Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have finally finished my outdoor cage! It is 8'x 8'x 4'. I have 2 Az chucks and am planning on adding 3 desert iguanas, some banded geckos, whiptails, zebratails and South Mountain Phase chucks. I will post photos of the setup's progress tonight. I modeled it after the Rio Bravo Reptiles cage guidelines. It worked great. Hopefully I will be able to observe these lizards acting wild in stead of captive.
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Thanks and Take Care,

Geoff Orr

I can't wait to see the pics. I too used Gus's design as a starting point in my outdoor cage. I'd stick to one type of chuck if I were you...keep them pure LOL. Whiptails will prey on your banded geckos too, as well as anything else small. DVL was just telling me his whiptails were eating the geckos in his pen.

John Eddington

First off let me say you will love your new outdoor pen. I spend as much time in my pen as I do inside the house. I would avoid mixing up different locales of chucks. First thing--- 2 males will not last more than 13 seconds without a good fight. Plus--diluting the bloodline of red backs or redtails by hybridizing should be avoided---- even though I am guilty of creating some "Mutts"--I would advise against it. New -- to mixing species----Chucks and DI's do well. The whiptails & zebratails are voracious and will find Geckos, dig up small eggs and eat each others babies ( if they hatch). I would expect whiptails & zebratails to fight each other as well. Chucks, DI's and any one of the other ones should do fine. I used to have 4-5 species of critters in my pen and soon found out what "checks & balances" is all about. Plus--- they require a lot of feeding when you have too many of em! Here is a pic of a "Chi-wah-wah" striped whiptail starting to tear into the belly of a Med. Gecko after digging it out from under some rocks & gobbling up the tail. I hope my adult Banded Gecks are still alive after seeing this!

Have fun!

David

Thanks for the advice. I will stick to the S. Mtn phase chucks, DI's & ? How do collared lizards fare with theses species. How about Spiny Lizards?
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Thanks and Take Care,

Geoff Orr

Rincon,

Careful with asking DVL about Spineys. Next thing you know you'll have a pair and then you will soon be spending your waking hours trying to find something they WONT eat. They are amazing little monsters. They catch crickets in mid air! I'll be honest, I don't like the way the male has been looking at me lately. I may be next.

Check out DVL's and JohnE's setups. Awesome.

Only about 1/3 the size of dvls, but enjoyed just as much I'm sure. I spend every second I can out there when I'm home. As far as the collared lizards go...yea, you can keep them out there, but they will eat offspring of your other lizards. I live in Illinois, so I keep my lizards in until it warms up nicely outside. Usually by that time, my females are all done laying eggs, and I don't have to worry about them laying eggs in the pen.
there are a variety of spinies...the larger ones would be overwhelming to feed in my opinion, unless you had some sort of large insect lure. Maybe DVL could male you a dead cat to leave in the pen...could attract lots of flies for the spinies to munch on.

I have one yarrow spiny in my pen, and she seems to enjoy hanging out by the coreopsis flowers. She will eat up any insects that even thinks about landing there.

Best of luck,

John Eddington

This is an inside view of my pen...

This is an image that construes how I designed it as a feature of my deck.

If you plan on having baby DI's in the pen, mature Zebratails, Desert Spineys , Collared & Leopard lizs will most likely nab a few for a snack. Hatchling chucks are usually safe from all but the largest lizards . I have some Yarrow Spineys in my pen -- they are not near as large as the desert/ blue/ granite spineys but still they will take off after an early rising gecko now & then.

A while back, I used to have some Greater Earless, Keeled earless, Checkered Whiptails, Yarrow & Blue Spineys in the pen with chucks & DI's. If the whiptails did not dig up the eggs, which was common, the poor babies lizards ( except chucks & DIs) had little chance to make it more than 1-2 days. I eventually wised up and reduced the herd.
Take the baby situation out of the picture and chucks & DI's get along with most other lizards. It just gets to be too much competition when you have several bug eaters in the same pen.

All the more reason to build more than one pen!

David