Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Over the summer I will likely be doing some touring. Not a ton of gigs in a row... maybe just on the road for like a week at a time. I'm just wondering who I will get to take care of my reptiles while I'm away. My parents know a lot about the reptiles (since they have to share a house with them), and there's no doubt they can handle feeding them, but I'm worried about other things. For one, they are not good at interacting with reptiles, and I'm worried that there might be a situation where they would have to. I'm also paranoid about them or other people leaving enclosures unlocked and such.

I'm sure some of you have been through similar situations before...what did you do? I feel like my parents are the most competent (not to mention cheapest) choice, but I don't know how to go about preparing them to make sure nothing goes wrong. I guess maybe I'm paranoid about putting the lives of my reptiles in the hands of other people.

Do you have a regular reptile vet?
Usually vets interested in reptile medicine hire technicians and/or assistants who are also into reptile keeping.
Sometimes the vet's employees will do pet sitting on the side, that's how I found my pet sitter.
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PHRatz

that's an excellent idea, and one that I wouldn't have thought of! I'll have to look into that!

Also you may be able to go to petsit.com and type in your zipcode and find someone in your area. Check anyone out very well !

What kinds of herps are you talking about? If you are talking about well-fed healthy snakes and you are only going to be gone for 2-4 weeks at a time, you may be fine as long as you feed them before you leave and make sure their cages are clean and they have plenty of fresh water. Conversely, if you are talking about insect eaters (i.e., lizards) or vegetarians (i.e., some liards and tortoises), then you will need someone to doing some level of feeding and maintenence.

In the past I've had a relative or friend I trust care for certain animals requiring daily, every other day, or weekly care without many issues. My parents have also fed my tortoises and blue-tongues when I was away for a while (but no snake feeding for various reasons).

Anyhow, I feel like myself and others could help you better if we knew what and for how long we are talking about here.

I have four russian tortoises (two adult females, one subadult male, and one 6 month old), I have a leopard gecko, two mali uromastyx (different ages, housed seperately), a bearded dragon, and a ball python.

I figure I won't be away more than maybe a week at a time, so They shouldn't have to worry about doing anything for the snake except maybe giving him some fresh water from time to time (but with my parents that might be too much). I feel like my parents could probably handle feeding all of the other reptiles, but like I said before, I'm worried about the possibility that they may have to handle a reptile for one reason or another. I was thinking maybe if I trained them to handle the reptiles then I might feel more secure with it.

If you're only going to gone for a week at a time, just feed, clean, water everything before you leave, put the lights on a timer, and go. When you get back feed, clean, water...repeat as needed. Everything should be just fine. A week is nothing. Just make sure the heat tapes are set at appropriate temps and everything is in order before you leave. Don't waste your $ on a sitter.

Just my $.02 and what I do all the time without issue.