Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, I must say, my dirt I found on the gopher mounds has worked out absolutely awesome. The reason I know this is because I just dug up poor little Nebu's burrow and all I can say is, WOW, what a hole! I cannot even imagine how large Boulder's natural burrow would be after seeing Nebu's. The reason I dug him up is because after seeing him every single day he had not come out for the last 3 days and I started to worry not being able to see him or get to him. He had dug a hole that spiralled down 3 complete loops (Robyn do you notice they spiral their burrows?) into the 2 feet of dirt and ended up on the most extreme corner, unable to dig down anymore. I think the problem was he got so far from the basking light that he no longer became warm enough to wake up and come out to eat/bask. I think I am going to rebuild his cage and place an undertank heater on the bottom underneath the dirt to warm it up when he digs down there again. The dirt held the burrow beautifully. It was more dry than moist and had ended up being this fairly hard dirt. Nebu is fine, he was sleeping at the very bottom. He has grown quite a bit since I put him in there.

Robyn, my questions are:

1. Do you find that some just randomly decide to stay under for a few days every once and a while?

2. Suggestions on heating? The cage is in a 55 gallon rubbermaid bin and is filled with about 150lbs of dirt or so.

3. Moisture content. Why do you suggest keeping the dirt so moist? My dirt had dried out significantly and the burrow seemed even stronger because of it.

Thanks!

Peter

Very nice looking. Where did you get him? Did you get him local or did you send for him? I want to get an Egyptian but I haven't made any calls yet. Thanks.
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Rick
1.1.2 Mali's
0.1.0 Nigerian
0.0.1 Ornate
137 lb. Male German Shepherd named Sabbath. Don't come knocking on my door unless you have an extra pair of skivies.

1. when given a great setup, and access to hides and burrows, the Uros (lizards) will make up their own schedule regardless of what you would like : )

they have the heat up top available to bask, they have the burrow for moisture and security, and they have access to food. as long as you are providing, does it matter when they come up to be seen? judge more by the quantities of food eaten then by how often you see them. you can judge A LOT by food intake, as with poor temps, poor hydration, and just poor setup their appetite will suffer.

i would guess that the animal is coming up top plenty, just not when you are looking. most all of our groups are the same. i KNOW they bask and eat, i can catch them sometimes, but most of the time, as i approach the cage, the book it into the burrows for safety, and i "do not see" them.

2. for heating i like overhead lights best, using 45 and 90 watt Halogen Floods from Home Depot, and heat tape supplementally. we used to bury a heat pad in the soil, but now we just use 3 and 4 inch wide heat tape (flex watt) and tape it to the outside of the cage, on the side, so it creates a soil temp gradient.

3. "moist" is a very relative term. sure it has moisture content, but it is not wet by any means. the soil should be in a constant diggable state. if you just wanted to have a burrow made and keep it permanent, i suppose you could use concrete, which is what some dried soil is like, but you have just eliminated one of the key points of the setup. when you let it dry out, you eliminate a number of things, including moisture content to help with overall health and shedding, nesting, digging for exercise, animal cage modifications, temperature seeking, etc.

as for circular digging, i find the animals tend to dig towards the wall of the cage, and then follow the wall as it curves on its own. with Monitors, they often dig to the very bottom (2 ft deep) as well, and i would suspect Uros as well, but i haven't dug up a Uro cage to see how far they go yet. they hate that : )

Dr. Spracklund told me about the wild Uro burrows that he saw though, saying that they would go straight down for 3 or 4 ft before going 90 degrees and off to the side for the livable part of the burrow...

sounds like you are doing well so far. just wait for a year or two from now, when you will really start understanding soils and their use (it takes a while to build up the experience : )

in the meantime, keep your moisture levels good : )
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

I know what you mean about not being out when you look sometimes. I did not see Nebu most of the time but I knew he was coming out every day to finish off his food bowl. I became scared because after consistently eating his dish every single day ever since I put him in and then all of a I would go in in the afternoon to a dried out full fooddish that he hadn't touched. This happened 3 days in a row and I became scared. Like you said before, it's all about experience and I'm definitely getting some. Right now I'm becoming more confident that the hides hold, that my little ones really do know what they are doing and to just wait things out most of the time. Thanks for all the info Robyn!

Peter

if the appetite falls off, look for causes and indicators of that in your setup. what has changed? have the temps gone up or down? have you changed bulbs? have you grabbed your Temp Gun and given the cage the once over? (that is usually my first step in evaluating changes, temping out the cage again)

is there a nighttime heat source that has failed? especially one that you can't "see" working like a heat pad? are there new animals in the cage? have you changed food suppliers? or veggie brands? are there free roaming crickets all of a sudden breeding in the cage? has the water content changed? whoops, gotta watch that last one Pete

those are just quick thoughts off the top of my head that a keeper should consider (and there a a few dozen more) when abrupt changes happen. you can almost always track it down to some simple change that you made, or didn't realize you had made
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles