Reptilian fascination

While reading up on some additional variety I could feed my trio of fire skinks, I came across someone who said her fire skinks loved the  Zoo Med Can O Silkworms . While I am certainly not an advocate of feeding any insectivorous reptile primarily or even to anymore more than a small extend canned food, I thought I would give it a try and if it worked I would offer them a few times per year for additional dietary variety. Much to my surprise, the fire skinks completely ignored the can o silkworms. If I had then trained to tong food or mixed it in with something else they were eating out of a bowl, I suspect I could have gotten them to eat it. As it turns out the can was not a waste though as adult barrel skinks and my male jeweled lacerta ate them. One painted agama ate them but only if I dropped them in front of him to create some motion.  Overall, I would rate the product as fairly effective but it really depends on the specific animal how useful they will be. They ...

The Central American Banded geckos is a very fun species to keep. They are not a species for someone looking for a pet to handle, but they are ideal for someone looking for low maintenance pet where you can leave the weekend without worry or need for a pet sitter. They are very colorful lizards, although they do hide a fair amount. However, I enjoy seeing them come out and catch insects from time to time and of course there is some interaction during cleaning.  They also do not need a lot of space, a 10 or 20 gallon tank will work just fine for a single individual or a pair. I keep the breeding adults in 17x13 inch storage boxes with lots of ventilation holes drilled into them. I would not recommend anything smaller than this because you need room for a water bowl, a moist hide box, and a dry hide box, a cool side, and a warm side. I keep these geckos in a dedicated reptile room so ambient temperatures are in the mid to upper 70s and I provide them with a 3" section of h...

I've been using this Grubpie for a few months now. You can find Allen Repashy's video series where he trains many different species to accept the food from tongs and I will likely do this in the future. For now, I am using it for a single species - Ocellated Skink (Chalcides ocellatus). With this species, there is no need to make it seem alive with tongs.  I simply place some on a dish in their enclosure and they eat it. Here are some of the reasons why I believe this is a beneficial food item in your reptiles diet. The bulk of the product is made from black soldier fly larvae. This means it is not something unnatural for an insectivore to have in its diet. Furthermore, the larvae have been turned into a powder which improves their digestibility. Each ounce of the product is made from 1000 black soldier fly larvae plus other ingredients, so there is a lot of food packed into a bottle of the stuff. Additionally, there are a number of plant based caroteniod sources in the mix. ...

I recently purchased some of the Exo Terra Forest Moss to test it out. I figured the compressed brick would make less than claimed, but I was pleasantly surprised when it made about the 7 liters as stated. I mixed the brick with more water than the directions called for (I used 1 gallon) and simply pressed out the excess which also helps remove any little bits of dirt trapped in the moss. This is a green moss pretty much similar to the boxes of green moss you would see in petco (only much more cost effective to buy these bricks). I really have no meaningful way to compare it to sphagnum moss other than to say it's a green moss, you get what they claim out of each price, and at 3$ a brick it is a reasonable option if you need moss for a reptile or amphibian.So if you want to try something new, it's a reasonable moss to try. If you want to stick with the usual recommendation I've also put in a link for a known safe brand of New Zealand Sphagnum.

Here are my recommendations for a reptile room setup. You need to monitor your reptile room's temperature and get the right equipment to minimize issues such as overheating, chilling, and power outages. You'll also want to maximize your available space so you have room to grow your collection over time, store supplies, and have room to move about and keep things clean and tidy. 1. Flooring: I would not recommend carpet if you can avoid it. It is difficult to clean and impossible to disinfect. Sticky vinyl tiles are easy to install but leave little crevices for moisture or particles to get in. The fake hardwoods floor are similar but nicer looking and are more sensitive to moisture. You'd want to get on top of any moisture quickly or it can bubble up if you miss any spills. However, I do think both are better than carpet. While it won't win beauty awards, linoleum is quite functional  and affordable and this would be my first choice. If you're going to paint your r...

Do you ever wish you had something to herp related stream on your phone or laptop while cleaning cages, working out, or just before drifting off to sleep? I know I do, so I am going to list some of the interesting herp related steaming content I know about.   Podcasts:   The Other Herpcast: The last episode was some time ago and it appears there will not be new episodes but is still a few hours of archived content available. Morelia Python Radio : Don't let the title fool you, they've had breeders of a huge variety of species, importers, field herpers, and more on their show.  YouTube: Brian Barczyk : Some people love his channel, some people hate it, but give it a listen for yourself and form your own opinion. He does show a lot of blue tongue skinks and ball pythons, but if you keep an eye out there are some international trips and interesting colubrids that he shows from time to time. DM Exotics : This is one of my personal favorites as Dan features many...

