Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am new here and new to Horned lizards. We have a HL wich came from Silver Springs NV. We have had him/her for about 5 months. I recently got some harvester ants for it to eat. In the summer months we just went out and got red ants for him to eat and have always given him small crickets.We ordered the harvester ants when winter came and we could not get them outside. The first few I put in dissapeared so I figure they got ate. So I put in some more, aprox 20, no spike seems to be running away from them. Does he not like them? Did I put in to many??????????? Thanks for any help or advise.

Mary

Hi Mary,
Yes, you did put too many. Only put 3 to 5 in at one time. It is a natural action for HLs to flee when surrounded by ants. It might take a few days for your HL to get over the incident and resume feeding.

Thanks for your reply. I took most of the ants out and he calmed down. I will wait a couple days before putting any back. In the mean time he still has crickets. Thanks again.
Mary

As another alternative, you might try some baby superworms, as they are relished as well by horned lizards and give even more variety ot the mix. You can buy baby superworms from "superwprmfarm.com or research the Kingsnake.com site for other distributors, but I have found these people to be reliable and reasonable on price.....You might consider buying a hundred or so and see if you Hl likes them or not.....
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I'm currently feeding the small (1/2in.) or mini (1/4in.) meal worms ( depending on availability where I get them ), at about 10-12 or 20-24 a day respectively ( more or less depending on feeding disposition ). I offer the smallest one's I can get cause it's just my estimation that it makes for easier digestion ( whatever you feed ) to go with small individual sizes, but in volume, rather than a few but large, due to the less digestable exoskeletons.

I've heard isolated reports of possible impacting from mealworms too, so I follow the same logic as I would with crickets ( small size offered in volume ). I estimate each "small" mealworm to be approx. 2 harvester ants in volume ( talking of size now ), and, probably twice that number or more in total weight, taken into the stomach. I don't have a scale accurate enough to weigh out 50 or so ants to compare, but I don't think this equivalancy between the two are that critical, or , even how useable a measure of equivalent worms to ants would be, since it doesn't address individual nutritional differnces. reptiles are really good about judging for themselves how much they want, so I just let the lizard decide for himself and watch the numbers for reference as a rule of thumb.

one day out of the week, I substitute about a 12-18 of the smallest pinhead crickets, about half dusted _very_ lightly with a 25/75% mixture of rep-cal D3-to-repta-vite supplement.
I've ordered ants from uncle milton's before when I bought one of their ant farms. but I have yet to receive them. that was last year...they cashed my check though!

I get ants when I take a road trip to areas I know they populate. they've gone under for the winter now, but as soon as I can get out of town again I'm gonna go excavate an entire colony ( and find the queen hopefully ) and transport it back.
out of concern for wild HL populations, I'll only do this in an area that has numerous colonies in close proximity. where I go there it is not unusual to find 2-3 colonies within 20 yards.

I haven't had any problems with crickets or mealworms, but, I want to go back to mostly ants after winter. I want to provide self sufficency and not hassle with mail order, so I'll just start raising ants too. I originally started this Cornutum with an ant supply local, but I lost it after I moved. for about a year his main staple was crickets, with occasionally termites or carpenter ants as I found them. also any errant flying insect that happens into the habitat is game with him. and he snagged a spider a while back that crept in ( he scarfed it up before I could get it out ). a few months ago I changed up to mealworms as primary to put on more fat for winter. I'm going to have to hibernate him late this year cause I got some things yet that need to be addressed with the outdoor terrarium. I'm trying to be more diligent recording growth progress lately; taking weight, and, I got a set of digital micrometer-calipers for other measurements.

do your HL's care much for the lobster roaches?
your Solare, do they show interest in anything particular besides harvesters?

Mick Palermo
fireside3@hotmail.com

fireside3@hotmail.com

As I intimated above I also use baby superworms as an offering to most of my lizards, they do a good job in fattening them up, however they do have a lot of protien, at least with respect to vegetarian reptiles, I usually will give them as a treat but not as a standard offering. I don't know if you have ordered from lifewest: http://www.infowest.com/life/ (for ants)
But they have been very consistant in sending orders. I had one order during the summer that didn't show up and I called them and they sent me out another batch overnight, and low and behold the other shipment showed up but some of the ants were dead, so I feel like they serviced me well. I don't know what part of the country you live in, but the Texas HL's go down around 1st of October or so. Usually if you see a THL in October it's usually a baby. THey do go down earlier than most other lizards in this area (San Antonio, Texas). I am also an advocate of giving more small prey than a few big ones...I currently am working with Dickersonae and also feed Him a variety of baby insects, including superworms, crickets, and normal wax worms and like you I feed mine whatever I can catch around the house. If you want to try something, get a bug napper (ZOOmed) if yiou live out in the country, during the spring summer and fall I plug it in and get a plethora of different insects overnight and throw them in the cage next morning, so most of my lizards are getting some wild caught insects as well. Just be careful not feed them a firefly as I understand that will kill them because of some toxins they have in them. Moths as you said are great! Cheers!
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That's pretty amazing that you can get away with so few ants. I've never tried a diet like that. Interesting.

The SHL and THL's all really like the roaches, but won't seem to eat more than a couple in a day. I have also seen the large ones regurgitated. To me that's a bad sign so I tend to shy away from them. They are too big for the young ones to be of much use. The solare will eat quite a variety but will always eat P. rugosus or californicus so I provide them as the staple. They grow very well on them. The first year CB female solare that dropped ten eggs is a testament to that fact.
I sure appreciate your thorough posting. It's very interesting to see what other folks are doing.
Cheers!
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Cable:
I guess I'm doing something right, but, I do think the ant diet is important. that's why I plan to go back to it soon. I think I can safely say in my opinion, based on experience, that the ants are not survival critical, but, that full growth potential may not be achieved otherwise.

reptoman:
yeah, I realize he's about 2 months late already, but I just haven't had the time to improve the outdoor enclosure properly since I moved to this new location. there is pedestrian traffic, and, predatory animal activity as well ( rats, wild alley cats, dogs, opposum, racoon, red tailed hawks, owls ).
it's a business district type area, and, so I'm trying to conceal or secure the habitat from curiuos people, as well as the animals.

this will be my 3rd winter with this one, but, second hibernation. I skipped the first with him because he was young and I wanted to gain experience first.

I cared for another THL hatchling I found a few years ago that was still out in late November/early December. it was nearly stepped on at a construction job site.

on the fireflies, I made the post on the article where the zoo reptiles died. I didn't know about that specific toxin or it's possible effects before, but, I would have refrained from offering fireflies anyway. anything bio-luminescent would make me suspicious as to it's health effects. in the insect & animal kingdoms anything that puts out a signal flag like that usually means "stay away, I'm not good to eat" or "come a little closer so I can eat you".

I never mentioned offering moths specifically, nor have I offered them as food yet. I guess you use them though? any know benifits or downside to using them? normal digestive activity, etc.?

Mick Palermo
fireside3@hotmail.com

So far I have never seen a moth regurgetated, in spite of the limberly reptuations Hl's have, they are able to chase down a moth quite adequately. Whats nice about the bug napper is I get all sizes and types, I usually relgate the medium size to the horned lizards, I usually squeeze the wings a little so as to wound it's ability to fly back up on the top screen....
I agree with you about the ants, in that over a long period of time ants have amino acids in them that I think contribute to their full growth maturity. If yo go to our site there is a breakdown of stomach contents in different horned lizards and that there is a big clue to their normal intake in nature. However horned lizards are opportunistic and will eat a grass hopper or cricket or pincher bug in heart beat given the chance.
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