|
Post by fluxlizard on May 28, 2011 18:58:33 GMT
So far my red eye treefrogs have produced eggs, my tokay geckos (which I keep outdoors all summer), and I'm waiting on panther and veiled eggs from the end of last year to hatch.
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on May 28, 2011 18:55:40 GMT
I think it would be OK to lighten up a heavy substrate- I use it for that purpose in my vegetable garden because I have a lot of clay in my soil. Would make burrowing easier I think if mixed with the soil.
I wouldn't use it alone though- too light.
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on May 17, 2011 18:43:14 GMT
That land iguana is gorgeous!
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on May 17, 2011 18:36:43 GMT
Hello and welcome!
I keep sulcata outdoors in the summer here in Virginia now and for the past several years.
I bring them out in the springtime when night temps remain above 10 and day temps are mostly above 20 and they remain out until fall when night temps again drop below 10. They do very well here although it is more wet and humid than their natural range. If there is a long spell of several days where day temps do not reach 20 in the spring or fall I will temporarily bring them indoors. Long periods of cold and wet invite respiratory infections, but I have never had one with this by taking this precaution.
Average day temperature most of the summer here 30-35 degrees. Average night temperatures most of the summer here are 15-20.
Late last summer my male dug a long burrow maybe 2 meters long and a meter deep, angled so the afternoon sun would shine all the way to the bottom and warm it. It took him several days and I think he did this in response to the cool night temperatures as fall approached.
Maybe where you live it is not so cold in the winter and you can use a heated shed at night and let them out most days. Maybe in the summer it is not so hot and you might want to make a big cold frame or a heating station that they can warm up in when they want. (indoors I use warm lights for a basking area and big electric pig heating pads for sleeping on or warming up without light)
I think the varanids would need something similar- most varanids I have kept dislike cool temperatures and outdoors would need heat at night and some way to find very hot basking surfaces to warm themselves- here in America most who are successful at breeding them provide basking sites with surface temperatures of 48 degrees or more! (surface temperature, not air temperature which is lower). Outdoors, a large cold frame within the enclosure itself that the lizard could move in and out of could provide this. (Got this idea from Barb with her lacertas). Maybe a slab of concrete or ceramic could do this also...
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on May 17, 2011 17:53:17 GMT
Ahh- so that's how you solve the finding the eggs problem- catch the female before she lays and allow her to lay somewhere else?
That's a great idea! Thank you.
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on May 16, 2011 14:55:30 GMT
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on May 16, 2011 14:54:23 GMT
Thank you so much for your response I was thinking of making my lepida enclosure 6' x 6' . For now 1 male and 1 female would be the only inhabitants, although I was hoping I could add a female or two or 3 later on at some point- I've read some conflicting advice about lepida and am not sure if multiple females cause each other problems or not. I was going to face the enclosure to the south, and dig it out partly so I've got a south facing slope inside at a good angle for catching the winter sun. I was going to make either some rocky crags or a big pile of rubble (old bits of brick wall, concrete block, maybe even a chunk of asphault that was broken up when a parking lot was repaved recently). I was thinking if I went with the rubble I'd dig out a hole a couple of feet deep, fill with rubble and then mound the rubble up out of the hole another foot or so, and then cover everything with a thick layer of leaves before filling over with a sandy soil that would tunnel pretty well for the lizards. But I don't know yet for sure. If they are good at tunnelling, maybe a pit of rubble that they can burrow into is overkill and I sure like the idea of a natural craggy rockgarden look. Maybe too since they are so good at burrowing a mound in the middle would catch the sun and warm it and would be just as effective for the needs of the lizards as sloping the whole interior? I was thinking I would have the walls of the enclosure about 2 or 3 feet below ground level. My concern would be if the lacerta would tunnel under and then make another exit outside the enclosure (sounds like they do not in your experience- do they generally only make one entrance to a tunnel?) and the other concern is rodents burrowing into the enclosure and eating the lizards when they are hibernating (maybe not a concern) or tunneling in and providing an escape exit for the lizards via the rodent tunnel? I have an enclosure for iguanas during the summer that has walls extending 18" into the ground and occasionally (1x every year or two) I have a rat burrow beneath to get into the enclosure. I'm kind of hoping a 2-3' wall would prevent that with the lacerta... I'm even considering going down all the way to 4'. I was going to cover the enclosure in clear plastic during the winter to keep the rain out of the ground when they are hibernating. Oh and a final concern- how to figure out where egg-laying takes place since these guys are kind of secretive...
