Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am going to get a scale for a couple of reasons:
1. I am going to treat a few of my wild caughts with Panacure and Flagyl and I need accurate weights of the animals for dosing.

2. I am going to weigh all of my hatchlings to check their growth rates.

I have zero concept of how much a gram actually "weighs"??? Do I need a scale that weighs to 1 gram accuracy or .1 gram accuracy?

Any thoughts???

Thanks.
Peter Jolles

Hi Peter,

Any scale that can show grams OR ounces will work for you, depending on the size animals you keep. My biggest hondo is about 1,335 grams, so a 2 kg scale would be fine for my purposes. y9u can figure out relative to that what the max capacity needs to be.

baby pyros can weigh as little as 5 to 7 grams, baby hondos 17-24 grams, my scale weighs to the nearest gram and i've never felt any need for precision into the tenths of a gram. there are around 28 grams to an ounce after all, so accuracy to the nearest gram would seem fine to me.

two good sources for gram scales: office depot/staples kind of office supply stores; or food/restaurant supply stores.

good luck! there's a lot that can be learned from maintaining weight records. a fascinating exercise is to weigh hondo females out of brumation and two months later. They pile on the weight with amazing rapidity prior to breeding.

peace
terry

N/P

Bed, Bath & Beyond (frequently 20%off) or Linens&Things. Both have a wide selection of gram scales.

You can usually get a great deal on quality scales at police auctions.

kk