reptile-talk

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My cheeto puff is not yet buff.  

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Indigo enclosure (an 8′ PVC) post-cleaning as I reassemble it. First empty, then substrate, then cage furniture, and then indigo (in the last image - don’t know if he’s visible though).

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would a normal rock hide hold humidity well? or should i use plastic? If its better for my snake (65% humidity) then ill use plastic but i like my tank to be pretty and a plastic thing doesn't look pretty in there. Hahaha

I’m glad that your putting the snake’s husbandry needs over aesthetic desires. That’s a rarity lmao. You can generally use any kind of hide as long as you put something under it– I like putting cypress mulch or sphagnum moss under hides so that it says nice and humid inside of the hide. 

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On the topic of AP's T8... I just ordered my first last week. In reviews, I keep hearing about sealant and having it dry overnight? I've tried navigating their website for something that explains what it is but all I can find is that assembly takes 15-20 minutes. Could you please explain what it is?

Assembly is easy, but sealant is definitely a thing.

So basically, if you go by AP instructions, you assemble the whole cage, but don’t fasten the top too well. Top is one of the first ones to have to be fastened by screws, so you have to back up and remove it before you seal.

If you are geometrically talented, you can change the order of assembly it such that the top (not to brag, but after a cage or two, we figured out how to avoid the extra steps – we have five AP cages total, all bought new and assembled by us).

Then you get messy with the sealant. They provide an excellent sealant, and if you have thin silicone or nitrile gloves, use them. I used my bare hands, with lots of water to keep the sealant from sticking to my skin.

Should have taken how-to photos, in retrospect, but here’s how you do it.

1. Lay out a bead of sealant along the seam that you’d like to waterproof.2. Moisten your finger or thumb generously with water (I had a sprayer handy for that) and drag it along the seam, pushing the sealant in as much as you can, and leaving it as smooth as you can.3. If you want to add more, or to smooth out, just spray down with water and repeat.4. If you mess up and smear the sealant onto something it shouldn’t be on (like I did with Slinky’s acrylic door!), Goo-gone removes it while it’s still fresh.

The sealant cures in 24 hours if you’re lucky. It uses air moisture to cure, so we used fine mist sprayer to accelerate curing. We still waited 3 days to move the snakes in, because you could still smell it after 24 hours.

We sealed along the bottom, and about 2 inches up along the walls. We did not seal the top, since if the water is up to above 2 inches inside the cage, we have bigger problems.

I hear there are other manufacturers who offer seamless cages (boaphile?), but I would imagine shipping will be killer on a non-flat-packed six-footer cage. We like our APs and will be soon buying two more from them.

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Success! First time playing with watercolors! Here’s a little infographic I put together about Top 10 reasons to own a reptile. www.wildchildreptiles.com 

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Birthday Enrichment with Renfield!

Enrichment is an important part of reptile husbandry, and it can be a real challenge for some species. For active snakes like colubrids, it can be done by adding new things into the environment, but sand boas spend most of their time underground. They’re not climbers, they’re burrowers. What can you do to make their lives more interesting? There are a number of things, including burying items in their substrate to tunnel around, introducing the shed skin of other reptiles for them to investigate, and making feeding time more of a puzzle. For my sand boa’s birthday, I made a simple feeding puzzle. I hid his pinkie under a little box and then stepped back with the camera, waiting to see what would happen.

He knew there was a pinkie somewhere. But where?

After several minutes of noodling around, he tried to investigate the box more thoroughly… by attempting to burrow under it. This was when I realized there was going to be a problem, because I’d put the pinkie on a piece of towel under the box so that it wouldn’t get covered in aspen. So as he noodled under the box, I removed the top.

It… still took him a while to realize that the pinkie was now visible. 

But eventually he figured it out… and ate it in the most dramatic way possible! 

Later on, he dropped the pinkie, somehow backed into a burrow, and then just stared at me, completely helpless. I had to give him an assist with the tongs.

How on earth did he back into a burrow? As far as I knew, he always tunneled in face first.

See what I mean? Completely helpless.

But eventually he figured it out. Sorta.

So, what did we learn from watching Renfield interact with this little puzzle? Simple. Snakes don’t understand the concept of boxes and also Renfield is very bad at biting rodents. Still, I think he got something out of it- perhaps next time we’ll try a puzzle where he has to go through something to find the food. If you try anything like this with one of your snakes, I’d love to hear about it!

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And yet you fail to accept the scenario where he stands a chance of living. The scenario where he lives out his life with an experienced reptile keeper and goes to see a reptile vet to treat his parasites and lives out his life in a great enclosure.