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on May 12, 2011 14:12:30 GMT
Hello. I'm digging out some terraria for jeweled lacerta and australian water dragons this week (finally- didn't get around to it last year) and am looking for a little guidance for how deep to make the walls below the surface of the ground. I'm trying to factor in the need to dig to hibernate deep enough to escape freezing temperatures as well as escape prevention.
I've decided to try simple metal terraria with the walls extending into the ground. I would also like to put hardware cloth or something at the bottom to prevent mice and rats and voles from digging in, but then that would limit the depth my lizards could dig to escape the cold next winter. I'm planning on covering the whole terrariums with greenhouse plastic Langerwerf style next winter. I'm not sure how the frostline factors in- but hoping that I can do the job for the lizards with deep borrows combined with filling the terraria up with leaves in the fall so that basically the burrows are beneath a deep pile of leaves and then covering the whole terrariums with plastic so that water cannot enter the earth where normally it would bring the cold with it.
I tried the forums here last year for guidance before trying this, and didn't really get much of a response, so I'm trying again this year, hoping someone who has actually done something like this can offer some pointers.
Thanks much!
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on Aug 24, 2010 14:20:46 GMT
Well, since nobody else jumped in I'll take this one-
The answer is all of the above and in addition temperature and competition.
Temperature is critical for all systems running properly. Too cool and everything slows down, including growth.
Competition- I have hatched many many many lizards over the years. In any given clutch, when clutchmates are reared together, there will be 2 or 3 that are dominant and grow much faster than the others, and usually 2 or 3 that grow much slower than the others. If the fastest growing are removed from the group, within a short time , 2 or 3 more will become dominant and outgrow their fellows in the group that remains.
If the slowest growing are not removed from the group, they will sometimes remain stunted and small, even as adults. So, that would be my first thought- is the slow grower one that has been raised in a group? If so, that is the probable source.
Size of the enclosure only insofar as it limits thermoregulational activity and possibly availability of hides, humidity or dry places- in other words it limits environmental options for the lizard to choose from. Size also determines the lizard's ability to be active. Too small an enclosure can also lead to stress, which in turn can cause the lizard not to thrive and this can also have an effect on growth rate and eventual adult size.
Certainly though genetics and food are important factors.
I would think severely undersized individuals are probably very rare genetically though, and would consider all of the other factors carefully before giving much plausibility of genetics being the cause.
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on Jul 28, 2010 2:16:10 GMT
No, my name is not ethan.
Also, I'm not working with lacerta- wish I was.
But I have been brumating various lizard species indoors using various ideas for 15 years or so in order to breed them.
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on Jul 26, 2010 20:37:36 GMT
I don't have much to contribute except to say thanks for this thread.
I'm a US keeper farther north, with outdoor summer housing very very similar.
Have been putting some work and thought into outdoor winter ideas.
Where are you located? I'm in southern VA.
My question with the styrophome box- if it merely frosts where you are, I'm wondering if the boxes will heat up too much for brumation many days since they will be located above ground...
I used a cold room last winter. A cool basement floor might be easier to control with this type of caging that is off the ground...
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on May 8, 2010 0:36:21 GMT
Well for whatever its worth it looks like I'm going to go with above ground galvanized metal enclosures along the same lines as the ones used by agama international for their tegu pens and water dragon enclosures.
I decided against concrete for 2 reasons-
concrete too expensive right now (has gone up dramatically in my area the past couple of years and is very cost prohibitive)
also I don't think I will live on my present property forever. with the metal I can dig them out and dismantle and move them if I want. Concrete terraria in ground are forever.
I was happy to find that the metal is much cheaper than I had anticipated if purchased as seconds and leftover bits from roofing and siding jobs. In fact it is almost as cheap as low end plywood.
