Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I need some help...

About six months ago I bought a pair of mossys and shortly after my female droped her tail and died a week later. So, recently I bought another female. Shortly after putting both of them in the same cage I noticed her sleeping on the ground and acting overall sickly. I seperated them and I am giving her repti-aid (for fear that she was not eating) she accepted the repti-aid happily. It has only been a few days that she has been sperated and she is now acting normal...my question is..is it possible that the male is fighting with/stressing my female. Has anyone heard of a thing of this sort? Should I attempt to house them together again?

thanks!

Hi!

Usually when Uros drop their tail or start sleeping on the terrarium floor that a very bad sign. I would continue keeping them separated until you believe the female are completly healty. Please tell us a bit more about your terrarium were you keep them. Sikoraes are kind of sensitive to beeing kept to warm and as all Uros they are very sensitive to dehydration.

Michael Jonasson
Sweden

Have you kept the new female in quarantine and had fecals done? The two major stresses are unnaturally high parasite loads and incorrect environment. I find U. sikorae are fairly adaptable to various enclosure sizes and can be kept in any sex ratio. Do you know which subspecies you have? This determines how you keep them. U.s.sikorae should have a cool winter and not get too warm in the summer either. U.s.sikorae seems to be happy in you keep them 75-78 during the day with a night drop to 65-72. I also give this subspecies a small basking light, although it isn't used that often. To tell the subspecies apart, you have to get their mouth open and look at the back of the throat, black=U.s.sikorae, flesh colour=U.s.sameiti. The last can be larger, but there is supposed to be a large morph of the nominate species as well.

Neil Meister

I did quarantine my female for a week (to be sure that she was eating and that she showed no external signs of illness). I have not done a fecal test yep, that is my next step. I was not aware of the different sub-species, I checked and my female is U. sameiti and my male is U. sikorae. Also my female is a bit larger in size than my male (and with more red colored eyes). I will procede and test for parasites, Thank you for the insight of the sub species...If you have any further information about U. sameiti that would be appreicated...also if you know if it is fine to house the two together.

Thank you for your help!
Elaine Haney

A weel quarantine is rather short. I recommend 4 weeks with at least 2 sets of clean fecals at 2 week intervals, otherwise the is a good chance you will miss something. You can keep similar sized Uros together, although in this case the 2 subspecies do best at different temperature ranges (cold nights during winter for sikorae and significant night drop in the summer, U.s.sikorae should be at moderate temperatures all year, 68-80 plus or minus a couple degrees is good). If you keep sikorae at the top of their temp range and sameiti at the bottom, you MIGHT be ok. A compromise would be 62-68 at night and 76-78 during the day.

You mention the female has redder eyes and is larger, any chance this is a U. henkeli? Smaller henkeli and fimbriatus are often confused with sikorae by dealers.

If the fringe on the side is absent in the "armpit", it is sikorae or sikorae sameiti.

Neil