If you're tired of searching online for live crickets for sale at the best prices, breeding crickets, or noisy crickets, I will tell you the one insect I have found which can effectively serve as a feeder cricket replacement for you. After reading this post, you'll know the shortfalls of the commonly offered solutions and how to go about successfully replacing feeder crickets if you still want to.  Dubia roaches are often hailed as a cricket replacement. Dubia roaches work fairly well for species that will tong feed, grab an insect the second it hits the floor, or eat from cups. However, they breed much slower than crickets, hide much more than crickets, and are more expensive than crickets. As their reproduction is a little slow, they are also better suited for species that can eat a little larger of an insect. You'll also need to purchase a fair number to get started or it will be a very long wait before they can serve as an effective cricket replacement. While dubia ro...

With the rise of roaches as feeders, it can be confusing to know which roach species is best for your situation. Should you use dubia roaches or turkistan roaches? The species I am discussing here are Blatta lateralis and Blaptica dubia.   Will roaches infest your house? The first and most common question I get on these roaches is of course whether or not they will invest one's home. Unless your house is hot and covered in rotting food, I do not think the dubia roach poses any risk of infestation. Their life cycles are too long, they breed too slowly, and they are too poor at escaping to ever establish any kind of a infestation in a normal household. The Turkistan roach poses more of a question. They breed much faster, grow faster, and if there are places that they can get food and moisture, there is a chance they could infest your home. My gut instinct is that they also will not infest the average home but if your house is not kept clean, the odds probably go up that egg case...

These snakes are a joy to keep. They are attractive, undemanding, breed readily, and feed eagerly. To the best of my knowledge, there are no new wild caught stock coming in, so these are a great breeding project to keep this species available for future hobbyist. I'll go into the details of how I keep them, but bare in mind there are probably many methods for successfully keeping and breeding this species. As far as housing goes, I keep it fairly simple. They always have access to a moist hide box on the cool end and a dry hide box, too. I keep them in well ventilated tubs in the mid to upper 70s. Heat tape is used to create a small basking spot in the low 80s. I will turn the basking spot off if the room hits 80, but it rarely does as I set an air conditioner to the upper 70s during the summer months. Aspen seems to work as a substrate and I am sure paper would work fine, too. The moist hide box I feel is important to ensure proper shedding and because these snakes will genera...

As we get later into spring and temperatures rise, it is time to begin thinking about how to cool down your reptile rooms. If you have centralized air conditioning (especially if it allows for multiple zones) and/or a small number of devices that generate heat, your rooms may stay cool enough as it is. If not, then you may need to add an additional cooling device.What I've done is purchase inexpensive window air conditioners which work very well and keep the air circulating. I connect these to a prewired Ranco etc thermostat which has proven to be a great and reliable thermostat for both heating and cooling devices. Try to situate your reptile room so that the cold airflow is not blowing directly onto sensitive species. I try to situate the room so those that need cooler conditions are closer to the AC but I don't like it blowing directly on any of my animals and have the airflow pointed away from the racks and cages.

One of the small feeders that I like to include for micro geckos, small frogs, or other small insectivores are the bean beetles. Fortunately, these small beetles are extremely easy to breed. The supplies one will need to do so can be seen below: 16 ounce deli cups, screened insect lids for the cups, and black eyed peas or mung beans. You can get cups and lids from neherpsupply I have had some issues with moisture building up if the beans are stacked too high, so I only add a small amount of beans. To move the beetles from an existing culture to the new one, tap the top and sides of the existing culture to knock back the beetles at the top. A small piece of egg crate placed in each culture is helpful in transferring the beetles. Quickly move around 50 beetles into the new culture and close the lid on both the new and old cultures. I like to add 2-3 rounds of adult beetles with a number of days between each addition. You want the culture to end up with a large number of eggs ...

Keeping reptiles can be an expensive hobby, particularly if you have a large collection. I will do my best here to show you how to get reptiles supplies for good prices and save you some time from searching. UVB Lights: This is one area you need to be very careful with. There are products out there which do not actually produce UVB. I could only recommend you purchase these lights from a reputable source. LLLReptile   usually has better than average pricing and is reliable and trusted as a source. Another good source is light your reptiles . Now, I know I said this post was to save you money, but I put UVB at the top of list with places you probably already heard of because this is not the area to try saving a few bucks and these products need a proven track record and known fakes are out there. Ceramic Heat Bulbs: If you do not need them quickly, you can save about 50% or more by picking these items up direct from China. These are 25 to 100 W models . When you click wher...

