding for when they make a leap of faith and misjudge the distance.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

It wants to be in rocky open or shrubby terrain where there are lots of shady hidey spots and also lots of sunny warm basking spots, and lots of bugs to eat. You can just gently relocate it and it'll be fine, or possibly be food for some animal, but that's the circle of life.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

So, what, didn't he like poo poo all over your kitchen? Gross.

If you use a screen top, you can position your heatlamp outside of the terrarium, which is really what I'd recommend for a climbing animal. But I think the key thing is to have your heatlamp also be an actual lamp - don't use one of those ceramic heaters - because the animal usually associates the light source as "the sun" which is also the heat source.

At least, that's the case for a veiled chameleon. I'm not sure if water dragons are different.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Do they go out into the wild and prevent wild animals from killing and eating each other, too?

I'm all in favor of humane treatment, but at some point you're being ridiculous and that reg definitely crosses a line, at least for me. If you personally prefer to feed only pre-killed rodents to your snakes, cool, I'm on board with that and it would be my preference too if I kept snakes. But I don't think it should be literally illegal to allow your captive animal to engage in its natural, instinctive behavior.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Sure, and like I said, I wouldn't feed live rodents either. I don't think it's justifiable to outright ban it, though.

e. I just realized I might be picking a fight in an inappropriate place, this isn't D&D, so I'm sorry. I'm OK with it if most people would disagree with my position.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Also don't get animals for a school that will live for decades (30+ years for ball pythons is what google is telling me). They are likely to outlive your stint as the person in charge of them, which means you are gambling on whoever will inherit them when you've moved on.

I'd highly recommend firebellied toads (which, now I say that, can live for at least 10+ years, but:) they're quite hardy, easy to take care of, don't take up a huge amount of space, are active during the day, and - let's face it, this is a thing that happens in elementary schools - do not represent a large lost investment when the kids inadvertently kill them.

You are also probably less likely to have to deal with "concerned parents" compared to keeping a large snake in a classroom. Especially if there are escapes.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

I used to have a co-worker whose son had a ribbon snake that ate fish. The snake's tank had a pretty good deep pond that they'd put feeder fish in and it would eat them when it got hungry.

Might be easier to deal with than feeding live mammals and birds. Plus, ribbon snakes are cool.

mactheknife posted:

Hey everyone -

I live in Louisiana and after the recent weather down here we're (finally) trying to get ourselves proper prepared for a hurricane, especially now that things seem to be heating up in the tropics.

Anyway, we have a beardie that we are also trying to prep for. Our biggest concern is heat. Are there battery operated basking lamps out there? Or some sort of workaround solution with other kinds of heat sources? We don't flood where we live but long-term power outages are definitely a thing so we're trying to figure out what the hell to do for him.

In the wild, most animals manage to deal with inclement weather that lasts a few days. Even in deserts, tropics, temperate climates, etc. there can be cold snaps that last a few days to a weekish. Overheating is probably more dangerous than being too cold for a few days for most reptiles. In the tropics it doesn't really freeze much even in the dead of winter, either. If your beardy had to deal with, say, a week without basking, it would survive unless it was already seriously malnourished, sick, or super elderly or frail for some reason.

That said, I suggest getting some of those chemical-activated handwarmers. They're nice to have around anyway and in a no-power or (especially) evacuation scenario, you could crack one, stuff it in a sock or something, and give your herp a warm thing to cuddle with for a few hours.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Oh nice, I had a veiled chameleon (creatively named Mr. Chameleon). He was super cool. Mr. Chameleon really liked romaine lettuce, and drinking from a stream of water poured into his cage because he was too cool to drink from a dripper and otherwise would try to just get all of his water from eating romaine lettuce.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Waffle House posted:

You know, it's weird, I can't get this guy to take fruits or veggies at all so far, even though I hear they love berries? How did you present the food to Mr. Chameleon?

I never offered fruit or berries to Mr. Chameleon. My understanding is that they're obligate insectivores who have evolved to eat foliage due to living in Yemen where standing water is too scarce to be a reliable source of water. He ate shitloads of crickets, the occasional waxworm treat, and there was always a leaf of lettuce available, but that's about it. Oh, also I forgot to mention but I'd dust the lettuce with a bit of calcium powder + vitamins sometimes, just to supplement.

