Hello everyone, I've been more or less lurking here for a couple days and thought I best introduce myself to the group. My name is Curtis, and I am from Albany, Oregon. A little over a week ago we took in a rescue Uromastyx (I'm pretty sure that she's a Mali, but if someone thinks differently - do let me know).
I will admit that we were most unprepared to take in a rescue, but Molly was being pretty seriously neglected and we'd been looking into getting a bearded dragon in the future (very different species I know) and we allready had all the supplies to give her an ADEQUATE home.
A little background on Molly:
She is approximately 2 years old... the previous owner believes that she was about 1 when she got her, and had her for around a year.
For this year, she was being kept on a bird seed substrate (and no, she wasn't bothering to remove the sunflower seeds... grr) in a 10 gallon tank, and being fed "lettuce once a week or so". Her only light source was a 65 watt spotlight (obviously unable to attain the temperatures needed). The previous owners were also keeping a HUGE water bowl in the tank and smoking heavily in the house/ room she was kept in (when we brought the poor girl home you could smell the tank from the other side of the house).
She is now being fed a salad of collard greens, turnip greens and mustard greens (which I'm now reading is high in oxillates... should I quit feeding the mustard greens?). I will also be feeding cactus pads (prickly pear) semi-frequently. I've been putting in the salad at around 9am, when the lights (reptisun 5.0 and 150 watt spot light) come on. I currently have the timer set to a 12 hour cycle. The current tank is a 30 tall, and I'm using 50 lbs of playsand substrate, which I use a kitty-litter scoop to clean out. Basking temps reach around 130, with ambient temp on the cool side around 85 by mid day. I am using an undertank heater, and the hot side stays around 85 at night, with the cool side coming down to around 75 (ambient temp in the house is 65-70).
I believe that I'm doing pretty much everything how I should, any input would be more than welcome. I've followed the discussion on the soil/sand/vermiculite substrate, and may try that in the future (want to let molly acclimate to the new place first, and plan on building a much bigger melamine based enclosure in the near future).
I have put together a little page on molly, and there are pictures of her on it. One note on the page is that it is our rattery website, and these rats are pets, not feeders - I have no problem with those that feed or breed feeders, but these rats happen to be our pets - not livestock.
Curtis
molly's page
