Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi folks,

My terrarium has "daytime" set from 10:00 to 22:00, but I often only come home at 21:00 and my lizards have already gone to bed by then and don't react to the crickets I try to feed them by then. I leave home at 07:00... In weekends, they eat best between 14:00 and 16:00. As a result, they often only eat 2 or 3 times a week, and then only a cricket or tree/four each, which seems way to little.

I'm not eager on just dropping crickets in in the morning and then trying to catch them at night, because I like to see how my lizards are eating. (And, the fake rock wall in my terrarium offers a lot of hiding places for crickets, so I'm never sure of the count - gosh, those little freaks can crawl anywhere...)

So, my question is : do you guys have any tricks on combining long working hours with feeding them regularly? Special dispensers? (I bought one of those Zoomed/Exoterra (?) cricket dispensers, but works like $*** honestly, thay all crawl out at once.)

Thanks for any advise on this.

Gilles
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1.0.0 Red Headed Agama Agama (George, big mean mofo)
1.1.0 Collared Lizards (Bicinctores) (Titus and Octavia, cutest ever)

They have to work much harder in the wild to eat. Plus, they have rainy or overcast days when they do not come out at all. If they are not thin, or inactive, they are probably getting enough food. My lizards are awful good at snagging crickets off the rock wall. I see crickets make suicide runs during the day and the lizards are right on them, so yours are probably getting more than you think. I count poops daily as I clean for an indication of proper food intake and also check it for adequate urine crystals.

I have an ExoTerra worm feeding dish in my terrarium that I leave a few worms in at all times for them; that works well. I don't try to catch crickets at night. But I do put a few vegetable scraps in there every night for the crickets to munch on - as far away from the lizards sleeping place(s) as possible.
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Valerie Rae

We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.--

God bless the USA

I've got a similar situation. I don't have a collared izard, but the solutions I use for my toad and skink ought to work just as well for collareds. I keep a supply of nonclimbing roaches handy, and don't bother with crickets at all any more. For the skink, she likes a small food dish, so I crush their heads. They can still live and move for a day or two, but there's no danger of them actually making their way out of the dish. For the toad, I use a large dish that she can actually jump into with them. Again, same result. No lost bugs.
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0.1 Coastal Carpet Python (Boots)
0.1 Western Hognose Snake (Bebe)
0.1 Cane Toad (Hengo)
0.1 White-Banded Sheen Skink (Minerva)
1.0 Northern Diamondback Terrapin (Queequeg)