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RE: BETTER PICTURES!

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Posted by: fireside3 at Sun Jan 7 18:56:53 2007  [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by fireside3 ]  
   

I agree with the assessment that it is apparently of healthy weight. It probably could be hibernated safely if that were the only condition. However, I hesitate in light of the lizard's youth, and your inexperience, to advise it. Though we could help you with setting it up for hibernation, I question whether it may be better to keep it up at this point. This is a judgement call. For people new to HL's with a wild adult in good health, I recommend they let them go ahead and hibernate. For young one's, I advocate it might be better to keep them up and growing. There is insufficient history on this one since being removed from the wild, but we know it was kept by a child and may not have eaten or drank sufficiently in 2 weeks or so. Since conditions to survive hibernation would be more critical for a juvenile horned lizard, I put that out for consideration. It is not an adult yet. Nor is it quite a baby. Therefore a good case could be made either way.

Or as a compromise, keep it active, fed the right things, and hydrated, with proper lighting for at least a few more weeks. Then we can go from there on an abbreviated hibernation later. You need some time to make preparations for hibernation anyway, and a period of observation would be recommended.

Take caution with capturing insects as food, especially if you use pesticides around your home, or live in a neigborhood, or near agricultural areas. Flying insects are more safe to catch around the home. For ground crawlers I recommend going out of your way to undeveloped areas to make sure they are safe. Harvester ants are the best thing to use, and their natural majority prey in the wild. Myself and Cable sell ants normally, but not so much right now, as Repto said, they hibernate too. I'm afraid the best recommendation to get these ants reliably for now is through antsalive.com until the spring. They are more pricey and it might take a couple weeks to get them, so be prepared.
I don't recommend mealworms, or anything like that at this time. They are not very nutritious, and can be dangerous to use if you don't have all the information. I recommend ants primarily, crickets ( the smallest you can get ) occasionally or as a backup, and a moth as you can catch them, as Repto said. Whatever you feed to it, when it comes to something other than ants, make sure it is small.

20 gallon >or bigger< aquarium for sure. As it grows to adult it will really need a 40gal. anyway, so you might consider that now if you are going to keep it, and start buying setup equipment.

The only thing I disagree with Reptoman about is the choice of UVB lighting. I advocate a mercury vapor UVB spot/flood lamp over a flourescent tube light to provide the REQUIRED UVB lighting. I find flourescent tubes to be cheaper, but inferior unless you are going to buy several of them. Good mercury vapors can be found online, including ebay sometimes, for better than pet store prices. Just stay away from SunSeeker's commonly sold on ebay. I recommend MegaRay at the top of the reptile hobbyist line ( $50 ), or ZooMed PowerSun ( $30 ) as a cheaper, less effective, but acceptable alternative.

You will soon start discovering what will be involved in the care of a horned lizard, and I know it's pretty soon, but have you decided whether to keep it, or no?
-----
"A man that should call everything by it's right name, would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy." The Complete Works of George Savile, First Marquess of Halifax 1912,246


   

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