I've built my own enclosures and I've bought my own enclosures. There is no one answer about which is better as every situation can be unique. If you need a 4x2x1 enclosure: Don't bother building. The Animal Plastics T8 goes for 150$ and is an excellent and durable terrarium. These cages are light weight but made with a very strong plastic and are the best value I've been able to find. Note that some plastics are cheap and has lots of air in them, so not all plastic cages are a good value, but APcages are very good, both strong and light weight. If you need a slightly taller cage, boamaster has a 4x2x19" cage for around 140$ but it is made of melamine and it is very heavy as a result. However, the cage was easily assembled and has worked well for me. The same disadvantage applies to most homemade cages. They are usually made from plywood or melamine. If properly created and sealed, they can be functional and safe, but they will remain extremely heavy. I have ...

Glenn has created an in depth guide to cricket breeding at 174 pages. This is way more detailed than what you'll find floating around online. Glenn started breeding crickets to save money while rehabbing Quolls and keeping pet lizards but he found that traditional breeding practices found online took too long so Glenn began creating more efficient methods for breeding feeder crickets. Glenn gives step by step instructions for two systems. One system is designed for small scale production and people who just want to feed a few pet reptiles such as a couple of bearded dragons. The other is for people who want to produce commercially on a large scale or who need to feed a huge collection of reptiles. What I liked about the book: Details were given on creating the right air flow, what types of screening to use and when, and making cleaning, feeding, and water delivery efficient with detailed instructions on making your own feeding and water delivery systems. Tips for dealing wit...

Being a reptile keeper, it seems like expenses always come up. Light bulbs pop, food has to be ordered, or that species you can never find is finally up for sale. Bottom line is we can all use a little help saving and even better, finding easy ways to get a few extra bucks. So I will tell you three ways that actually worked for me and that I personally used. I will also list a couple of things I tried that were a total waste of time to save you the trouble. 1. Qapital I love this app. Essentially it rounds up your purchases on your debit card and stores away your change in an FDIC account. You set goals you are saving up for and you can withdraw your money back into your primary account whenever you need. There are no fees for this service and it has worked very well for helping me put away a little extra money. When you use the link below, both you and I will get 5$ once you make a deposit. Qapital Savings App 2. Ebates By installing this chrome add on, you get a percentage of...

I began keeping herps around 35 years ago when we had turtles, a ribbon snake, some locally collected lizards, and a few western newts (not sure which species as we didn't keep any photos). Most of the prey items were captured in the woods behind the house, but we could get small fish, crickets, and mealworms in the bait and pet shops. Of those, I noticed the nearest zoo preferred to use crickets to feed their insect eating herps. Therefore, I began to use more crickets and less mealworms. At some point I got out of reptile keeping and re-emerged later as various roaches were becoming more popular. The only species I really felt comfortable using in my home, the dubia roach, I found actually had a lot of drawbacks. It takes a long time to start a colony whereas I can hatch out hundreds or thousands of crickets in less than a month. The dubia roaches often hide or hold still when encountered, whereas crickets hop around most of the time and catch the attention of my animals better...

The beautiful flat rock lizards from Africa are a group of lizards I've wanted for years. I am still very much a newcomer to these lizards. Thus far, I've kept either a mature male and female (or possibly an immature male?) for approximately 6 months. These are very active and fast lizards that thus far seem quite hardy in captivity. There are several species and sub-species and I am unsure which I actually have. Basically, in the USA, the larger species ( Platysaurus imperator)  is sold as the emperor flat rock lizard and anything else simply as a flat rock lizard. I prefer the smaller variety that I have simply because they use a little less space. Being that I am relatively new to these lizards, my setup may or may not be ideal for them. However, I will tell you how I've been keeping them so far. I have seen them basking at 93F so I believe they should be housed in an enclosure large enough to generate a fairly hot basking spot, yet cool enough for them to...

In my opinion, it will be extremely difficult to become a successful breeder of rare snakes without securing a steady supply of live mice. It is just the case that many snakes start off feeding on live prey and generally transition to frozen thawed after a few meals. There are many different methods of breeding mice depending on the quantities you need. If you have a reliable rodent breeder nearby with reasonable prices, that is also an avenue well worth considering. Supply List: Lab cages Water Bottles Pine bedding Rodent Chow or Doggy Bag Dog Food If you search out any information, you will find stories of missing baby mice. Sadly, I have found this is a very real threat. If you cannot identify the offender, you must put down the most likely suspects. As an alternative, I have had good results keeping mice in pairs. Kept in pairs, I have found this is relatively rare. Keeping the mice well fed and hydrated will also help, I use lab cages for raising mice. As I only feed pin...

A couple of years ago I had the chance to go out to Oregon and do some field herping. Richard Hoyer was kind enough to show me around.  I also took a morning to go visit the attractive coastline. Along the highway, you can see there are a lot of trees but also grassy areas where snakes and lizards can be found. We found many nice looking garter snakes Along the roadside gravel where many sharptail snakes A few attractive fence lizards were found The most common reptiles we found where alligator lizards and rubber boas, but we did find a few ringneck snakes and gopher snakes, too. It was strange that Oregon was listing the rubber boa at this time as a species of special concern yet it was the most numerous snake species we found and we found them in many different areas, basically anywhere that there was an exposed area for them to bask under objects they could be found. So there you have it. Oregon may not be a world famous herpi...

