Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi ALL!!! It's been a while !! I am deserving of a good chewing out I know!! Mostly good here--- but it has been so wet since May that am concerned about my redtail eggs & D I eggs in the ground. Too much rain and a lack of sun has kept temps below normal for the last 2 months--- I can't wait until that warming trend really gets here. I hope those eggs can get to incubating ! I have been spending quite a bit of time out "Honky Tonkin'" with my old guitar----- kind of coming out of "retirement" since the kids are all gone now. I ain't old enough to just watch TV though so off a roaring I go !

Tom--I'll PM you soon---- I promise !!!
John Styner---- if I get some DIs-- you get first pick.
HittoriHanzo--- I live out of Humble---- not far from you at all!!

Here are a few pics from this morning.

One of the redtail babies from last year has been losing weight lately. I thought it was rain related but now think she has an overload of parasites. She eats good but her tail is going thin. I will get her to a vet this week for some medicines.

Regards

David

Mother Redtail in the early light--

Mom & some kids-----

It's David, LOL I know how much you love those kitty cats,

Nice to see you, pics are fabulous glad all the critters chucks/iggies are doing so well. See any of those yard agamas around of late?

Keep up that Honky Tonkin, good for the SOUL, may be bad for the liver though, so be careful
-----
PHEve / Eve

Desert Iguana--- female

Female D I with saggy belly

Stay Back!

Laying in Breakfast!

DI in a patch of Stemodia

In the Rocks----

Hey Dave,

Nice to hear from you.

Thanks for giving me first pick. I managed to get some Desert igs but I don't like 'em. They were purchased from a dealer and they are thin and not coming around very well at all. I think thet were sitting in a dealers cage too long and got too many parasites. I wish I didn't get them now. Iv'e been giving them panacure.

The babies I got from you years ago spoiled me as they were so young they were pretty much the same as being captive bred. They were always doing pushups and were heathy, entertaining and active as hell. Other than my ctenosaur that I have they were my favorite.

The ones I got now never do pushups and spend all their time trying to get out of my viv. They don't look happy although the one female is better than the other 2.

If I can get some babies from you I will be one happy camper. I'll ship my current Desert Igs out to my friend in Nevada to let go, Disinfect my big viv and redo it with your Igs in there. 'Im gonna try to bred them again.

Heres an old viv pic from those good old days with your igs.

I did manage to get 5 baby Lacertas (Italian wall lizards-podarcis sicula) for my other viv and I like them a lot.

John Styner

Hey John.

That is a great looking vivarium there. You mentioned that the desert iguanas in this picture are the healthy ones that you used to have. What happened to them??

I have had one for a little over a year now and I believe "she" is also a WC specimen as most desert iguanas in captivity are. She doesn't display any of the behaviors that you are talking about with your healthy ones and no matter how much food she eats, she always looks thin... not at all plump like the ones in your picture. She also spends a good portion of the day trying to get out the of tank.

I really wish I could have gotten CB but I don't know of anyone that has bred them in captivity.

Thanks TG,
I just feel bad when I see an animal in captivity that does not look happy.
The desert Igs that I got from Dave I had for a few years. One year while hibernating the fridge stopped working and did not cool so for a couple of days the igs tried to get out of the plastic tubs and mangled thier fingers digging at the little holes.

I to would rarely see any of my Chucks, or DIgs plump as they appeared in the wild. I always thought that it might have to do with temp regulation, or some form of being on the alert for predators. In captivity they usually relax and start looking "deflated" for the lack of a better term.

Recently both of my Chucks have been looking plump, and have that wild appearance about them... Well, one is not doing so well at the moment, but I think the plump look might have to do with good airflow. Whenever I turn the fans on, within a few hours the ballons inflate. I also increase the heat in their cages at this time to 95 ambient, and 100-110 in the basking sites. Along with this they might get a light misting, followed by a temp drop and a feeding. The raise in temp will usually get them really active... digging, climbing in and out of thier rock piles etc.. It will usually end with a puffy, alert, basking lizard looking for a meal!!

-Kory

Where did you get the Italian wall lizards? There is a small population near work but they are hard to catch. Pretty cool. They all have different patterns!

DVL, you DVL. Your pics are great. Must be nice to live in an area where you can have an outdoor pen.

I posted about this before, but the post was deleted for some reason. If you run across any utas in your travels, could you please remember me? I have one female and looked for more at a recent NYS reptile show, but alas, no utas. I would love a male and another little gal. I'd be happy to reimburse the postage. I have the present little uta gal in with some Texas banded gex. She comprises the "day shift" while the gex are the "night shift". Boy, I love these guys! In NYC apartments, where space is measured by the inch, an enclosure for chucks would take up half the living space. So, I go for the tiny guys. Just my style.

Thanks,

Esther

Hello Esther,

I will be in Az in December to witness one of my sons graduating college. Utas will be out if the weather is nice. I'll do my best to get my son to nab a few.

What all critters do you still have Esther?

Hot in Texas--finally!! After the coolest & wettest May/ June/ July I can remember !

David

Hiya, David!

Congrats on son's graduation. That is awesome. What's his degree in?

I did some urban herping today in Long Island, and caught a real screamer female Podarcis sicula and a juvie. They will be shipped to a PA herper who is producing a video about New York's reptiles and amphibians. I noticed that there were a LOT less Podarcis around than in previous years. I wonder if the City park sprayed for West Nile or something and killed off some unintended critters, like Podarcis and/or their food insects.

I still have my Yarrow's tank, but there seems to be a problem. I think I ended up with TWO MALES, because one shows darker colors than the other (who clearly is packin' hemipenes in that bulging base of his tail), and the darker one picks fights with the lighter one, who likes to hang upside down from the screening (to avoid a whupping, I suppose). They grab each others' legs and drag each other around. If you run across any female Yarrow's, I'd love to have one. Of course, I'd be happy to reimburse any shipping costs.

I'd also LOVE to have 1.1 or 1.2 utas. I have a mature female living with my Texas banded gex, but it would be nice to have a little herd of them. They constitute the "day shift", while the gex are the "night shift".

My whiptails are currently by themselves, but I want to move them into the 30 long tank with the Yarrow's. I've had whiptails in with Yarrow's before and it never caused any problems. There's plenty of rockwork and substrate for the whiptails to burrow in.

Thanks for any help here. If you want some Podarcis, I could try to wrassle you up some, sparse though they are this year.