I plan to make banks of these terraria, cover with plastic in spring and fall and put bales of straw around the outside of the banks to try and insulate them and extend my outdoor season for the lizards by a month or two, and then cool them indoors in my cold room.
I've got an idea for bringing the heat up out of the earth passively as well.
Any tips before I begin construction in the next week or so would be appreciated greatly.
Wish this board had more activity. I feel sort of like I'm reinventing the wheel here instead of building on others experience...
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on Apr 28, 2010 12:29:27 GMT
I have a few viridis.
Is it the depth of the pond that is important, the diameter or the temperature of the shallow water heating up in the sun during the day that is doing the trick for adamanuran?
I like your toad terraria killian.
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on Apr 11, 2010 14:50:30 GMT
It would be wonderful to get any thoughts that you might have then Mark. I'm pretty excited about trying something this year, I just am not sure what it will be yet. I'd be especially interested to hear of your experiences with your australian water dragons.
|
|
|
Post by fluxlizard on Apr 8, 2010 21:19:40 GMT
Thank you for your comments Viridis. To date that is pretty much how I have been doing my bearded dragons. I have been brumating them 2-3 months at mildly cool temps and breeding them mostly indoors in late winter through late spring and then bringing outdoors when night temps remain warm enough for the summer for my screen cages that sit on tables (above 10c). This gives me from about mid-may until the first week in october of outdoor housing before I haul all the cages and lizards back indoors for the winter. This year, as I say, I am trying a longer colder brumation. I am considering the idea that maybe if I have a deep pit type outdoor terrarium I can access the flywheel effect that the benson institute talked about in those papers I linked to and keep my ground temp at least above 10. If I cover with plastic and add a big heat sink like a black 55 gallon drum filled with water, maybe I can cut 2 or 3 months off of my winter in the pit, and that would leave 4 or 5 months of dormancy for the dragons. Plus we have many winter days here that I think the temps in the pits would be warm enough that the dragons would wake up somewhat and have a chance to bask and drink if they wanted. Maybe. Or the other thought I am considering is trying something along the lines of what you are suggesting and do outdoor terraria that are on the ground as well as indoor terraria. Possibly I could cover the outdoor with plastic and lengthen my warm months here so I could get a few weeks extra in both the spring and fall because of the ground heat over what I am getting now with the cages on tables. Maybe I could lengthen "summer" enough that I would only have to bring the lizards indoors into a safe "cold room" like I am using at the moment for dormancy. Since my last post I have done a little more homework on this project- I e-mailed timo for clarification about their steel vs concrete pit vivaria, and I checked a really great australian weather website to learn a little more about what winter is like for vitticeps in the wild. From Timo I learned that the above ground cages were used only during the summer for waterdragons and that the pit terraria were used for hibernating the waterdragons during winter. The black and white tegus were overwinted in both style terraria, but were given plenty of insulation (leaves, carpet, plastic) in the steel terraria. Australia has a wonderful website for checking weather history day by day, month by month with highs lows actual temps, mean temps etc here: www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/index.shtmlI checked alice springs, recommended for inland bearded dragons on another board, and using a range map for inland bearded dragons I checked several other locations for temps. Looks like they have a shorter winter (4 months maybe?) and night temps usually not freezing (but occasionally a few each winter in some locations). In some locations it does get quite cold nights in winter though- close to freezing fairly often. Bert also worked with uromastyx there in alabama. The ones he was breeding he went and collected himself from a location that had a cold winter climate so he could hibernate them in his terraria. I have bred mali uromastyx in past years, but cooled them very mildly for 2-3 months indoors (10-15 nights 16-23c day temps). I am not sure what my winter sunshine is here - we have sunny days but maybe too many are cloudy in a row... Thanks again for giving me more to think about with all of this. I might make a few terraria and try things out and then get lizards to match the conditions. You mentioned lacertids- I've always been interested in jewelled lacertas, maybe those would be a good one... Actually all of the lacertas here on the board are just beautiful in their terraria, but I don't think they are available too often here in the US...
|
|