Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Started out with an HL when I was a kid, a few years ago.like almost 40 years.Lots of info here and Marks site, and was looking to teach/connect in a positive way with my son.Read all I could and talked to a few.Glad I connected with mark, hes knowledgeable, and considerate, helped me a lot.
We started out with a corn , then as I felt more confident, aquired two solare from mark, they were small, grew fast, and were really nice HL's.The one female now is so large, I am afraid that she might start to consider some of the other Hl's for food, sorta.Eats everything, to the point I have to sometimes take her out to let the others eat.Picked up a female herandesi, she was so small, but she has tripled her size and the male now is almost as large.
A few did not hibernate last winter, and I purchased some ants and then three kinds of roaches to raise, some proved to be a bit of a challenge.But , I did find that , HL's like a varied diet, today its ants, tomorrow roaches, and maybe a certain kind, or a cricket.But haveing a varied diet available seemed to really work well.I found an ant specie here, the mounds are large, and found that using a 12volt car vac and gel cell in a backpack was the best way to harvest the ants.It was easy to vacuum up 2 or 3 thousand in an 1/2 and hour or less.And, I was surprised to find that I could throw in a few harvesters and the modestum, and herandesi would run, but if I threw in a few of our "local" ants, they would actually pick our ants from among the harvesters, and leave the harvesters for the corn or solare to eat, but our local ants where more acceptable than the harvesters, and by the large fat reserves that the HL's started to take on, it was apparent that they were eating there fill.The ants were volital, the fumes, well, lets just say, I needed to drive with the windows down, as the fumes coming off the ants would knock you silly, if you got a full lung full.My son does not look at our HL's as pets, more of a serious project so to speak.He takes care of them as diligently as I do, and when his friends come over, especially a new one , I will often find him in front of there enclosure explaining to his new friend the specie, pointing to a laminated sheet of them, and explaining the different qualities of this one or that.We like the idea of actually raising some and returning them to mark for release, and once I thought maybe I would give one to our nephew, then I rethought that, not responsible enough. Oh no, now who am I sounding like.
My son and I would like to head out to marks place to see what the country there is like, see a few HL's running through there natural environment.Some shouldn't forget there kindness so easily.
We had two clutches of eggs, one from the modestum and one from the solare, and I have no doubt that If i had had a male hern, would have had a few more to deal with.
I have some documentation of the hern attacking the others, had to isolate it for a while, got some footage, as well, also picts of damage caused to a male solares horns.Mark has found them to be very interesting, as aggression I guess of that nature is very unusual, and sometimes, the hern would exhibit wierd mouth posture, 1/8" open and looking around, odd.And it was properly hydrated and not overheated, just like it was looking for someone else to pick on.It has subsided as of a few days ago.But , now the two solares are together, and happier that way, so maybe its a hern/solare vendetta.As far as Hl's having "friends" to play with, I have seen much interaction between the ones in the enclosure,to the point of almost a greeting to one another now and then.They taste there food, then eat it, or each other and ,"oh yea, it's you".Maybe that's not exactly it, but it seems that way.They lick the sand for some calcium and will eagerly take roaches with calcium/vitamin dust.
Herns need a lot of water, and varied diet.
Corns some water also, and varied diet is better.
solare benefit from some water, and ants are fine, but roaches help them greatly also.
Modestum, hate water, seems like it, and love roaches and our ants.
Eating style, solare have trouble with other than ants, it's there nature to lick and pull it in, all the others are better and grabbing and devouring.Even the little modestum can open it's mouth twice as wide as the solare, and I have seen the little modestum walk up to a roach, as large as itself, and swollow the whole thing.I was shocked.
I believe that if your very attentive,observant and adaptable, Hl's will not be as challenging as some make them.Some are a lot harder than others.Its a dedication thing, if you don't have the time or interest, then its not the thing to do.
I try to take notice of the local Pet shops and see if they ever have any HL's, and find a few platys now and then, but that's usually it, but if I ask "do you ever have any Horned toads?". Just to see what they say, I get the response, " we can get them".I wonder If I was restricted from getting mine, would someone have been able to benefit from something that we learned, or maybe all this is just old stuff. scott

