Reptile & Amphibian Forums

which one do you own,temperment,ease of care.just give me your opinion on which is better.i will probably be getting one in the next rep show

Hi,

I just own black roughnecks.
They don't like being handled at all, but are not shy, they are in view most of the time, eat from tongs, but don't eat your hand with it like V. panoptes or albig.. Also they have never tried to bite. They do hiss a lot, but leave it at that (if you don't push them)
Mine have never fought (it's a pair). Mine don't seem to be highly aquatic, so you don't need a huge waterbasin.
Dumerils may be "tamer" but I don't know that for a fact because I have never owned them. I do think they need a bigger waterbasin than rudis, so that is a lot more work.
If you buy one of them buy them as young as possible and have their faeces checked by a vet the next day cause a lot of them are full of flaggelates.
Also don't buy 1 animal, buy 3-4 aminals and try to breed them, that's much more fun for you and for them...

i might buy two but i think not in a row,im kind of tight on money but breeding was already an option in my head.im gonna try and build the proexotics.com cages,the ones with the horse troughs but i cant find the troughs.i'll see what happens.i will try to make it used to me but i wont stress it out with handling.how tallis your setup and what is the setup.
thanks a bunch

My cage is 10x4x7. I used tiles to waterproof the bottom. So far so good, but I have had this cage in use for 6 months only.
there are 2 hotspots, the dirt/laeves in the back is heated with panels. I have a terrarium with a bathtub as a base, maybe an idea if you can't find the steel troughs.
If you want to breed them it is better to buy a couple of young animals at once, so they can grow up together, so if you don't have the cash save first. you can read all about that on this forum.

Jasper

I'm curious- it appears you don't have any substrate on the floor of the cage. Do you just have the heated box of substrate and leaf litter?

Also, doesn't the top of that upturned metal bin get really hot, or is that the idea? I've just never seen metal used as a basking spot before. Maybe it enables the use of a lower wattage bulb?

Hi,
That hide is made of plastic, not metall.
It was put there to extra heat the inside, beause my female had eggs. She showed no interest in it however. It is normally in the corner as a hideout. The surface gets hot now but not extremely hot, so it is safe.
I have a foot and a half of substrate behind the wooden board in the back that is 3 x 4 foot. I did not dare put 2 feet of dirt in the entire cage bacause of the weight. My reptile room is on the first floor and it is a wooden house and this is not my only cage. I don't want my house to collapse...