Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Step on my toes, I would have smacked ya, had you done so :0)

As far as what your referring to, Tom G. and my discussion down the page.
Tom will have to fill ya in on the 80's husbandry of uro's your right, I was not here during that period either.

Tom has much experience with lizards, and I respect his knowledge and honestly ! And he is my FRIEND !

As far as me, I'm a sweet thing *LAUGHING* and I was not trying to hide my thoughts, or be sneaky.( I'am NOT like that)
I was talking with a GOOD friend, because we not only share interests in Chuckwallas but we each have uro's and collareds. And share in the love of LIZARDS peroid.

I usually keep things light, fun and friendly, thats Me, I have no time for arguments, or whos right or wrong, lifes to short, and I like to enjoy myself.

But I have opinions as far as what works for me and my lizards, and what I will or will not do. They are my passion, and what I want to share with people, On any forum of my choosing ! Hell, I post gecko pics on the collared forum and squirrel pics here.

I have nothing against dirt, to a point, I use potting soil/ sand in many other lizard tanks I have. But a few inches, as opposed to a few feet.

** I see my lizards daily, ** I handle my lizards daily,
** I CLEAN my lizard daily, when they go. I kiss them too !
As far as voicing an opinion on the uro forum, I believe Tom did , have discussions on there about that subject a few times with other members.

As far as me, I voiced my opinion, just 2 days ago about
**Anthropomorphising** It was said that if we want to handle our lizards, and THINK that they are pets and like us, that we are
only anthropomorphisising .
I DID NOT, agree and said so, and left a long post, about how some of my lizards do bond with me. But in a friendly manner.

So my friend, continue to learn, thats a GREAT thing, I will also. And I will teach what I have learned. And enjoy the forums and my friends.
And I have made some WONDERFUL BUDDIES, "CHUCKING " GREAT BUDDIES !!! *SMILE*

I appreciate your email, and no, I was not offended by your statement. And thanks for some of the other kind things you said also.
BUT ya better be Nice , I have some pretty BIG lizards, and they all stick up for me , and I them.

And if ya wanna learn just stop back anytime, we talk about all kinds of things here.

Frogs, swifts, clown agamas, uro's, collareds, cactus, saturday night stumbles, my squirrel, hahhahahah all kinds of stuff !
But theres no place better to learn about Chucks, then from the BEST and thats what you will find here.

Eve

I on the other hand had a few typos problems in my last post...oh well. You're rubbing off on me (I told you not to do that on a public forum).

with th typo thing of course. LMAO

Eve

Hi Jason and Eve

I have been heavily into lizards for the past 30 years. Back in the late seventies and eighties uromastyx where one of the most heavily researched reptiles among European herpetologist. They were studied in depth for long periods of time and then during the erly nineties it carried ove into the US as thousands of these lizads were imported into the US. They faired very poorly in the pet trade but serious hobbyist took what the Europeans had to offer and experimented themselves and did outstanding things with uros. They did poorly in the pet trade becuase casual pet owners did not care to take the time to learn from all the information that was available. ALso most of the imports are kept in horrific conditions and are dead before they are even purchased. Just about every aspect of uro natural history has been well documented. Basically there are not many secrets to these animals left. They are being bred on a consistant basis althought htere will probably never be enough to supply the demand.
Well of course the almighty dollar always speaks so many people did not support the breeders because their prices were of course higher. They had their whole lives invested in these animals. They just left the hobby for an easier life of basically not living for their animals. I talked with a few of these people and they could not even take vacations with their families. The three most popular were Randall Gray, Matthew Moyle and Nancy Kingston(Matthew and Nancy owned Saurus togther. They were very successful with these animals. For awhile interest in Uros tapered off before your more popular breeders today brought them back into popularity. Audrey Vanderlinden, Lindsay Pike, Doug Dix and Mark Walsh among others. I guess I should say that these people stuck with them after the importation craze of the early nineties and becmae very successful breeders some bred certain species for the first time in captivity.
So this is why I get a bit preturbed at Robyn from proexotics when he is saying nothing is known of uro life. Basically he acts like he thinks he knows everything about uros even though he has never bred one in his life. There is a ton of accurate information out there. The thing is Robyn keeps wanting to argue the burrowing in real dirt point when I am not saying he is wrong just that it is not the only way to successfully keep uromastyx. I have been there. I have done the dirt thing and did not care for it. It in my opinion is too hard to monitor the animals and is too dirty. I had dust all over my house which I have no doubt a lot of these people that are switching over to dirt will find out.
Well that is about it. I have nothing against Robyn and hope that he has all the success in the world and believe he will as he understands the animals.

Hi Tom:

I have been reading with interest your exchanges about Uro husbandry on the Uro forum. I agree with your point that there may be different approaches to husbandry, as long as the basics like appropriate lighting, food, etc, are met. I also have a great deal of admiration for what SAURUS (Moyle and Kingston) did...I still remember getting their stock list for the first time in the early 90s and just being in awe of how well they were doing breeding their Uros. This was after visiting a major reptile retailer that had a ton of imported ornates that were basically dying. I think it is a mistake of more recent entrants into this area to discount the work that these folks did. A few years ago, I traded a pair of SAURUS stock U. acanthurus to BJ for the hispidus. I personally think the hispidus are much more interesting and have much more personality than most uros.
The economics just make it difficult for anyone to really make money breeding more exotic animals, particularly lizards. If bearded dragons only laid 1 clutch of 5 eggs per year, no one would be making a living breeding them, I suspect. The cost of care, in food, space, and time, make it almost impossible, unless you can set up harems and the like. Having a snake you can keep in a rack and feed a mouse every week or 2 is managable. Consequently, for most species we have breeders who do it for the love of it, which is great, but this does not necessarily lead to people staying in the business for the long term. I was sad to see Saurus close up shop, since I really admired the work that they did.
By the way, I would be curious to hear your take on the Randall Gray book, Desert Lizards. I have to say that I was awaiting the book with a lot of anticipation, but was extremely disappointed. It seems like he just lost interest, since there is almost nothing in the book that you cannot readily get from the internet, and for most species there is a lot less. It reminded me of a TFH book, which has some nice pictures but little useful info. I would like to see a book that is more of an edited volume, where you and Montanucci have a chapter on chucks, someone like Lindsay Pike has a chapter on Uros, etc.

Your Varius and hispidus look great! My male hispidus just woke up from hibernation, while my female is still down. Hopefully they will actually breed this year!

Bart

write the chapter on collared lizards

John

LMAO could you imagine, like Lucy and Desi,

Eve and Johneee's take, what do ya think We would give it a whole new slant ! ahhahahhahhahah Rolling over here, yep rolling,

DR. Eve Panis

of breeding lizards. It is too costly to be that profitable. As far as Randy's book yes I was a bit disappointed as I think it is geared toward beginners. It has a lot of good general information. It is very hard to get detailed works published here in the US from what I hear. I guess he had to keep editing stuff out of it. Also when they printed it Randy said that they edited out information that was supposed to be in it. Most of the great work is published in Europe as it is easier to get the work published there. Richard Montanucci's work with Bertrand Bauer on horned lizards will not be published here in the US because of that. It is a very detailed work on horned lizards. Maybe there is just more of a market for good books in the Europe as they are very serious about their herps.