I had a big cage for him with a big plant, and a bunch of sticks I ziptied together to create a jungle gym he could climb on and get into/out of the heat lamp zone easily. I would open up the cage and clip a leaf of romaine lettuce to a stick while he arched his back and hissed at me as though this had not been the same thing that had happened every couple of days for two years. Mr. Chameleon was a grumpy old man even before he was full grown.

Funny thing though: he never minded the presence of my cats, but nothing on this good Earth was more offensive to him than our robot mop (we had a Scooba).


e. Be careful about what you read online. A ton of people apply general info about chameleons to veileds, where they should not. Most chameleons live in tropical environments and are adapted to a different diet.

e2. In particular, avoid plant matter that is too high in phosphorus compared to calcium, and don't feed spinach or other plants that have high amounts of oxalates which possibly can inhibit calcium uptake. Also avoid citrus and other highly acidic fruits. Other than that, you can offer a veiled chameleon most kinds of fruit (ideally ground into a paste) as an occasional snack, and should have leafy greens such as lettuce or dandilion available at all times, especially for an animal that refuses to drink from a dripper. But the great bulk of a veiled chameleon's diet should be insects, with all other foods supplemental only.

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 00:07 on May 26, 2017

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

I mean, he is probably not going to survive unless you get him back, even if you live in exactly the right environment. And I don't wanna pile on while you're upset, but: you don't leave your pet lizard out unattended with open windows, I don't know how anyone would think that was a good idea?

I would go around knocking on neighbors' doors requesting access to back yards. Look for him high in treetops or hiding in foliage. Unless it's really hot where you live, he might be seeking hot sunlight to bask in.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Shipping a huge tank is insanely expensive. You're way better off finding a local place to buy a tank from IMO

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Invader Zym posted:

10 year old daughter wants a pet lizard for her birthday. She's relatively responsible and careful. I'm looking for something not too expensive, tolerant of handling, that can live in a 20 gallon tank or smaller. Crested gecko and leopard gecko seem like the best candidates - any recommendation between the two, or another species?

I keep cresties. I'd encourage you to go for leapords instead. Not that Cresties aren't great - they are - but if they get scared they will drop their tail, and it doesn't grow back. While that's not actually harmful to them long-run (most crested geckos in the wild are missing their tails), it's pretty unpleasant when it happens, and it makes you as an owner feel terrible when you know it's your fault.

Either way, though, you should understand that these lizards will, unless something unfortunate happens, still be alive when your daughter is graduating from college. If you're just experimenting with small pets, something less long-lived might be a better starter animal - perhaps a small rodent?

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

You could intoduce an infectious disease or parasite and wipe them all out. It may also be illegal.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

The issue is that doing wildlife releases is something for qualified biologists and ecologists, using animals that have known provenance and have been carefully tested for diseases and with a genetic profile that is well understood, done in a controlled way into a well understood environment where they will be carefully monitored and followed. Most species reintroduction attempts have failed and the last two centuries of mucking with ecologies has had a horrifying failure rate often with terrible unforseen/unintended consequences.

I mean people dump their loving pets outside all the time, it's terribly irresponsible, and nobody here really knows you, or if you even know the difference between an indigenous anole and a non-indigenous one, etc. No insult intended there, at all, but: it would be way out of line for anyone to advise some anonymous person on the internet to randomly try messing with the local ecology by doing their own animal releases.

But that's the kind of argument people reject because they're sure they know better. So I'll stick with the easiest answer to explain in a quick internet post, which is that animals in the pet trade - especially wild caught ones - are often in poor condition, carry diseases, etc. and that alone is a great reason to never release them into the wild.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

mactheknife posted:

According to the Dr, that won't clean it? I don't know, sounds weird to me but I feel like she'd know better.

You could bake your stuff, but perhaps the concern is shedding parasites live on the wood and then re-infect your pet later.

But yeah fish section, all those underwater decorations, your beardie doesn't really care if his basking spot is a natural piece of wood, or a garish resin skull.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Also use a substrate that retains and then gradually releases the moisture, without getting moldy. I recommend a deep layer of sphagnum moss, which is typically pretty clean, soft, easy to burrow into, relatively cheap, and safe for most animals to accidentally swallow. You can heavily mist the moss (or even pour a bit of water directly into it) and it will soak it up like a sponge and then maintain higher humidity in the tank for hours.

