Reptilian fascination

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...