Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey! I posted a pic of Fluffy on the Photo gallery part of this site! Check It out!

Hey Sherry,

Looks good! I have a question, What kind of ants/other bugs is he eating normally? I am curious because SHLs aren't always as ant dependant as say a regal HL. Thanks.

-Phil

Well, Lately I have been offering her many types of food because she REFUSES to eat harvister ants! She eats small local black ants, small crickets (dusted) and mealworms (cut in 3rds). Her main choice seems to be the crickets. I also give her a elecrtolite supplement in her water every once in a while, to make sure she's good and hydrated. all and all she seems to be healthy and doing well!

Your shl looks good, is this one you caught where you live? I'm not sure of the specie but it looks like a douglassi. I agree with one of the other posts, as these type of horned toads are opportunistic and eat a variety of insects. If you go to our web-site www.phrynosoma.com you'll find some tables about ants in relations to horned lizards intake. Looks like your doing a good job. I wouldn't try and winter a little one like this but keep his temps up and let him go through the first winter season and stay fat and sassy. Next year he'll be ready for hibernation, and you will be totaly familiar. Just for the sake of comment, when I was in New Mexico the mountian short horned lizards in and around Ruidoso seemed to be eating black ants, that were smaller than red ants but not as small as a grease ant. I went through several areas and never saw any red ant at all. So I assume if yo have black ants available you could feed those to him and supplement with crickets and baby king mealworms, also if you live out in the country, a bugnapper from Zoomed is a good product to catch a variety of moths and other insects, just be careful if you have fireflies not accidently feed one of those to him..................

We have a summer cabin in the mountains of Colorado, we found 2 SHL's in the wood shed in September. My husband says they are all over up there. Fluffy does seem to be doing well so i'm just gonna let him keep eating whatever he wants. (except fireflies, thanx!) Right now we live on an island in the san juans, but we'll be moving back to CO full time this summer. I would like to breed some of these guys and see how they do. They really are beautiful and interesting lizards!