Keep in mind that even when you're trying to raise humidity, ventilation is important. Ideally you can keep humidity up while supporting a healthy level of airflow.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Yeah I buy as many crickets as I'm gonna feed in one feeding, and that's it. Back when I used to order them online and the minimum order was like 500, I kept them in a plastic kitchen trash can in the garage (they couldn't climb up the sides). Throw a bunch of egg crate in there, pick up an egg crate and shake crickets off into a plastic bag for feeding time, and after a week or two, just dump everything into a garbage bag and then power-hose out the garbage can.

It was still awful. Just couldn't take it any more. 12 cents a cricket is daylight robbery but I happily pay it over at the nearby PetSmart because it means I can just buy crickets once or twice a week and not deal with the stench and the mess.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

It's just paper and wax. It'll break down a bit and/or just pass through, most likely. Watch for any signs of impaction: if he loses appetite or swells up, then get him to an exotic pets vet, but otherwise I'd expect he'll be fine.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Mak0rz posted:

We have oriental fire-bellied toads at work. Last week one of them (a male of unknown age) started to become lethargic and lost his appetite. He was still alive on Friday, but this past Monday morning I found his lifeless corpse laying on the substrate under water. I didn't see any signs of bloat or redleg, but I don't know much about frog diseases.

I figured he was just old and his time came. Now our other male (again age unknown) is starting to behave the same way. What steps should I take here to make sure I don't have another weekend casualty? He otherwise looks fine to me.

Hi. I have kept Oriental Fire-bellied toads for years. My current pair of boys are more than 12 years old and still going strong, so it's probably not age unless they're really old.

There are several possibilities. When I first started keeping these toads, I did exactly what the fish store said to do (big mistake as always) and lost one within a month to what turned out to be impaction. The thing is, these frogs have small, disk-shaped tongues (genus Bombina used to be grouped in discoglossidae because of their tongues, in fact) which are incapable of spitting out things in their mouth. Thus, they must not be kept with gravel that is small enough to swallow, but too large to pass.

You know, the same pea-sized gravel that you see them kept with in every single loving fish store everywhere. :argh:

The frogs will aggressively strike at prey (usually they're fed crickets) and can easily get a chunk of gravel as well or instead of the intended morsel.

So, they should have a semi-aquatic tank setup with plenty of options for getting in and out of water, someplace both in and out of water to hide, and you should either use large pebbles or some kind of sand as your substrate.

OK, so if it wasn't impaction, the next suspect is water quality. These frogs are sensitive to chlorine/chloramine, so if you use tap water, you must use a dechlorinator. If your tap water is treated with chlorine, you can leave a bucket of tap water sitting out for a few days and the chlorine will dissipate, but chloramine will not dissipate in this way, and most people don't know which their water is treated with. So it's better to just use a squirt of basically any aquatic pet dechlorinator, you can buy them at any pet store that sells fish, or online, for pretty cheap.

What I do is use distilled water. I'm already using it for my misting system to avoid scale within the system, and it also prevents water spots in their tank. A gallon of distilled water is a dollar so I just buy like 12 gallons at a time maybe twice or three times a year and that's plenty. I also have live plants in their tank, and an always-running pump to circulate the water, which has a charcoal filter and a bacteria colony chamber that helps to break down their waste. Between the plants, the filter, and the distilled water, my water quality stays good for months on end, but yours might not, so the other thing is to regularly do partial water changes. Just drain out half the water before you add more water and you'll be removing waste and diluting the rest.

These are very hardy frogs that will survive well if they have good quality water, no dangerous gravel, regular feedigns of dusted crickets, and a good setup with both water and dry areas with hides. There is no need to use a tank heater, they live in temperate climates and will be fine at room temperatures anywhere in your house.

e. Oh I also just thought, parasites can also be an issue, but really I'm just guessing with all of the above; you'll need to describe your setup, feeding regimen, etc. to give us a hint about what might be the issue. Maybe take a few photos of your setup?

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Nov 19, 2017

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Sorry I didn't get back to you this weekend, just didn't get back to this thread.

I don't see anything obviously wrong with your setup either. It could still be impaction, or some kind of toxic issue... you could try switching food items, or something... but you've run up against one of the frustrations of amphibians which is that they're kind of mysterious and sometimes they just die and we don't know why. They absorb stuff from their environment, we're feeding them totally unnatural diets, and then there's just the general "quantity over quality" nature of their reproductive strategy, where some disturbingly-high percentage of animals have physiological flaws that mean they won't survive or will have a harder time surviving.