I have been keeping and breeding Oreocryptophis porphyraceus coxi for several years now. It is often listed as the Thai red mountain ratsnake or the Thai Bamboo ratsnake. This is one of the easiest species of snake to keep and breed provided you have an air conditioned house. They have great colors and are very hardy snakes but they really are heat sensitive and probably shouldn't be kept by people looking for a shoulder pet. I keep mine in 28 quart tubs in a rack without any supplemental heat. The colubrid room they stay in is between 75-78F year round. At these temperatures they will digest food without any additional heat. If you have an especially cold house, you may want to use some backheat to create a small spot in the upper 70s. Although I've never kept them warm enough to find out, it is reported that they may die if the temperature bumps into the 80s. I can confidently say they will do fine in the 70s. I use cypress as a substrate and keep the back half of the...

It's very important to run a clean reptile room, and I'll provide some insight to things I've learned over the years that have helped me and I believe may help you, too. 1. Gloves and Hand Washing While gloves are not a cure all for preventing the spread of disease, they do help tip the odds in your favor. Gloves are relatively inexpensive, disposable, and you can store a lot of them without taking up too much space. Make sure there is a trash receptacle in the room where they are used for disposal and that it is emptied often. The proper technique of removing gloves must also be used for them to be effective. First, ensure you open the glove box using the perforated area and carefully pull out the gloves so as not to contaminate the entire box. Secondly, when removing the gloves, you will have to remove the second glove with your ungloved hand. Be sure to place your bare fingers inside the second glove when peeling it off so that your bare fingers never touch the outsi...

Here are some books that I have personally read and found very worthwhile. I will try to link the best reptile books that I have found here. Although reptile books seem to be less popular than in years past,  books are a great way to pickup information.  I strongly recommend all reptile owners read the next one regardless of what you keep. Invisible Ark by David & Tracy Barker This one is older but covers a good number of species Good stories from the old days of reptile keeping A lot of photographs and description of illnesses in here. This is probably more of interest to someone with a large collection than for a quick reference book for personal pets. A classic book that opened the door to keeping and catching snakes for a generation and is still a great read This is a good book to read. It will help reinforce the need for cleanliness, quarantine, and give you some basic understanding of parasites. A basic boo...

"My Vet just googled it" is one of those phrases I cringe when I hear people say. Reptile vets face a tough audience. If you have chosen a good vet, then he or she will have an excellent set of colleagues, techniques, medical knowledge, and labs in which to draw upon in order to properly diagnose and prescribe treatment from. In my experience, they use all of these tools when they are needed. When we have been unable to find a solution, a necropsy has been performed. Likely your vet will have the animal sent off to a pathologist for details. Even in the event that a vet has been unable to diagnose and/or cure the reptile patient, they will still be instrumental in working with the pathologist and ultimately getting further information for the animal caretaker and increase the working knowledge of reptile husbandry as a whole. Furthermore, let's say you are a mechanic with 25 years of experience. It is very likely that you can google some resources and determine how to fix...

About Rear-Fanged/opisthoglyph snakes In recent years, the level of fear, tall tales, and sometimes paranoia about snakes in this category has risen to unthinkable levels. Some people have blamed a handful of researchers for this, but if you look at their actual comments, they are usually downplaying the dangers, encouraging safe handling techniques, and trying to drag the discussion back to the center. As such, I do not think such blame is accurate. For example, let's take a look at what one of the best known venom researchers (Dr. Bryan Fry) actually stated on the subject, ""Something we have gone to great pains to stress at every opportunity is that venomous and dangerous are not interchangeable. The vast majority of ‘rear-fanged’ snakes are totally harmless from a human medical perspective due to very small amounts of venom that is often very specific to a particular prey type (eg being 100 times more potent towards birds/reptiles than mammals). Similarly, the varan...

Emergency Preparedness and your reptile collection The last thing you want to be doing is figuring out what you're going to do during the middle of a storm and your reptiles life may well depend on your planning and readiness to face an emergency. The size of your collection and hardiness of the species kept will determine which options are feasible for you. If you have a small collection of 1-15 animals, a very practical technique may simply be to keep deli cups or bags and shipping boxes handy. In the event of a power outage, you can box the animals up with a heat pack or precharged cold pack and simply wait for conditions to improve or transport the animals to a safe location such as a family member's home. For extended power outages caused by major storms, you may need to create temporary enclosures. It would be a good idea to make such arrangements before they are needed. For those with larger collections, it will likely prove more difficult to move all the animals a...