Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It's crazy how guilty I always feel when freezing lizards for scenting, or mice for that matter. I don't have a problem if they're already that way when I get them, but for some reason it bothers the heck out of me to do it myself. Putting some in the freezer today so that they're in there for a good couple months and have time to kill anything bad in them.

On a side note, I've gotten my hands on a nice sized Blue Spiny lizard. Has anyone had success using these for scenting. I've got Swifts going in the freezer.
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Brian

www.serpenteer.com

It's a hell of a thing, killin' a lizard. Take away all its got, and all its ever gonna have…

Robert ‘Will Munny’ Pelaez

"I seen 'em, Ned, I seen the angel of death, he's got snake eyes."

I was lucky in the order, but I've always been lucky when it comes to killin' lizards...

Robert "Will Munny" Pelaez

You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the awful screaming of the lizards.

I think if I save that poor Blue Spiny lizard, I can make them stop, I won't wake up in the dark ever again to that awful screaming of the lizards.

Robert "Clarice Starling" Pelaez

Please everyone stop. This is bringing back some horrid memories that I've struggled with for years to go away. It's made me hear their cries again. Damn you people.
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Steve W.

Courtesy of John Craft - a classic picture of horsehair worms (I think there's more than one here)...and a poster for freezing feeder lizards, especially feeder lizards found near water.

Snake eats spiny lizard...spiny lizard eats grasshopper or cricket...horsehair worm lives in grasshopper or cricket...therefore, snake eats horsehair worm...now what? Time to call Rotor-Rooter. LOL!!!

Robert

I have never seen a picture like that anywhere. Wow. That's just plain creepy.
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Brian

www.serpenteer.com

I will pick up some of the Red Eyes when I happen to see them. Unfortunately, I saw this female a split second too late. I jumped out of my vehicle to see if I had been able to avoid her when I was confronted with the scene pictured. I had clipped her head, resulting in the contents of her gut spilling out. The tangle of worms was writhing and glistening in the light... I was so disgusted I backed over the mess, twice, after snapping that shot.

reminds of some girl i used to date....

No dinner for me tonight. Thanks buddy. lol
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Steve W.

These specific parasites are not harmful to the lizards that ingest infected insects, or the snakes that prey on them. But, as Robert illustrated, parasites are the reason that freezing wild caught lizards is a no-brainer to help ensure the health of your snakes.

http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/aginfo/entomology/entupdates/Indoor_pest/horsehair_worm.htm

Steve,

Please don't take the gallows humor the wrong way. It's just a different way of dealing with a difficult subject. In addition to snakes, I also keep leopard and day geckos, so I like and appreciate lizards very much. The idea of using lizards as feeders bothers me, but it is a necessary evil that sometimes comes with the territory for anyone who keeps alterna. I also raise my own feeder mice, which means I have to euthanize them myself. I DESPISE doing it, and it never fails to make me feel crappy. But...my snakes gotta eat, and buying frozen (making someone else do the killing for me) doesn't sit any better with me. Either way, the mice are dying because I choose to keep snakes, so making someone else pull the trigger doesn't make me feel any better or less responsible.

When I was in college, my herpetology professor regularly collected, euthanized, preserved, and cataloged all manner of herps - the animals he loved most - for the school collection. We called him Dr. Death, and we always just kind of assumed that the killing didn't bother him much because he always went about it in a very businesslike manner. Someone asked him about it one day, and he said that killing herps was by far the worst/hardest part of his job, and he hated it more than anyone would ever know, but he felt he was doing it for the greater good. He also said that the day it became easy for him would be the day he stopped doing it, because it would mean he had lost an essential part of his humanity. That's one lesson I've never forgotten.

DUCK OF DEATH

Ok, enough fun, people might get the right impression about me...LOL! Feeling a tinge of guilt only means that you're human. I routinely put a significant number of lizards to sleep every year (and I mean SIGNIFICANT), and it has reached the point where I can't look directly at them on the drive home...

I haven't had any problems with parasitic transmission using frozen-thawed, or even live lizards from desert areas that are some distance from standing bodies of water. I did run into trouble many years ago using live lizards that were obtained over a cove of one of our desert lakes. The juvenile alterna developed the same small external bumps that were present in a number of nightsnakes from this lake area, and that was not a good thing. My experience is that you will need multiple lizard species when breeding alterna from western and eastern parts of their range and in a few cases live lizards, but most of the time f/t will do the trick. "One size doesn't fit all" with these offspring.

Once, I went out with a BB gun, but I ain't like that no more. I ain't the same, Ned. My wife, she straightened me up, cleared me of drinkin' whiskey and all. Just 'cause I go' on this killing, that don't mean I'm gonna go back to bein' the way I was. I just need the money, get a good start for them youngsters. Ned, you remember that lizard I shot through the mouth and his teeth came out the back of his head? I think about him now and again. He didn't do anything to deserve to get shot, at least nothin' I could remember when I sobered up...so now I use a noose.

Robert "Munny"

Were you able to deliver a treatment that cleared up the external bumps you mentioned? Did you find out which specific organism was causing this condition? I have seen some examples of this in different species throughout the Big Bend region.

John

Nope, I didn't pursue it. The condition developed in my first and only pair of "generic" alterna that were purchased in PHX a long time ago in the early 80's. When I noticed the bumps weren't going away I simply gave the snakes to a local pet store that sold reptiles and amphibians.

Robert

i'll kill your wives...families...friends......a bluebellied tried to escape i served it to a sanderson with fava beans and a nice tequilia......slurp

Hey, hey, hey. You wanna go to jail or you wanna go home? Let me quarterback this thing...that noose, you *know* I'm surgical with that noose, Jake. Remember that lizard in the wheelchair? How do you think he got there? King Kong ain't got nothing on me.

"Alonzo" Pelaez