In this case you have some frogs who were apparently doing fine for a long time suddenly dying, which implies something changed, but you may never know what. It does suck.

If it's any consolation (and it isn't really, but), they're quite inexpensive. I used to see them for around five dollars each.

e. I suppose it goes without saying, but, for a price, you could have an exotics vet perform a necropsy to attempt to determine cause of death. I have no idea what exactly that'd cost, and I assume there's a good chance it could be inconclusive (don't expect some kind of CSI crime lab here), but it's maybe an option.

Also, I think I should mention that that frog did not look impacted to me. When I lost frogs to impaction they swelled up and looked really bloated. But I'm not an expert.

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Nov 20, 2017

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

This is definitely the herpetology thread, and herpetology is all about reptiles! We also include amphibians as the red-headed stepchild.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Chaosfeather posted:

I have a deposit down on a hatchling gargoyle gecko...

What kind of lighting should I prepare for the little guy? What kind of schedule should I keep for it so it can be a happy critter?

Gargoyles are nocturnal, although ours tends to come out an hour before the lights go off. But regardless, the gecko should have a day/night cycle in order to regulate with, and occasionally soak up some sunlight. We keep ours on a 12 hour day/night cycle using a UVB flourescent bulb replaced annually, and she's been fine with that for many years, but my understanding is that they probably don't need that UV exposure if you're giving them a proper diet with the right balance of calcium and vitamin D.

Another thing to be aware of: gargoyles readily eat crickets when they're young, but often stop when they're older; ours ignores them now, and lives entirely on crested gecko diet plus the occasional treat.


Mak0rz posted:

Late to this reply, but we didn't bother with this. It's not something I wanted to pay with my own money and it's definitely not something the university would be willing to pay for considering how cheap a new frog would be.

The guy I'm filling in for suspects they were underfed. He said something about the males regurgitating their food a lot? I don't know. If I saw that I'd just suspect they were being fed too much and feed them less anyway :shrug:


If the food items were too big, they might barf them up and slowly starve, but you'd see the frogs getting very thin (skeletal looking with almost no abdomen and the spine and ribs showing) before dying. A healthy frog can easily go a couple weeks without food, too, so you should have had plenty of warning signs of a starvation issue.

My firebellies live entirely on dusted crickets fed once a week, and have survived on that for 10+ years. I feed them crickets about a half-inch long, give or take. I dump in about 20 gutloaded crickets or so once a week, and they pick them off over the next day or two, with probably half of the crickets drowning themselves in the process. Our tank has some species of tiny aquatic snail living in it (they must have come in on a plant) that eat the drowned crickets really quickly, so it's kind of a self-sustaining ecosystem. We also have live plants in the tank (right now just pothos) which aid with maintaining water quality, along with the underwater filter, the snails, and the fact we only ever add distilled water.

Your mileage may vary, of course. I think this one may remain a mystery. Could be a parasite, a virus, who knows.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

The Dregs posted:

I have an approximately 9 month old iguana. Lately he's been shedding constantly, eating like a pig, becoming less skittish, and growing at an alarming rate.

He's housed in a screen cage that is 2' square and about 5' tall. It's filled with branches and a plant. I have installed a Mercury vapor bulb inside it for him to bask under.

He has a bowl of water that he loves to poo poo in, and lately he eats almost strictly plants from my yard... dandelions, clover, mulberry leaves, maple leaves, and wild strawberry. Occasionally he gets tomatoes or other leftover veggies. Never any animal protein.

Just want to check to see if I'm doing everything right. There is wildly conflicting info out there.

When you say 2' square, you mean 2' by 2' (4ft2), right? How big is your iguana? The 5' tall sounds fine for now but you may have to expand horizontally pretty soon.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

The quintessential starter lizard is the leopard gecko. They're small, setup is easy, they're easy to feed. But, they also mostly lie around doing not much (which, if you're into herps, get used to that idea).

