Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is under this bark?

Looks interesting!

Mama fence lizard just finished laying her clutch. Quick fire up the incubator! LOL!
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Bob, do you think those eggs are good? I hope so, but they look a little "rubbery" to me. I wish I had a breeding colony of fence lizards. I had some hatch out two years ago from a gravid w/c and those things are like gold when it comes to baby Mt. Kings.

Joe

Joe, I checked on the eggs this morning and they have filled out some. If they don't plump up and turn pink in the next day or so I will know if they are good or not. It seems to take a few days for them to really plump up. Fortunately I have several gravid females, so one way or the other I will get good eggs. Oddly, this one female was one I found while moving a firewood pile the day before, so I brought her in and she laid the next morning. Maybe being captured caused her too prematurely lay? My other females that I've had for over a year are fairly tame and less likely to be freaked by any big changes. Anyway, the next few days will tell with those eggs.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Cool stuff Bob, congrats!
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That's cool. The first eggs I ever got were from a wild caught fence lizard.
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Mmmmmmmm.....baby snake food.
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Gerard

"Ten minutes to wapner..."

www.livebaitclip.com

GONE FISHING!!!

Your fence lizard project is very cool Bob. I sure caught a lot of them as a kid in Tennessee years ago! (And now in Florida)

--Dennis

Thanks, everyone,for replies!

I do this lizard thing so I can get my baby pytos off to a good start in life. One of my babies just would not eat after coming out of brumation so I was able to get him to eat by carefully prying open his little trap with a small lizard, then ever so gently and slowly push the lizard down his throat, and being most overjoyed when the swallowing reflex kicked in and the snake successfully swallowed it. Once the little snakes begin to gain weight they will want to feed on their own, eventually eating live pinks. Getting them past the first hurdle is where the lizards are invaluable.

My baby pyro with a belly full of lizard! Better to eat something hand fed than starve to death due to being clueless. Its like they just don't know they are supposed to eat; sort of special needs children. Finding a perfect little pile of poop in the cage a few days later is very satisfying!
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

The fence Lizards up your way look pretty big. The ones we have here are tiny. What medium is that your using?
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What's wrong with using CAUTION?!?!?!
King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
~ Jorge Sierra www.SierraSnakes.com

I use clean dry top soil for the substrate, except for one large corner of the tub, where I put about three inches of moist packed vermiculite covered by bark for the mamas to lay their eggs in.

Some photos this afternoon:

Very gravid mama!

The male bolted before I could take the shot.

Very gravid mama next to mama who laid eggs yesterday. Her eggs are improving in appearance.

Male with one of his ladies.

Each tub has two or three females with one male. From now on it is just a matter of watching for deflated ladies and carefully excavating the resulting eggs with a table spoon to go in the incubator. When they have laid their eggs in the vermiculite it has a characteristic disturbed look, another good tell. I do stuff with them mainly in the morning when it is cool, and they are slower moving.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Bob, are those "fencies" tame down and become handleable at all?

--Dennis

Bob, are those "fencies" tame down and become handleable at all?
They seem hardwired to be skittish, but have learned that I am not going to hurt them and will stay still when I move things around in their habitats and add crickets and cricket food. I choose the early morning hours to look for eggs, other more major disturbances, as they are much less skittish when cool.

Oddly, all my fence lizards are way "tamer" than this one little pyro I got from a friend in a trade! That thing is the wildest snake I have ever had, panicking at the sight of me. Most all my other snakes come out from their hides when they want to eat, and show themselves to me, a tame captive behavior. But this wild one runs the other way!
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.