Scott-While I currently have a pair of Solare a female over 5 years old and a male who was under the weather but a little TLC and some panacur treatments seemed to have turned him around, there is one thing that I would like to comment on not to take away from your experience, excellent write up in a way that the average person can take in and understand, but a number of years ago and I might be wrong about the author but I believe it was Richard Montinucci, don't quote me, but I believe there was a very interesting article on prey size with horned lizards. I believe large prey in horned lizards not to be at all a good idea, certainly I have put in a larger cricket meant for another HL and a smaller one took it on (as you say to my surprise) But it is better to feed them 3 small nutritious crickets than one large whatever. I am not telling anyone what size to feed their animals but my own rule of thumb has been about the size of a 3/8 inch cricket (often 1/4 inch) for an adult Solare. Hls seem to be able to lap these up instead of needing to attack them to eat them. This is the same eating stroke with the tongue that they use in eating ants so I am assuming this is better and more natural. I do deviate from this with moths as they do crunch down easily but again I don't feed them overly big moths for their mouth size and actually I usually will capture many at one time so I am not limited to what ever is in the bug napper. Living in a rural setting the bugs are pretty plentiful here in Texas... In nature if you observe these lizards, you very seldom ever see them go after large prey, part of that might be that they are not as fast as other lizards, albeit the pacific Horned lizards are known to eat bees and if they can capture those that must be fast enough, but that having been said I would feed your lizards smaller prey, and of course ants is the best. Also you mentioned the car vacuum. I use a vacuum that I purchased at WAL-MART here in Texas and its called a Scorpion and it is a battery rechargeable, I can suck up 500 ants in no time with it, I have several ants nests at least 6 or so that I rotate between so I don't impact any one nest and this seems to work well. The other thing I would like to mention is that with respect to Solare, I have noticed an ant diet the females will get large and put on the weight as you mentioned, But I have also mentioned whether good or bad, is that feeding other insects such as crickets, wax worms, etc. The females seem to become obese. I have seen this in my own female and I cut her way back on any other insects but just as more of a treat from time to time. Being optimistic animals they will take what ever they can get, but lets face it in nature they are pretty much stuck to doing ants for the most part but not for the whole year. I have seen them eat nymph grasshoppers and the other thing they seem to relish a lot is a moth. I use a "bugnapper" from Zoomed which is a fluorescent light that draws in insects into a bottom container, you unscrew it and wallah you have a boat load of insects, including preying mantis and big moths. I feed all my lizards some moths from time to time and my collards love preying mantis, but I also feed them other flying beetles and the like, just be sure you can identify a fire fly as these are deadly poisonous indeed. Well so much for this, I thought I would throw this in, for the sake of conversation...as we spend time observing and sharing information we can all learn and apply to better husbandry protocols. I have seen your lizards and they indeed look great, good luck!!!
LAst of all wild bugs do open your lizards up for possible nematodes etc. however I have been pretty good with this and a healthy animals seems to do well even with wild bugs.
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signature file edited. [phw 11/14/04]

I've been reading a couple of studies that relate to this very issue:
Morphology

Coronatum

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It is interesting to see how much difference in the Hl's I have how wide each specie can open its mouth.The solare cannot open its mouth as wide, even the little modestum has a widder gap.Seems the solares are more "dainty", when it comes to eating.Your right , you put in a medium crix lets say, and bam , the largest hl grabs it, sometimes you just can't stop it, and its intended for someone else.
I did not like the rechargeable idea when it came to getting ants.I have two large areas I get ants from, and the mounds are huge.Do you ever notice fumes comeing off collected ants as I do.The ants I use are smaller, not much smaller than harvesters, but there is a size difference.So , I need a few more of them I believe, and I do also rotate what mounds I use so as not to impact a certain colony of ants.Sometimes I will use black ants also, but as a rule there smaller, and the red/black ones the HL's love.I have to admit, I am really leary of trying "new bugs", for instance moths or any other.I use this or this it works and ok, but experimentation is good.
Sorta waiting to see if my female hernandesi goes into attack mode again, I put her back into general population and let the two solares have her spot , and she seems to be ok.She was after everyone, but, the only HL she could get a grip on where the backs of the solares hornes and she broke off two of them.Which is a dissapointment, as its horn config was soo awsome. scott

You were probably wise to move the solare out when you put her back. I know with my African cichlids they could get very territorial, but if you took the bad guy out for a while it could break up the pecking order and straighten things out.
HL's aren't usually aggressive, so this is pretty interesting. Not many folks keep hernandesi, and especially with others. Although almost every serious HL keeper I have met keeps many species together. It's just that none of them keep Hernandesi.
So it is a very interesting thing to note for the record. I wonder if in the wild that aggressiveness helps to define species boundaries with hernandesi? Would be very interesting to know about that. Other species share habitat. Coronatum with platyrhinos, Platyrhinos with Mcalli, solare with cornutum, cornutum with modestum, and I have heard cornutum with solare with hernandesi in S. E. AZ.
Anyways, it would be good to take good notes of the behaviors and what you do to manage them.
Although in general it is fine to keep several species together if there is enough room, you might want to consider separating them out for breeding. This is a time when species show the most aggression.
Disease can also be a factor for separation, but since you have had them together so long already it is not likely to be an issue.

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It was a temporary thing Mark, I am not going to reveal here to well, people that don't deserve good information, why it might have happend.
In the wild there must be a little fence that separate herns from solares.God forbid , should they encounter each other.
I hope they do put him on a board somewhere, a parole board might be a better selection.
Some good qualities of people that they put on a board would be:

Can control temper, as dealing with the public can be trying.
Can stay on task to accomplish well, issues.
Will not Taz a 12 year old in the 3rd row for asking for a free Horned toady. (lizard)
Does not volunteer to "be" the sargent at arms, when the officer to attend does not show up.
Starts the meeting with everyone has the right to ask questions as long as they are submitted to mick here, a month before they are asked, and granting , that he appoves of them.
And, he does not hand out applications to recieve a machine gun certification, as this already ties up mick to much at home, and he needs to deal with business at hand.

an American Yankee scott