Our five New Guys are four months old now and doing well. The first photo shows them with Dad, on the extreme right. He is approx. 1 ½ years old. Just to the left of him is his first-born son and to the left of him are four females.

MY OBSERVATION: During their fourth month, the New Guys continued to grow but at significantly different rates. The little male, second from the right, continued to outpace the others. As you can see, he is almost adult size. The two little girls in the center have been a little more aggressive eaters and continued on what I would call a normal growth rate. The two little girls on the left have slowed down. They sleep longer and sometimes avoid even their favorite ants. They poop less often and their feces are predominantly smaller. They are the two who have started displaying digging behavior. They are ready to hibernate even though I don’t think they have grown enough. It seems to me that Nature is taking two different paths to see which one is best for survival. The 2-½ year old Mother has already gone down. A little earlier than I would have expected but I’m guessing she is tired after giving us 5 New Guys.
Their weights, in grams, left to right:
2.22, 2.17, 3.47, 3.84, 6.54, and Dad is 9.06

As I have said before, I use Zoo Med Excavator for substrate. If you follow the directions for adding water, you can make nice mountains for your lizards to climb on but the result is too dense for my SHLs. My 1-½ year old female ground her nails off digging in it. However, when they try to burrow (like for hibernation) in the loose material, it continues to cave in on them. My solution is shown in the second photo. I drilled four 3/16” diameter holes in a piece of sandstone and epoxyed in 1/8” diameter stainless steel rods for legs. This allows me to provide a cover for burrowing HLs that I can lift off to check on my lizards and replace without crushing them.

If any of you would like to try this but don’t have access to 1/8” diameter stainless steel pins, send me an address, a quantity, and a length and I will cut you some and send them for free.

Bluemax

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