Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a couple of questions for you. How many hours do I need to leave the heat lamp on (day or night)? Is my 8 1/2-9 inch lizard big enough to be eating the regular crickets? Are the crickets that come from the pet store already "loaded?" And lastly, honestly, if these eggs hatch, what can I do with all the babies? I haven't seen any alligator lizards in my local pet shops.You have been great at answering my questions, thank you all so much.

I have my heat lamp come on in the morning and the evening, it is off in the middle of the day. I have mine off in the middle of the day because my house is cooled by a swamp cooler, which is not as good as an air conditioner - and it is often above 80 in the middle of the day, causing the lizard to crawl to the opposite side of the tank (the ambient temp lamp is too much).

But in the morning and evening, she often basks under it.

UV light - I have on all day.

-=-

When you give the size of your lizard, is that from snout to vent or snout to tail? It sounds large enough to be eating adult crickets. Try and see what happens.
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata (gravid)

Thanks for the help. I just put in some big crickets, she ate them fast! It's kinda spooky how she hunts her prey, don't think I'll be putting her back on my shoulder for a while,lol. I was keeping the crickets in a small terrarium type thing next to her cage, but was amazed how keen her sense of hearing and sight were, she kept glaring at them and trying to get at them, so I moved it.
Ms. Zilla is about 9 inches from snout to tail. How big do these things get?? I keep the UV light on during the day and turn it off at night. She mostly seems to avoid it. The cage temp stays between 80-84, I keep the house about 75-77, so it never gets too cold in here.

They get pretty big - at Turtle Bay in Redding they have a pair that are from captive breeding and always have been well fed - and they are huge. Never seen a wild Cal. Alligators get as big as they are.

According to Stebbins, they get up to 7 inches snout to vent.
Tail is usually not recorded because they can break off, but a lizard that has never lost its tail - the tail will be even longer than the snout to vent measurement.
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

My room tends to get up into the low 80s in tha afternoons. I have a UV light on during the day and no additional heat. When I had my cage simply furnished, my als didn't spend much time in te open. The addition of some silk vines (I tend to kill live plants) that provide cover, has lead to much more activity and they now spend more time out and about than hiding.

In Nevada, you are free to sell alligator lizards (no so here in California where they are native). You can take out a classified or disperse them to friends. I tend to shy away from petstores since the vast majority seem to provide substandard if not wholly inadequate care, and too many of the animals are sold to people who have no idea how to care for them. Baby als are very cute, and captive hatched are also incredibly tame, you'll probably want to screen their prospective owners carefully

Good luck with the eggs,
Alice

Thank you!

I'll have to notify my little brother about the spinach thing - spinach makes up a large part of the diet of his Russian Tortoises. They actually get a rather wide variety, but there almost always is spinach offered.

Their favorite seems to be brussel sprouts - heard anything about them? They also get pellets, which I assume are well balanced.
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

Brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli and other plants in the Brassicaceae all tend to have moderate concentrations of oxalates and high goitrogens and should not be used as staples, but are fine if fed occaisionally. This site: http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html has some good nutrition info, but the feeding recommendations are geared towards lizards. Here's a page that has some good tortoise diet recommendations: http://www.maturtlerescue.org/tortoise_nutrition.htm

-Alice

Thank you for advice - and the links
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

Just thought I would mention that captive ALs are only tame if handled. I only ever handle mine when cleaning their cage, and boy are they aggressive! While holding them, they defecate on my hand, try to bite me, and squirm around a lot. They almost seem more aggressive than lizards caught out in the wild haha. I don't mind them being that way though, since I don't keep Alligator Lizards for their kindness (or lack of) anyway. I like to see them in their normal behavior.

If you do handle them - often they get so tame that you can let them sit on your shoulder for extended periods w/o them trying to escape.
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

That's weird! I rarely ever handle my babies except for cage cleaning etc. but they have without exception quickly associated me with bringing food and sometimes if I'm too slow they'll jump out of the cage and crawl onto my hand looking for it. None of them have any qualms about being held and will even eat while I'm holding them.

-Alice

That's strange indeed Alice! They seem really frightened of me sometimes. They even tend to wave their tails in an attempt to lure me away from the important parts of their bodies when I try to catch them before cleaning the cage. I was worried one of them would drop a tail last time! Probably the only difference I've noticed between these guys and wild caught ALs are they don't notice the glass as much (and haven't tried to escape yet).

Maybe it's the loud music I played before they hatched? hah.