Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What would be the most importent thing to know before i bring home some wild chucks? I got the laws, but is there feeding stuff i need to know or are they about the same as bearded dragons. i have breed them for years. i would most likely keep them in a out side inclosure. please let me know all you can so i can be sure to do thing right. also just a thought! would a chuck cross breed with a bearded dragon?

thanks.

jim

In answer to your question, if it were me I would go with Captive bred for numerous reasons. Now having said that, wild caught will eat in captivity if the conditions are right and they aren't too stressed. An outdoor enclosure is great if you live in the right climate. They eat lots of veggies and love the sun. They will not interbreed with beardeds. I would be leary of keeping them together also. Sure there are intances where others do this and have no problems but I have had issues with my beardeds and other reptiles. Hope this helps. If you search here you will find numerous posts concerning what to feed them.

He has posted a few times pictures of his outdoor pen, and also a huge list of foods to feed them etc.

John

I would lean towards getting a captive born S. Hispidus, Angel Island Chuckwalla, or a captive born hybrid! Wild caught chucks can be a nightmare. I've kept them off and on for 20 years and had very bad experiences. Wild caught adults and even juveniles can be and usually are extremely picky with food regardless of cage conditions.

The two that I have now were caught in April and were nearing starvation. This could be due to drought or hibernation, probably a bit of both as this year it was cold late and dry. The adult ate from my fingers the night I brought him home which almost gave me a heart attack!! He did extremely well until about a month ago when he just stopped eating. My juvenile was more concerned with getting away for a few weeks before deciding to eat. He also stopped eating about a month ago. Both will nibble for a minute, then close their eyes and turn their heads from the food. Both are loosing weight incredibly fast, and I can't quite figure out what changed or what went wrong.

As far as diet, I use the following which seems to work for all of my vegetarians. Dandelions, collard greens, endive lettuce, grass (St. Augustine trimmings), hibiscus flowers, prickly pear fruit and cactus pads, and grassland tortoise food. I usually dice most of the stuff up and mix it with the tortoise food. I'll also leave the dandelions whole which will attract hungry chucks in no time. I use a vitamin supplement 1-2 times a week, and calcium W/D3 at every feeding. I go light on the vitamins!!

I try to get them out into natural sunlight on the weekends, and provide artificial UV in their cages. I have also found that using a screen/wire cage with fans blowing lightly really gets them active and seems to make them happier while indoors. It also ensures that humidity is low LOW LOW !!

If you do catch some be careful with mites, I just went through a nasty episode and am sure they will show their nasty red faces again. Wild Chucks are usually loaded with them. You may only see a few, but trust me, they are there.

Overall, Chucks are probably my favorite lizard, but they also seem to more high maintenance than anything I've ever had. This has been the only reason that I haven't spent the big bucks on either S. Hispidus or S. Varius...

Hope this helps, and please take all of this with a grain of salt. I am not an expert like some here, but have had enough to know that Chucks are more for an expert than a beginning keeper. That however is what makes them so much fun, and also helps shed light into other things that I may not be offering my other herps.

-Kory

If you collect, try to get a hatchling. I collected a female about 3 years ago now. I thought she was a yearling but later learned she was actually closer to 3 or 4 years old. The pic was taken shorly after I caught her. She was very difficult to acclimate. She lost weight rapidly for the first three months, refusing to eat enough to maintain her body weight.

I started her out in a 70 gallon tank. With a basking site of around 100 and fluorescents for UV and some rock hides. She didn't seem to understand the concept of a food bowl. I thought that the addition of a cb chuckwalla that was adapted to captivity might help. I ended up buying a cb chuck buddy, moving her into a 100 gallon, adding many more rocks with lots of tight crevices, covering all four sides of the tank with paper except for a small viewing window, buying a mercury vapor bulb and upping the basking temperature to 120 with a cool end in the mid to high 70's. The food bowl was positioned next to a crevice retreat. Seeing the cb chuck eat when I introduced him to the set-up really seemed to get her interested in eating and by about 6 months she was starting to regain some of her weight.

I had originally collected her to use in my educational presentations. She is, however, very antisocial to put it mildly and handling is very stressful for her. Over the course of a year I was able to slowly remove the paper from the front of the tank and she will even eat with me in the room if the meal is tempting enough. Her cb buddy has ended up being my educational animal.

Cbs also grow a lot faster. The hatchling was about the length of the female's tail when I introduced him. Within 6 months he almost equaled her in size and by the end of the year he was almost double.

I think people acclimating chucks in outdoor large pen set-ups have a much easier time. If you want a tame well acclimated animal try to go cb. If you go wc be prepared to spend a lot of time and money making sure the animal is happy. By the time I added up all the lighting upgrades, the tank upgrade, the cb buddy (he didn't come cheap) I ended up spending an arm and a leg.

Flowers are a very good appetite stimulant. I grow and feed the following, trying to feed at least 3 or 4 different items in each salad:

Dandelions (irresistible)
Catsear (very similar to dandelion)
Perennial marigold
Nasturtium leaves and flowers (they like both)
Hibiscus leaves and flowers
sweet alyssum
hollyhock flowers
mint leaves
cilantro
basil
alfalfa leaves and flowers
pansy flowers
grated carrots
grated butternut squash
fresh diced figs

When feeding grocery store greens, don't feed too many Brassicaceae (mustards, collards, cabbage etc). Mine are almost entirely vegetarian. The cb male will take insects, but I typically only give him a couple a month as a special treat.

Bright colored yellow, red and orange foods seem to be especially appealing. Once Gracie (my wc) started eating, about 85-90 percent of her diet was composed of dandelions; her choice. As she became more comfortable, she branched out. So far Iguana dust is the only supplement that they will both accept. I only supplement about once a week.

Good luck,
Alice

P.S. When I spoke to CDFG I was told that the legal possession limit was 2. If you breed, you have 45 days to give away or otherwise dispose of offspring (they can't be released). If you give babies away the recipients must stay within their bag limit: 2. You can apply for a captive propagation permit which would allow you to keep up to 30 (if I recall correctly), but CA chucks can't be propagated commercially (you couldn't sell the offspring). You can read up on the specifics on the CDFG website.

thanks for all the info, i needed it!

jim
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