I'll also repeat what you have already heard a lot, but just in case you haven't: most herps live a long time, or at least are capable of it when cared for properly. Many can live decades. When you're thinking about getting one, think about your lifestyle for the next few decades and whether your herp will definitely fit in with it. Don't buy an animal that lives for 40 years if you are going off to college, thinking of moving to europe, or planning a new career as an oil rig worker.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

OK, cool, just checking :)

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Cresties are handleable if you do it daily or regularly, I don't handle mine so they freak out on Cleaning Day. Today was cleaning day.

Gargoyles are a bit more chill, it seems to me, and also just as handleable. That's Rhacodactylus auriculatus.

Both species can drop their tails. Cresties don't grow them back, while I've heard gargoyles can. Almost all adult cresties in the wild are tailless, though, so that's not something to freak out about too much - of my four cresties, three are now tailless. But if they're accustomed to being handled regularly and you treat them gently, they'll typically retain their tails, and they can be kind of fun to handle as they walk or jump from one of your hands to the other hand.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Where do you live?

That is a box turtle. I don't know them well enough to identify the subspecies. They are omniverous, you could offer some salad or fruit type stuff, and given the heat it might want shade and or water. But I would guess it's probably fine.

e. gulf coast or eastern box turtle, not sure which. You can google for care sheets. In some states it is illegal to take them from the wild. They are commonly kept as pets, so if you are in the wrong area for it to be a native turtle, it could be an escaped pet.

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 20:36 on May 23, 2018

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

http://www.ncwildlife.org/Portals/0/Learning/documents/Profiles/Eastern_Box_Turtle.pdf

Ok it's this guy then. Cool turtle! Your official state reptile.

e. ooh, you can participate in citizen science:

http://naturalsciences.org/research-collections/citizen-science/neighborhood-box-turtle-watch

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 20:42 on May 23, 2018

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Yeah I thought maybe pet only if he was outside his natural range, but he's not, so it's unlikely anyway.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

They live about five or six years normally anyway, so prognosis is usually not great but it depends enormously on how early whatever he's got was caught and how sick he is now.

When I had mine, my exotic vet found little in the veterinary literature specific to veileds. We did a blood test and had to rely on data for jacksons, which was not particularly helpful for diagnosis.

Veileds live in much lower humidity environments than most chameleons - basically in riparian habitats in Yemen, which is a hot, desert country, but with rivers and wetter areas where the chameleons live. I would not assume that his infection was definitely caused by wrong humidity necessarily, but it's possible. Incorrect temperatures could also cause the problem. Do you know if it's a lower tract or upper tract infection? Either way if it's an infection he'll need to be treated with antibiotics. Try to see if your vet understands that a veiled chameleon is quite different from most other chameleons, and don't be afraid to politely help inform them if they're not clear on that.

I'll just add that veileds get salt deposits around the nostrils that could be confused for signs of infection.

Anyway I'm sorry I don't really have any knowledge specific to respiratory infections in lizards, but I figured anything I could say might be helpful.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

That enclosure is far too small for an adult veiled. Also it annoys me to see the tropical look, even though it's probably all plastic plants anyway, since veileds come from riparian desert habitats.

That said, he is indeed a pretty fellow. Veileds are all cranky old bastards (even when they're young), they have the personality of a crotchety old man, which I kind of love.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Keep in mind an adult herp generally eats less than a growing juvenile.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

David Boa is a good name.


I have an occasional recurring frog nightmare, where I've got dozens of enclosures, most of them broken open, the frogs and lizards have been eating each other and crossbreeding because I forgot about them, there are dead animals, frogs with extra limbs, missing limbs, mutant frogs of bizarre size, but especially dead skeletons and squashed leathery dried out husks of animals because I forgot them and neglected them for weeks or months or more. Sometimes the whole room is haunted by live, hidden alligators, like two or three feet long, not huge ones, and the frogs shift and move and there's too many heads and their eyes are missing, and it's entirely my fault, I forgot them and they died and died and died


It's some combination of anxiety/guilt because sometimes I forget them for like two days (automated misting, so all I need to do is feed them) and sometimes I run out of fruit flies because a culture crashes, and of course after over ten years with dart frogs and pushing 15+ keeping herps, I've lost a few to just randomly dying like they do. Combined with the body horror of frog dissection in science class, pictures of mutated frogs from environmental toxins, dying amphibians due to chytrid, etc.

