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| Reptiles! |
| Here are some of the reptiles I
have taken care of. |
| Veiled
Chameleons |
August/September 2000 - I bought
two Veiled Chameleons from a Reptile show. Both are females. One was
four weeks old and the other one was three weeks old.
At the show I bought them a 60 gallon nylon net tank, a REPTISUN 5.0
UVB 15w light, and a 150w heat light. I also purchased a branch with
some plastic leaves for them to climb around on and hide in. Beacause
of the open design of the tank, it doesn't get too hot in there for the
Chameleons.
I cleaned out the fountain that used to be in the Poison Frog tank and
put it in with the Chameleons as a source of water. I also spray them
down a couple times a day.
January 10, 2001 - The Chameleons started out on a diet of ten day old
crickets. They now small crickets and Vegetables like Collard Greens
and Kale. Their crickets are dusted about every other feeding to every
third feeding. |
| Bearded
Dragon (Pancake) - Surrender |
November 2000 - I rescued a baby
Bearded Dragon.
A manager of a local pet store bought a male and female
Bearded Dragon, they must have only been a couple weeks old when he
bought them. He planned on breeding them. Well they were in a small
tank, and the female was biting at the male's tail and messing it up.
She also wouldn't let him eat. So one of the manager's employees told
him that she'd take the male and give him a good home. He thought it
was a good idea and proceeded to tell her when it was breeding season
he'd like to have the male back to breed the female. She just laughed
at him and said noway, if she had to feed him, house him, and spend
time and money on him then he was her's. Well with all the other things
she had to do the Bearded Dragon was too much for her so she mentioned
it to me and I took over from there!
He was only about four to six inches long when we got him. That
included the tail.
I cleaned out a 30 gallon tank for him, put some white sand in, and a
couple pieces of wood for him to climb on. I use a REPTISUN 5.0 UVB 30w
light, and a ZOO-MED 100w dome light to heat his tank.
I had to handfeed him for about a week. I could see that he was week
and hungry. It would have been easy to underfeed him because he'd eat a
couple crickets then go into a trancelike state. I knew he couldn't be
full already and decided for him that he wasn't. So I just waited a
minute or so and sure enough he'd start eating again. This went on for
about a week and I could tell he was getting better. He'd even start
stretching for the crickets from one of my hands to the other. I'd
force him to do that to get used to the idea of running after them.
After about another week of that he'd start eating them in his tank
when they went by him. Now he chases them all across his tank. He also
eats vegetables like Collard Greens, Mustard Greens, Squash, etc. I
dust his crickets about every other feeding.
June 9, 2001 - The Bearded Dragon is about twice as big as he was when
I first got him (or larger). He will now eat 4 dozen medium - large
crickets in one feeding if we let him.
His head is often an orangish-yellow and his body is now starting to
match. Unfortunately, he is missing a good inch or more of his tail
because of his original owner (The Petsmart Manager).
*Update* Yeah, HE turned out to be a SHE. It was pretty obvious when HE
laid eggs, ...twice. |
| Peruvian
Blue Iguana (Zotoh Zhaan - Named after Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan of Farscape.) -
Surrender |
January 9, 2001 - I recieved a
free female Peruvian Blue Iguana.
I was looking in the PennySaver and
saw an ad for a free Iguana. She's four years old. She has a blue head,
green body, and black markings and stripes. The original owner gave her
to a boy when she was just a baby. They had a huge cage for her and
everything. They fed her a diet of various vegetables and took her out
in the sun when it was warm. But they happened upon a large dog one day
and took him in. The boy quickly lost interest in the Iguana and the
parents had too much to do to look after her. So now I have her.
The cage was too big to take out of the house so for now I have her in
an extra bathroom. I removed all hazardous objects and put her tub in
our walk-in shower. It's a one piece shower so there's no sharp edges
for her to cut herself on. It works out great for misting her.
I provide her with a diet of Collard Greens, Mustard Greens, Parsnips
and some other vegetables who's names I don't know how to spell.
I'm looking to buy a housing unit for her from LIZARDCAGES.COM. So far
they're the best cages I've found for them. I call it a housing unit
because it's too big to really be concidered a cage. The one I want is
a corner model and stands 6ft x 5ft x 4ft. That's bigger than my
bathroom. Well, close enough. |
| Uromastyx
(Delta and I forgot the other's name) - Surrender |
May 11, 2001 - I saw two
Uromastyx for sale in the PennySaver.
Needless to say I got them that
night.
I got them home and did some research on them and it turned out that
they were Mali Uromastyx. They seem to eat a lot of the food that I
feed my other reptiles, so that was good (With a definit fondness of
carrots). I also found out that they like their basking area around 120
- 140 degrees F. So I put a stronger heat lamp on them. And I bought
them a new 5.0 UVB bulb, by REPTISUN of course. Their substrate was
composed of sand like I have for my Bearded Dragon and some finely
crushed walnut shells. I'm not huge fans of crushed walnut shells, so I
sifted them out and replaced them with more sand.
Sometimes I give the Uros crickets. THEY GO NUTS OVER THEM!!!! |
| Baby
Green Iguana - Surrender |
Rescued Baby Green Iguana.
June 21, 2001 - I went to
one of my local pet stores to get some crickets for my frogs and
reptiles. When I went to the back for the crickets, one of my friends
in the reptile department showed me this Green Iguana. He had just been
brought in about an hour before she got there by some people claiming
to have found it outside near the street. So I took it in to see if I
could do anything for it.
He is extremely skinny, and can hardly
move. The Iguana barely has anything more than flesh and bones. Its
tail is full length but broken up and brown. Three toes are partially
missing. Two on the rear left leg, and one on the front left leg. The
Iguana has black burn marks on it's belly, tail, and legs from staying
on a heat rock.
I called the vet to see if they'd be able to
take a look at it before I brought it home. They said they could see
him as soon as I brought him in. So I got the iguana from the pet
store. While walking out, one of the other employees stated what a
shame it was about the Iguana and said that the people who brought it
in told her all about how it got loose in the house and they couldn't
find it for weeks and this was the result when they finally found it.
(That's a little bit different than finding it on the side of the road,
don't you think?)
Well, I don't believe either story that the
people had told them. The most obvious reason is - How could something
that small and that weak have survived a few weeks outside on its own?
All kinds of animals would have made this little guy an easy meal.
Anyways...
So I took him (or her) to the vet and the Iguana checked out pretty
well other than being so skinny. He took a look at its tail to see if
it still had any feeling in it and the tail just snapped when he
pinched it. So now it only has about half of its tail and I'm sure I
can expect more of it to rot off before it gets better. It doesn't even
show any signs of Calcium deficiency. But, the vet did ask that I bring
in a fecal sample for examination. He also recommended that I feed it
baby food through a syringe.
I mix a very small amount of baby
food with some water and feed it to the Iguana a couple times a day.
The food that we are using is Gerber Second Foods Creamed Spinach,
Garden Vegetables, and Green Beans. I also gave it a little bit of
Collard Greens and a couple of Crickets.
It doesn't have the greatest use of its legs but it can crawl around if
it is really motivated to. Otherwise it just lays limp.
June
23, 2001 - While I was holding the Iguana for some photos, it decided
to mess on me. So of course I called the vet and told him we had a
fecal sample for him! The vet told me that the Iguana does have some
hook-worm eggs in its fecal matter. He gave me a couple syringes of
Ivomec and told me to orally inject one tonight and one two weeks from
now and that should clear him out.
I'll keep posting more information on him as it comes up. I'm thinking
about naming him Runt.
*Update* A few days later, Baby Runt couldn't hold on any longer. |
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