Posted by:
reptoman
at Sun Jan 7 11:50:48 2007 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by reptoman ]
It looks to me like the animal is not ematiated. The pictures are a little blurry, and as both Mark and Fireside have itimated it is the season for hibernation. It looks to me like he could just be put down for at least a month or so, at the most bring him up at March 1st. The animal should have the light turned off and he should burry himself, you can check on him from time to time. YOu might consider dampening one side of the cage slightly, not wet but just damp, as somethinmes they are drawn to a damp soil, leave the otherside dry, let him choose. With respect to the temps in the cage and your lighting, the hot side should be about 105 and the cool about 85 and the ambient temp should be around 85 to 90 degrees. THe fact is in the desert a 100 degree temp can have ground temps up to 130 or 140 degrees, while they will cross through these gradients most of the time they stay convientently under a bush or burrow under the soil to keep cool. So the temps should go up in my opinion when ever you do take him out of hibernation, and as stated the samll crickets are most attainable at any time, so I would go with those for feeding. ALso you need to consider ordering ants on the internet, our site gives you the link or find some in your local area, these need to be the big red ants, not grease ants or fire ants - another thing that works well is termites if you can find those as well. Small mini-mealworms, wax worms, and small crickets and an occasional moth caught around the porch light is also relished. YOu can use a small hand held battery powered vaccum to suck up ants but at this moment in time they are probably not avialable because they also hibernate during the winter as well. BUt from what I see it looks as though you could hibernate--- I call on the others to give their opinions about this, but I think I would be comfortable in hibernating him from his looks and just check on him every couple weeks, if the legs get real skinny or the fat around his hips show his bones or he seems lethergic then certianly warm him up and feed him. BUt it is normal for these lizards to slow down at this time of the year. I don't know what kind of lighting your using but I would recommend you either use a 7% or higher UVB flourescent, or a 10.0 flourescent ($19.00 through LLL Reptiles) and also use the zoomed basking bulb. He needs to be in a 20 Gal. Long cage, you could use something smaller but normall we recommend a 40 gal for a pair. While he is heated up you may try and spray in the cage on a rock or window and see if he will lap up some water please follow Firesides recommendations on that. I hope this helps, please feel free to ask anything else, it would be great if we could get one more nice clear picture of the animal, preferably as you did before from the top looking down. Judging the animals condition without a clear picture may be difficult but I do think he looks good enough to hibernate for some time anyway...........Cheers!!! ----- Phrynosoma.org
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