It's not too common, I probably have that dream about once or twice a year. But it's actually really comforting to know a lot of you guys get something similar, just the anxiety that comes from knowing these guys tend to be somewhat fragile, it's easy to forget about them for a couple days if they're not in your bedroom or living room or something, and you know they're completely dependent on you for survival. Some part of your brain has to process that while you sleep, I guess.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Aquarium-grade silicone sealant will cure to very non-toxic and durable finish.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Samila posted:

Plasti Dip is supposedly non-toxic, but the MSDS makes me want to steer clear. Especially compared to the Modge Podge.

Aquarium silicone is an interesting idea, but it's a fairly big cave. Silicone seems like it would be thick and hard to spread.

I've covered like a square foot or two of rough surface with silicone before. It is sticky and goopy but if you put on a glove or just work with a plastic spatula or whatever, you can smear it around pretty easily. It's about the consistency of toothpaste as it comes out of the tube and you have plenty of time to work with it before it hardens up. It has the advantages of being pretty much completely inert, waterpoof, sticks to any surface including glass, and cures to a very nontoxic state (you should let it cure for a week before use). Note that this is specifically aquarium grade silicone sealant: other products may contain mold inhibitors and other components which are potentially toxic to animals. Aquarium sealant is 100% silicone with no other additives.

It will probably be pretty ugly though if you just smear sealant on it and call it a day. When I was sealing foam in a frog tank, I applied the sealant in large patches, spread it out, and then pushed coconut husk powder against it to create a natural-looking "dirty" surface that was completely watertight but didn't look too bad. I was using black aquarium sealant, I don't think it would have looked too good as clear stuff.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Nice thing about those wire shelves is you can ziptie a long flourescent light fixture to the underside of a shelf for the tank(s) below, and you can easily run wires up and down through the shelves anywhere and use zipties to bundle wires and attach them anywhere you like to keep things tidy. Also can install drains in the bottom of terrariums that have water in them, and put the container the drain line drains into right underneath.

I like to put arboreal geckos up on the top shelf, I think they like the feeling that they're in their nesty zone way up high off the ground. Also my cats have a harder time climbing those shelves, although I still have to put tape up to deter the one cat who is a ridiculous acrobat.

Be aware of tip-over hazard with a shelf like that, the shelf itself is really light compared to the tanks. Consider a wall strap for the top shelf (mandatory in earthquake country or if you have small children). I store all my gallons of distilled water on the bottom shelf to add "ballast" to the whole arrangement.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

The biggest issue with tortoises is that if you keep them healthy they're a lifetime commitment, and for that reason alone, I never recommend them to anyone that hasn't already kept herps for years. The vast majority bought at pet stores and herp shows of course die early, but a bunch more wind up surrendered to shelters or sadly just abandoned because people's lifestyles change, their kids lose interest, or they just get bored with them. Are you sure you'll be wanting to still have your tortoise when you're in your 60s?

Also, and you probably already know this but it bears mentioning, a herp can cost many times more than it's purchase price in exotic vet visits from just a single illness. Identify your exotic vet in advance and make yourself aware of the potential costs. Before he died, my veiled chameleon cost me $1200 over the course of three weeks trying to figure out why he was dying, and he died anyway, and velied chameleons normally only live around 5-6 years anyway (he was 4). That sucked. It may not be typical, but it's always a possibility, and something you should budget for.

Certain herps can be handleable, with bearded dragons and blue-tongued skinks high on that list, but you should not fool yourself into thinking the lizard loves you. It tolerates your handling, may respond to your body heat, and in a few cases may actually enjoy being groomed in some way, but they are not domesticated the way cats and dogs are. You are the warm food machine, not a bonded family member. If you want a social, interactive pet that isn't a mammal, you might consider a bird of some kind, although those have their own issues (including very long-lived, highly bonded ones like parrots).

The enjoyment I get from my herps and amphibians comes from observing their natural behaviors etc. and I'd recommend approaching them from that perspective, and then accepting any additional fun you get from handling certain herps as a bonus. I'm not saying don't get a lizard! Just encouraging folks not to make an impulse commitment to one.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

I don't know for fat-tailed geckos, but cresties can store sperm for years, and also unbred females lay infertile eggs regularly.

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Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

I use sphagnum moss for my geckos, is it good for snakes too? I like it because it retains and slowly releases moisture so I can control humidity well, and it doesn't mess them up if they swallow a little while hunting crickets. Plus it smells nice.

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