I’m saying it’s likely he would die from what I described, not guaranteed.

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Every suggestion you gave resulted in Anola Bar's death. That's where that came from. All anoles in pet stores are wild caught. They have the same parasites and the same stress level and people keep them as pets. But someone rescues one and OH NOOOO.

Because that’s what could have happened in all the scenarios, it still has a chance to happen? It just happens, rehabilitators put down animals, critters die from exposure or predators, and parasites wreck havoc. 

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Yes, and I apologize for that. The law is strange and not entirely my understanding, to explain, I assumed even if you had touched it, since the animal wasn’t imported knowingly and easily could have ran off if OP hadn’t been successful catching it- it wouldn’t have been illegal. 

In my mind I hadn’t thought the law would go “NOPE”. Most of the time with releases we’re thinking along the lines of “Don’t toss your ball pythons into the everglades” because they came from a different part of the world and don’t have natural predators, leading to the problem the law tries to address.

So yes, that was my bad and I am sorry about that. It wasn’t my intention, I had just thought differently since the critter hitch-hiked it in.

So what I am pretty sure is a brown anole hitched a ride with a truck from florida allll the way to my mom’s work in Indiana. He lives with me now. I need a smaller tank (I only had a 33 available) but any ideas for names?

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So by your logic, we should euthanize most anoles for sale in the United States, since they're almost entirely wild caught?????? Can you seriously please tell me how you think the reptile hobby started and continued to introduce new species?

Slow your roll, the thing in question is wild and the ID is “maybe an anole but idk”. I’m saying wildlife rehab would probably euthanize it because they’re not going to bother keeping a healthy animal, nor bother shipping it down to Florida. It would be a waste of their resources that could go to another animal.

Second, I don’t really support wild caught pets this day and age. We’re breeding nearly everything now, CB is an option and anoles are everywhere in pet stores. Your euthanize all of the pets thing came from? Some mythical land I guess.

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There’s the releasing is illegal bit, which is right and I apologize for that- but the “an animal hitches a ride and runs off” scenario would’ve happened anyway if nobody saw the lizard. 

The “keeping native wild animals” is illegal bit, calling wildlife rehab is an option but OP was/is vehemently against it’s death which is how it would end there most likely.

Mmm..

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the scale broke a few months ago and I haven’t gotten a chance to get a new one (I’ve also had trouble even finding one). Does he look overweight to you? 

Well the scale would certainly help, but image wise I don’t think he’s overweight. You can usually tell when they start to grow rolls on their sides that it’s too much.

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That’s the thing though, had OP not seen the reptile at all it would’ve scuttled off the truck and been released into Indiana anyway to die. The only thing that changed is them putting it in a cardboard box and saying “going to keep this”.

So where does this lie? Honestly the only thing they could do is give it to some wildlife group to be euthanized. They’re not going to bother keeping it in most cases.

So what I am pretty sure is a brown anole hitched a ride with a truck from florida allll the way to my mom’s work in Indiana. He lives with me now. I need a smaller tank (I only had a 33 available) but any ideas for names?

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As is with most pot smoking+animal posts, the swarm comes for the inbox, but the actions of a majority are not my own.

Keep reading

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My family keeps saying my gargoyle gecko is fat. Can I send you a pic of him so you can give me your opinion?

I’d need a photo and his weight in grams, but yes I can give you my opinion.

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Jake said the lizard is from Florida and hitched a ride to Indiana. If you really don't want them to keep it, then they should take it to a wildlife care group of some kind. But Florida and Indiana have vastly different environments, and releasing this lizard in Indiana would mean certain death.

A wildlife care group would euthanize the animal and that would be it. Same ending as the other options.

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Your geckos are well under 15 grams. I can tell just by their size compared to that apple, again, you do not know if they are male and female as the hemipenile bulge does not always appear at a certain age, but at a particular weight. I have a near 2 year old crested gecko who I have sexed as male via pre-anal pores, that has not developed a bulge yet. Why? He’s growing slower than a snail moves.

 Unless you have a macro image of pre-anal pores, you don’t know.

I still wouldn’t give my cresties apple as it is one of the least nutritious fruits to give them, also you tossed a whole apple core in there. People usually mush up the fruit so it’s soft. Take it out before it molds.

Multiple females can be housed together, but it is not recommended. Hence the “why did I find my female dead with her eyes eaten” post among numerous others. 

Coco fiber substrate is also not any good for young geckos, as they usually eat it and die. Someone here on tumblr had it happen just the other day.

well I put it in there to bury and help the soil later, but I guess they like eating it!