Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone know of a good care sheet for these little guys? Also, if any of you keep these, I would like to hear about your set up, feeding, etc. How important are ants, and do they require a specific species of ant? Are crickets a good substitute? I know on all of the nature documentaries that I have seen, they are always chowing down on ants so I'm guessing that they are an important food source. I find these little guys highly interesting and would love to have a few, but I want to get some more facts before I start keeping them. All input will be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Christy

Hi Christy, hate to say but the best thing for you to do would be to search this forum or the archive. Your questions have been covered numerous time and I mean numeous. If you have new questions after you do this come on back and ask away.

This caresheet covers most of the basics and makes for interesting reading. But Snelling is right, if you have further questions [http://forum.kingsnake.com/cgi-bin/htsearch.cgi] search[/url]the old archived HL forum and you can get answers on more specific topics. Most everything is there and discussed in some detail.

Care Sheet

Ants are the key!

I want to make sure that you get this info, ANTS ARE IMPORTANT, in fact that is all they should truely eat, they can be given crickets and mealworms, but this subject has become debatable around here. They need at least 90% ants. It should be about 100 degrees at the basking side of the cage and around 60-70 on the other end of the cage. Here is a good place to get ants from, they need harvester ants http://www.infowest.com/life/hornfood.htm . And there are only 3 species that you can legally obtain one (the most popular it seems, I have one) is the Desert Horned lizard. Each horned lizard can eat between 20-100 ants a day and the ants need to be taken care of too.
Thanks
- Jim

Thanks to the ones for the links and info, I really do appreciate it! Getting ants will not be a problem for me (plenty around here). Does anybody know if anyone is captive breeding these guys? I would love to get CB babies if anyway possible, but all I see on the classifieds are WC. My local pet store has a very nice looking WC male , he has nice orange coloring on him, but he is a bit skinny. I'm pretty sure I could get him on the right track. The pet store has him housed with some sort of skink which is larger than him, so I am guessing that the larger lizard is preventing the horned lizard to feed, plus the pet store owner only feeds him crickets. Anyway, thanks again for all of the info and links, I have been wanting a few of these for quite a while but have never seen one in the flesh until about a week ago, they are much more impressive in person Christy

If you really are serious about getting one consider getting the one from the pet store. He sounds as if he is in bad shape and maybe you can help this little guy out. Where are you? Do you think the Petstore would ship the lizard... I would take him over him living at that pet store. If anyone knows of petstores in Cali that sell them let me know, looking to get another HL to keep my DHL company and I would prefer to get one from a bad place so I could help him/her out.
Thanks
- Jim

Hey Jim,

I think that is very noble of you to want to rescue a hl from a bad petstore. But, don't you think that would give the petstore the wrong impression and want to get more hl's and start the cycle all over again?

Louie

I know it sounds cruel and heartless but I would definitely NOT buy from the petstore. By doing so you only encourage them to stock more of them, most of which will die.

Not the way I would do it They would definetly know NOT to ever stock another HL again.

I feel the exact same way! Unless I knew they were well taking care of and fed ants. What would be some good websites to purchase good healthy Hl's particularly captive bred ones?

I got mine from Captive Bred Specialities.

http://desertreptiles.com/

I found this website while searching the web one afternoon. I have not had any contact, or dealings with them... but since there seemed to be interest in places that sold HL's, I thought that I would let you know about it. If anyone has dealt with this place, I would love to know how it went. Also, if anyone deals with them in the future. Hope this helps!
Keesha

That is where I got my HL, sorta, I emailed Desert Reptiles and he refered me to Captive Bred Specialities because Desert Reptiles is no more... Captive Bred Specialities have great HLs and service. They are $20 and about $30-$35 for shipping.
- Jim

Im glad you passed that info on... that would explain why I didn't get a response when I emailed him a few weeks ago... well, guess I will scrap that link. Thanks...
Keesha