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JackAsp Mcdean JackAsp JackAsp Mcdean |
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JackAsp View Profile |
Yay! Finally!
The girls, Chica and Lupe, are sisters, from a fairly normal green male and mixed-earth-tone female, hatched in late July last year. Very light base color with a lot of dull olive green in their markings. The male, Pancho, was hatched in early October. He’s still more green than blue, but both of his parents are blue, so I expect him to change a little. Although if he doesn’t, that’s okay too. Although right now all three are completely normal-looking collared lizards, there is nothing at all unattractive about a normal-looking collared lizard. Especially in person, since they tend to have a lot of subtle highlights that don’t show up well in most pictures. Visually, my only complaint is that the girls look so similar to each other that it is still really, really hard to keep straight which one is which. I haven’t yet found that obvious "Oh, she has a big black bar on her left hip" or whatever. They had a rough trip getting here. I think the plane got delayed by the rain we were having, so they arrived a day late, and were not well handled by the post office. When I took them out and weighed them, I wasn’t even positive Chica was alive, she was so sluggish. This morning’s weather was colder than the weather she was expected to arrive in when originally sent out. A bit too much cold for the heat pack, and I admit I was pretty scared. These were the first animals I’ve ever even GOTTEN through the mail, besides feeder roaches. But in five minutes they had all climbed up to bask, and in thirty they all seemed normal and healthy, and after an hour and half they were happy and alert and so obviously begging to be fed that I dumped the crickets in and let them go crazy. Lupe, the heaviest one, took a little bit longer to get up to a a hundred per cent, because bigger bodies take longer to warm up than little bodies do. In fact, the other two KNEW she wasn’t as quick as them yet, so I think they were deliberately using her as a pointer to help them spot crickets. Seemed like every time she had a bead on one, somebody else would dash or fly over and steal it. So I handfed her a superworm and didn’t give anybody else one. That’ll show ’em. They’ve got a 75 gallon tank, three lights hanging above it, thermal gradient running from the 80s to the 130s (the very highest basking area might hit 150 by the end of the day, but there’ll still be planty of 85-120 spots. I’ve ben testing it for weeks.) I’m mostly using incadescent Reveal lights, for heat with bright natural-looking luminosoty. There’s also one MVB, but I can’t safely use it too close to the higher areas, hence the hardware store choice for most areas. There are caves both sunken and elevated, rocks to climb and bask on, a background to make the rear wall feel more secure, a row of fake grass blades along the front wall for the same reason, a small ceramic flowerpot drainpan for water (or, apparently, to immediately jump into after basking and poop in it, according to Pancho) and a huge driftwood log that runs diagonally through the tank, with the upper end serving as one of the two hottest basking spots. There’s also another dish that I offered fruits and vegies in, but only one who seemed interested was Lupe. Mostly the girls are staying on the 115-120 basking platform and occasionally hopping down to explore the ground before eventually jumping back up again. Chica has done a little climbing, a little cave-peeking, but except when chasing crickets even she’s been pretty low key. Mostly she and Lupe are content to try to figure out one thing at a time instead of needing to see every single thing right this instant. Pancho, meanwhile, is making thorough use of all three dimensions of the tank, including sometimes the underside of the screen. There’s about a sixteen-inch jump from one set of rocks to the other, and the more times he does it the more he reminds me of a flying parakeet. Okay, as I was rereading all this, both Chica and Lupe have done some climbing and active exploration, but the only one who borders on hyper is still Pancho. I’m going to get a lot of entertainment out of watching these lizards! I always swore I’d never buy lobster roaches, but the orange-heads I breed are pretty easy to catch. Roseberry raises lobsters for them, which can climb and fly and give them much better exercise and mental stimulation, so I think as a treat I’m going to get some at the next herp expo. Along with some silkworms, small hornworms, bulk crickets, superworms, and perhaps even some very small but properly gut-loaded children. No photos yet because every five minutes they’re still raising the bar on cuteness, so I’m just taking a bunch of shots whenever. Give me a few days to finally dig through and decide which pictures I actually like. |
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| 03/12/09 01:37pm |
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Mcdean View Profile |
Message To: JackAsp In reference to Message Id: 1967300 Yay! Finally!
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| 03/15/09 05:43am |
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JackAsp View Profile |
Message To: Mcdean In reference to Message Id: 1968725 Yay! Finally!
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| 03/15/09 11:14pm |
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JackAsp View Profile |
Message To: JackAsp In reference to Message Id: 1969123 Yay! Finally!
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| 03/15/09 11:17pm |
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Mcdean View Profile |
Message To: JackAsp In reference to Message Id: 1969128
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| 03/16/09 08:08am |
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Yay! Finally!