Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've only had him 6 day's i just want to make sure nothing is wrong.He's up for 4 hour's or so then between 2 and 4 o'clock he goes in a hide and sleep's til the next morning.Just want some info on this i'm sure he's fine and just getting used to new home.Thank's for all the help!

Sounds pretty much like mine. She is awake between 8-9 am everyday and back to sleep between 4-5pm.

Thank's Skribbles.Like i said i've only had him 5 day's now and thought that was a little early for him to go to bed.So that make's me feel better.I also had him in 29 gallon tank and thought i could get away with that for a couple of month's so i could save money for a bigger cage,and he didn't like that cage at all so last night i had to get 50 gallon terrarium which is much better,so i think the 2nd tank move in 5 day's has stressed him out also!I also covered all 4 side's of tank for now to help him chill-out!

www.deerfernfarms.com

Great uros, great site, great info for the common uro keeper. Pro Exotics has done some very interesting things with uromastyx (mainly giving them a 10' circular enclosure with 2' of good dirt so they could exercise their burrowing abilities). I would definately give the little guy/girl a 'nest box' at least (you can see examples on the caresheet on deerfernfarms.com). I have kind of a false burrow set up in my cage, since I only have room for 3-4" of dirt. I just basically dug a large rectangular hole almost to the bottom of the cage. Then I set in a piece of thin plywood (roughly 1'x2') so that there was roughly 1.5" of space, with just under 1" of dirt beneath that. Then I covered that piece of plywood with about .5-1" of dirt. I left entrances on both ends of the fake burrow, and my mali loves to get in there and peak out each end to see what's going on. It looks pretty nice, because it almost looks like a real burrow, and it suits the purpose of offering a higher humidity hiding spot for her.

Your uro's schedule sounds about right. Remember that in the wild a uromastyx will spend almost all of its day deep beneath the surface in a humid burrow (for moisture retention), only coming out at certain points in the day (usually the hottest points, when there is likely to be no predators around) to eat, bask shortly, and then return to the burrow.

I would encourage you to do as much research on the actual animal as you can, but try not to do too much research on common care, because for the most part, there are a lot of aspects of common uromastyx care that are lacking, and can be fixed if you research enough on their wild habits.

BTW, make sure you pick up a temp gun (available from pro exotics at either proexotics.com or tempgun.com). Use that to measure the basking temperatures (along with a digital thermometer) and try to maintain the basking temps at around 130-135ish, sometimes hotter.

Good luck with your new uro!

read your uro! If you see it basking all day, that usually means that the temps are too low, so measure the temps and more times than not they will have dropped for some reason.

Also, with the high heat requirements of uromastyx, people tend to try using very large heat bulbs (like 150 watt basking bulbs). The reason is, most of the time people keep the bulbs too far away from the animal, and also have too much ventilation on the cage (if you have a screen top, cover almost all of it with plexi or tin foil). My cage is custom made, and has 3 - 2" holes for ventilation. I heat it with a 50 watt halogen FLOOD bulb (has to be flood, don't get one with the little clear hexagon in the center of the lens) that I get from home depot or lowes for very cheap. If the temps are too low, I raise the uro's basking spot up. If they are too high, I lower the basking spot.

For a good adjustable basking spot, try a 'retes stack' (look in the faq section of proexotics.com). If you're temps are too low, this will help get the uro up close to the bulb.

Good luck again! There's so much to tell new uro owners Uromastyx are still fairly new as reptilian pets, so most people keep them similarly to other reptiles commonly kept, such as bearded dragons (which could use better husbandry in general as well), so I always like to encourage new owners to try new things, as long as they are not dangerous. Like using soil instead of sand.

I'm going tonite to try and find some soil for nest box hard to find it without perlite and other crap you don't wantI built 2 hides out of plywood i'm gonna take 1 and use it for hide it has about 2 inches of headroom all i have to do is cover the other side fill it with dirt and it's good to go .As far as temp's they are perfect on all sides.

Very good! One thing I've noticed about desert reptiles in general is that they're kept in very dry environments. I like to get info from monitor keepers and apply it to my reptiles. They seem to understand a lot more about microclimates and such (how parts of the enclosure should be dry, others should be very moist, etc.). Monitor keepers tend to be pretty good about offering their monitors tons of dirt to dig in, but with smaller lizards like uromastyx, I understand why people wouldn't be able to give them 2' of dirt to dig in! That's why I always suggest at least offering a nest box or some other sort of humid retreat. In a way, that actually complicates things though. When you just give the lizard everything it needs (like lots of dirt, lots of heat, etc) then it will be able to manipulate its environment to suit its needs (by burrowing and such). That way the uromastyx can find areas that are the right temperature, humidity, etc. When you offer a next box, there's always that chance that the reptile will refuse to use it unless things are just right. You might have to try positioning the nest box in different places around the enclosure, and trying different amounts of dirt, different amounts of water in the dirt, etc. etc. etc. until the lizard decides it is suitable.

But don't give up! You'll have a healthier lizard for doing this! By the way, remember that you are going to have to put more water into the dirt regularly or else it will dry out and get very dusty.

If you don't already have one, I still suggest a temp gun. Very good tool for building appropriate basking spots!

I went and got a bag of dirt tonite actually it's topsoil but it has all the stuff it need's and it doesn't have any perlite or water retension pellet's or anything.This is what i needed right?

Yes, regular topsoil will work fine. That's what I use in my uromastyx cage, as well as my bearded dragon cage, and my russian tortoise cage. A lot of people suggest digging up your own soil from outside, but where I live you can't do that. There's so many pesticides in the lawn, and if you go out into the country, there's even more pesticides from the farmers.

So topsoil seems to work fine.

I can't dig up any soil from around here either.I live in florida and it isn't dirt it's basically sand.

straight topsoil doesn't really work well, it doesn't have enough adhesion. try mixing in some of that great Florida sand, start with a 50/50 mix, add some water content, and mix it well. you will get much better digging, better burrowing, and a substrate the animal can really use.
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

That's exactly what i did!50/50 mix,slightly damp.

Hey Robyn! How's it going?
What kind of sand do you usually use? The sand I get tends to just turn dirt into an even crappier, messier substrate. I usually get 'carribean playsand' as it's what is commonly available here. Is there a different, better kind of sand that I could mix in? This sand seems to just break the bind even more, know what I mean?

But straight topsoil seems to be working okay for me right now. The thing is, it doesn't work too well until it really starts getting packed down (after the first few weeks of keeping the reptiles on it). You have to get past that 'fluffy' stage that most topsoil tends to start out in.