Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, I have had a male "Texas collared lizard" since March 2005.
He was purchased as a sub-adult and was supposedly captive bred.
Well, endoparasite wise and behaviour wise he is not a cbb animal.
He ate originally for a few weeks, and after hibernation this year.
He is offered only crickets, wax worms and king worms. He will not eat the occasional pinkie mouse.
I try to rotate to offer variety so he does not get bored.

I thought the de-worming would improve appetite but this is not the case.
He has had to be hand-fed the entire time.

His conditions are not optimal due to the amount of ambient light in the room.
He is housed in a Showcase cages 36" wide. I have 2 Zoo-med 10.0's in the cage as well as another light with a high CRI.
He has two spotlights on one end, over the dome, that total to 150 watts.
The spotlights were controlled with a Helix set to 104.
They don't get too terribly much warmer than that without the Helix so the Helix went back to the new Chondros.
There is an undertank heater as well, on the warm end. The cool end goes down to about 80-82 during the cooler portion of the year and is probably 85 or a little more lately.
He is kept on red desert dirt and has flat rocks stacked underneath the basking area. He also has a sandstone bridge to get closer to the UVB.
I am going to put a Hagen hot rock on a rheostat on the cool end on top of rocks so he can get further irradiated by the Zoo-med 10.0.
He has a hut to bail into to escape the UVB and temps if needed. He does use it.

What has other peoples experience been with feeding these guys?
What is the feeding frequency, feeding reponse, feeding methods, and prey items offered to their collareds?

I am open to any suggestions at all, including husbandry.
Thanks.

I would say a few things, your right sometimes they are sold as captive bred because they know some people do not want wc. Another thing is even if he were cb they can still get parasites/worms from the feeders , bugs and especially pinky mice, so thats something that has to be checked every so often.

Another thing if he were wc, which I have alot of wc's and have seen that pattern of eating for the first couple or few weeks then not accepting food and slowly dwindling down. Sometimes it's a matter of "failure to thrive" They will just starve themselves to death IF you don't intervene. And some still do not make it.

I have taken a few tough wc (non eaters) and have literally handfed them for months. I pick them up press GENTLY (gently as to not break their jaw) on either side of the jaw , and with he other hand when they open I pop in the cricket or superworm, if they spit it out I do it again.

After awhile they begin to go after food again. (MOST of the time) The few collareds I have done this with have turned out to be the most friendly guys I have.

Food items that can sometimes get them super stimulated are MOTHS, they just LOVE flying insects, drives them nuts. Grass hoppers are another treat, THE HOP gets them going.

As far as temps , seems as though you have lots of light just make sure to get the temps up to 100 - 105 and high 80's to 90 everywhere else in the tank.

Thats about all I can think of for now, these are things that have worked for me. Let us know how he does and maybe a pic to see your guy
Collared lizards/Care and More

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PHEve / Eve

Contact PHEve

Cool, thanks Eve.
I need to post a picture.

I found your site last night after reading some other posts, and I checked out all of your lizards and the care article.
I found william wells site a long while ago when I had an auriceps for 2 years before i blew it husbandry wise. Your site and his are the only care articles for these guys.

I will have to hunt down moths.
It is relieving that I am not the only one that has to hand feed the baby. This sucks. I wish he would go after things himself. The auriceps did.

I have acess to field locusts, I am at the University of California Santa Cruz in a lab known as Lizard Lab.
We are studying a population of side blotched lizards. There are lots of humongous grasshoppers that fly up and hit you in the face when walking in the field.
I have been hesitant to feed field insects due to the possiblity of parasites, but the domestica acheta probably have parasites as well-most likely pinworms. I don't think these are pathenogenic.
Have you had any experience with parasites from domestic insect sources?
I would like to know about this.

My boy hides in the hut a lot.

He ate well after hibernation, and then the same old story.
He is fat though. Or at least his hind legs are.

I do have the capabilities of treating and diagnosing most parasites, I set myself up for this when I started dealing with Green Tree pythons. What a pain in the butt they can be.

Thanks for the input. I can try some moths and make certain my temps are up to par.
I'm certain they are, because homeboy hides in the late afternoon. But, more advice is better.

Hopefully he snaps out of it with time (or with a female friend in the cage).
Speaking of which, have you had any experience with them feeding better if there is a female in the cage with them?