Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I went herping yesterday and I found a 18 inch male southern and I forgot care for them and I used to be snake12 and I was in this forum before after I let my baby al go I just disapeared but what is care I kinda forgot

If you plan to keep this al longterm, be prepared to deal with mites. They are fairly common on adults and an infestation can be fatal if it goes untreated. I'd recommend housing your al on paper towels for the first month or so with minimal furnishings. This will save you a lot of time (sterilizing the cage, furnishings etc.) if your al does turn out to be infested. Then follow the bellow for longterm maintenance.

But first, a few words about mites:
Mites will be about the size of a grain of pepper and dark in color. Usually they live under the scales, then drop off the lizard to lay thier eggs. Usually they go unnoticed until the infestation is heavy. So if you see any "critters" fitting that description crawling on your al, take immediate action. A heavy infestation can rapidly cause death due to blood loss. If you see mites, clean the tank and all furnishings with a 10% bleach solution daily. Soak your al in luke warm water for 15 minutes daily and remove any mites left on (check the ears, corners of the mouth, in the vent area and behind the legs). Be prepared to follow this regime for up to 2-3 weeks or more to get rid of the infestation. Note that most commercial mite sprays are designed for snakes and can be dangerous to lizards.

If this sounds like more than you are prepared to deal with, consider keeping your al for a couple of weeks and then releasing him. Babies are a better choice as pets because they adapt to captivity more readily and are less likely to have heavy parasite loads.

The bellow is taken from an earlier post by me in response to care questions.

Feeding:
You are going to need to get a high quality multivitamin and calcium supplement made especially for reptiles. Alligator lizards kept in capivity will usually develope metabolic bone disease (MBD)if not given proper supplementation. If you purchase crickets for your lizard these will need to be conditioned prior to feeding them to your lizard. You can feed crickets: flake fish food, cruched dry dog or cat food, or you can buy cricket food. Rather than giving your crickets water you should give them fresh fruits and veggies like carrots, oranges, etc as these will give your crickets vitamins, Half of your lizards nutrition comes from the stomach contents of the insects you feed him.

Housing
An adult would be best housed in a 20 gal. You should also make your lizard a "moist hide". Cut a hole in a plastic container (cool whip containers work great) and fill it with moist Bed-A-Beast or Repti-bark.

Lighting
Whether or not UV lights are actually necessary is debatable (I've raised alligator lizards without them). That said, I now use them just to be safe.

Heating
A small undertank heating pad will work fine. Avoid hot rocks as they can overheat and cause burns.

Substrate
I house mine on rabbit pellets. Because rabbit pellets are completely digestable, I don't have to worry about my lizards becoming impacted if they accidentally get one in their mouth.

Water
Your lizard should have access to clean water at all times.

Hope this helps!
Alice

I know about MBD and mites and I already checked him for mites and he doesnt have any and is it possible to have him on calci sand

Mite infestations usually take about a month to show up. Wild lizards typically have very few mites which easily go unnoticed (they can be hiding under any scale) and it's not until a few generations have gone by, their numbers have swelled, and they are forced into more conspicuous locations that we see them. So, stay alert.

I would not recommend sand or especially calci-sand. Both can lead to impactions when they are ingested during feeding. Although calci-sand sounds like a good idea, the granuals of calcium carbonate are much larger than those found in calcium supplements so they do not dissolve quickly. This can lead to an accumulation of calcium carbonate in the gut. In addition to eventually leading to an impaction, this calcium carbonate is essentially the same as an ant-acid. Its continual presence will neutralize your lizard's stomach acid and prevent proper digestion. If you want a natural substrate, Bed-a-beast and Eco-earth are among the safest.

The bellow is a link to an excellent article about the dangers of calci-sand if you're interested in learning more.
http://www.pythons.com/calcium.html

Good luck!
Alice

this is cool I cannot beleive this he is already quite tame he eats out out of my hand,sits on my shoulder, and dosent bite is that cool

oh I forgot could I have him on crushed walnut shells

I've never tried als on walnut shells. Just do regular poop checks, and if no shells show up in the poop you'll know that he's not having any problems ingesting them. But, if you're hand feeding him a lot, there probably isn't much chance of that anyway
-Alice

Yeah,
Some of the big guys (usually the males, not sure why) are really cool that way. I used to have one that I'd set on my knee and he'd stand up on his hind legs to take crickets from my fingers!
-Alice

Hey man,
I keep running into you. =)
So you kept him huh? Sounds
like a real monster. I'm going
out to my favorite spot in a little while
to see what I can see. Cool catch, I hope it
does well for you.

-Phil