Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello, everyone I am knew to this forum and today was given 2 leopard lizards. 1 is an adult and the other is a juvi. They are in a 40 gallon tall and on flooring of crushed walnut shell and aspen wood shavings. My friend was feeding them only cricket, and has had them for about a year. I have chameleons 2 turtles and dart frogs so I breed lobsterroaches superworms meal worms and have butterworm and earthworms in stock. any Info would be great. Tank set-up temps humidity anything. I looked online and ther wasn,t much. I did read that they are close relatives to the Collards. anyway thanks Matt

I keep my Leopard lizards at 110/105 basking temp and the rest of the tank at 85/90 I would get rid of the nut shells, they kill more lizards I think than anything else, I use the washed play sand from Homedopt, as for humidity, the lower the better, food if they don't like what you're feeding them they will not eat, mine like the super worms the best and then the crickets, I like feeding them crickets becouse the calcium powder sticks better, make sure you have good UVA/UVB at leased 7%, I use the 10% for desert lizards.

Cecil
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1.1 Bearded Dragon (Drago,Medusa)
1.1 Desert Iguana(Dima, Dianne)
1.0 Green Iguana (Igor)
0.1.1 Chuckwalla (roxy,Little Chuckie)
1.3.5 Collared Lizard (Fred, Wilma, Betty, #1,2,3,4,5, KND)
1.1 Desert Leopard Lizard (Simba, Kimba)
0.1 Calif. Kingsnake (Keebler)
0.1 Hamster (Tofu)
1.1 Kids
0.1 Wife

Thanks for the reply. Any particular ay for set up. rocks hides ect. thanks Matt

Primarily these are desert or semi-desert species, low humidity is prefered, these should have a nice hide, they often live in other animal burrows abandoned or or in packrat nests and other such hiding places. As mentioned they usually like large insects as adults, they do eat lizards, and also like large moths and grasshoppers.

The cage temps above are exactly as they should be, please get rid of that substrate and whether you go with home depot sand as mentioned or other type of sand sunstrate, the washed sand works good and is availalble and cheap.

YOu should spray occasionally in the corner of the cage every once in awhile and they should lap up the water dropletts on the galss and on the rocks. You could put in a small shallow water bowl, but well fed and maintaineded animals generally get their moisture out of the food they eat too.

Also you can get a bowl and put a layer of calcium (or rep cal) in the bottom and put your wax worms, or king mealworms in that, as they crawl around they get the powder on them. MoSt of the time these lizards will go ofter prey as soon as you get in the cage if they are hungery given they are warmed up. Might take a bit to get them back to normal. Also they will climb into bushes so a branch or so might not be a bad idea as well. Get a branch that is as wide as thier body. You also might expiriment or poll some others on the forum about feedoing vegetable matter as they may eat some flowers. etc.

Once they are eating well and putting on good wieght I would cut back on supplements to once a week. Make sure the top is a screen top so they get good ventilation as well. You might keep the temps up in the cage for some time until they are good and fat. If it starts getting cold where you live check the ambient temp and make sure during the day it's about 90 degrees, and maybe 74-76 at night. YOu may have to get a dark blue night bulb to keep the night temps up. If they are thin you do not want to slow their metabilism down or hibernate them at this point and for their over-all health maybe not this year, not seeing a picture its hard to give good advice. Hope this helps and I am glad you have them, instead of your well intentioned friend. Cheers!!! Good Luck!
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Phrynosoma.org

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signature file edited. [phw 11/14/04]

on the Chuckwalla board, they specialize in the Desart lizards

Cecil
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1.1 Bearded Dragon (Drago,Medusa)
1.1 Desert Iguana(Dima, Dianne)
1.0 Green Iguana (Igor)
0.1.1 Chuckwalla (roxy,Little Chuckie)
1.3.5 Collared Lizard (Fred, Wilma, Betty, #1,2,3,4,5, KND)
1.1 Desert Leopard Lizard (Simba, Kimba)
0.1 Calif. Kingsnake (Keebler)
0.1 Hamster (Tofu)
1.1 Kids
0.1 Wife