Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.

Click here for Dragon Serpents
Click for ZooMed
Click for 65% off Shipping with Reptiles 2 You
treerich4 Aug 29, 2006 09:55 PM

I have dhl's. One of them I have had for four months and the other 2 I have had for 2 months. I ran out of ants today and my order did not come in. I went to the pet store and they were out of small crickets until tomorrow. My dhl's did not get to eat today. Will it hurt them to go without food for one day?

Second question
I read on one of the post that it is not a good thing if the dhl's belly drags the ground. Why is it a bad thing. The one I have had for 4 months has a belly on him. Should I be worried? His belly does not drag, but he does have a belly.

Replies (1)

fireside3 Aug 29, 2006 10:26 PM

It won't hurt for your HL's to go a day without eating. Just try not to let it happen often. At times when I run out of ants, I keep a container of mealworms for a treat. Just a few every now and then.

A horned lizard will "drag" his belly from "time to time". But the critical question is; is his belly dragging "all the time" due to an unhealthy reason? Such as exreme overweight? Normally this is not a problem at all with most beginners. They're usually underfeed. If you feed your HL harvester ants all the time then you probably have nothing to worry about. But excessive crickets and mealworms are really high in fat, chitin, and bad in calcium/phosphorus ratio. Too much of the wrong thing can kill him. Especially for a captive HL in a small space who gets no exercise. Your talking to a guy who kept a HL on mainly crickets and mealworms for 3 years. But that sort of thing can be dangerous. They are designed to eat harvester ants ( most are ) primarily. And they will do much better and probaly live longer if they have them. Just use common sense about it. If it looks way out of shape with what you see in other examples of HL's, then it's probably not good.
-----
"A man that should call everything by it's right name, would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy." The Complete Works of George Savile, First Marquess of Halifax 1912,246

Site Tools