Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i need the basic care of these guys because i just bougt one at the reptile show sunday

I would read up on Deerfernfarms.com as well as anything that comes up under a search by randy gray. Also read the archives of this forum particularly by robyn@proexotics. Please read alot and very soon if you know nothing about them, they're pretty unique in my opinion.
MM

Basically, read up on it, but basically they are almost strictly herbivores, need high heat with a basking spot of up near 130 degrees and a warm side ambient of around 90-100 with a cool side of as low as about 75. These are daytime temps. At night you turn off the heat and uv lamps to simulate a night time cool down typical of arid regions. If your house gets below about 68 at nights, it would be a good idea to get a small wattage nocturnal light bulb placed over a spot in the cage (I would think over one of the hides would be good). As far as hides, you need at least two. One on the warm side and one on the cool, and they don't like open hides. Go to proexotics.com and look for retes stacks. Something like that is good for a basking/hiding spot and can be easily made. Another hide on the cool side should be used too, and they can be easily made out of a ceramic planter dish (also shown on proexotics website). there's also been a lot of experimenting with dirt lately since uromastyx are typically burrow-dwellers. There's a lot of info about that on proexotics.com. You typically need a deep enclosure for that, but I found a way to make a decent dirt burrow setup with small tanks. If you want more info on that ask. but basically, just do a lot of research. Research until you think you know it all, and then research more, and more, and more. This is a good site to go to too.

good luck with the new lizard. Oh yeah, and one thing I'm just realizing now, uros ar not like bearded dragons in that they are probably best off if you don't handle them much. Because of this you need a very large cage for them to be able to get good exercise. I understand that in the first few monthes you might want to handle him or her to get them tamed and used to people, but do this sparingly. For a while I was letting my uro out everyday, but now I'm going to try only everyweek or two and see how that goes. I would think a lizard that is less stressed would thrive much more, and interaction with humans can be stressful. Jobi has a theory that uros actually eat MORE if they are stressed, which is contrary to that of most reptiles, but does seem to make sense.

Good luck