Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all,
I know its been ages since I posted anything here, and I feel bad about that, but I come bearing gifts, er gifs!
I wanted to share with you guys a small version of a large project my room mate and I are undertaking for our backyard. When completed, I believe our yard will be nothing short of paradise for lizards. Anyway, here's our preliminary test run.

10x10 tin metal sheet pen. Home to quite a few Chucks, a Desert Igg, some magister Spiny lizards, and Fence lizards. most of these guys were so awful looking where seen I felt compelled to give them a good home. I have found more than one dead starved Chuck this year. Anyway, here you go!

Two medium rock piles, one on top of a burrow we dug for our big Tortoise. There is a little pool where the tort can get in and wallow on the opposite side of the big boulder behind her in the picture. The Chucks are taking to this pen well, and are eating all sorts of greens (mostly Mulberry and Elm leaves) They take veggies and Dandelions, but really seem to enjoy the constant leaf supply. Here are two Chucks and our Tortoise:

My photography brought one of my large males out. This is a chuck I call William Wallace.

Its cold and windy today, so the others are holed up mostly. Here's one of the Western Fence Lizards that lives in there:

Anyway, we will be taking this pen down and converting our yard into an enormous version of what you see here. Tell me what you think!

regards,
-Phil

Very cool Phil! It is making me kind of jealous. LOL. Keep us updated on the project for sure. Did those chucks make their own burrows? By skinny dieing chucks do you mean in the wild? Is it that dry out there?

Hey Tom,

good to hear from you man. It has been an extremely dry year so far. We haven't had any measurable rain. We're dreadfully behind. The Chucks and Iguanas in the wild seem to be suffering from it. Skin and bones would be an apt description. Some of the Chucks I have were in that state. I will probably release some of them when the conditions out there can support them.

As for their burrowing, they seem to be utilizing the large board we buried over the Tortoise burrow. They seem to have shuffled out little holes and then made them bigger to support their size. But they do dig.

Anyway, thanks again.

-Phil

Pretty interesteing Phil. Jerry Feldner had written a paper for the Southern Cal herp society on chucks inhabiting non-typical chuck habitat and they did actuall live in burrows in the banks of dry washes. I also witnessed this in CA off of Dillon Rd and Berdoo Canyon Road. The road cut through large burms of clay desert soil and in the places the road cut through chucks lived in burrows in the banks. That was in 2001 I think I saw that and it was really dry back then I saw a lot of pretty skinny chucks. Pretty cool stuff. I'll do a rain dance for ya. LOL. Tom

I think it was in Little Berdoo Canyone that you could roll rocks to find them. I was there in January and couldn't find anything due to extremely low temperatures.

Nice pen, Phil...makes me really miss mine.

John

For a minute there I thought it was my upstairs, hehehehee lol

I really love what you have done with the place looks like home sweet home! Everyone looks happy! That's cool that ya took in some starving critters.
I was sitting here looking at your yard and imagining it all set up like the pen, WOW it looked really fantastic, wish ya could have seen it, LMAO Those are some LUCKY lizards

PLEASE give us updated pics when your done, can't wait to see it. Thanks for the treat, nice to see you again Phil
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PHEve / Eve

Hey guys,

Yes, the Chuckwallas dig all over the place....Interesting about Berdoo Canyon. I'll have to check it out sometime.

I thought I'd show you guys some of the other lizards that live in the cage.

a couple shots of my Desert Iguana.

He's from a spot I hunt frequently, which also happens to be among the hardest hit from our drought. Here's another Iguana that I took in and beefed up before release.

Here's my medium male Juan. I call him Juan because he was caught in Amboy. Amboy was recently purchased by a man who owns a local fast food chain called Juan Pollo. Here's him from the wild, and now in my pen.

Granted, this lizard ian't native, but their home of Tanzania isn't too far off our temps.

Red-Headed Agama, and Earless Lizard in background.

An old(ish) friend, William Wallace

and finally, my little baby Spiny-tail Iguana. He was starting to lose a lot of weight, so I thought some good sunshine oughta help him recover.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed.

-Phil

Not to sound negative about re-releasing things back into the wild... But make sure that you know the laws as you can end up in a whole lot of trouble releasing a Desert Iguana back to the wild.

It's a really messed up law, but it helps prevent non-native
diseases from reaching wild populations. The Desert Tortoise is a
real good example with the respritory disease.

I got into big trouble re-releasing a handful of herps into the wild. It cost me a whole lot of money in fines.

I always wanted to breed Chucks and release them after a few months , but have decided that jail and fines are not worth it...

Just wanted to put this out there after reading about fattening up Iguanas and releasing them when the desert can support them. That's how I got in trouble.

-Kory