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Jakerz S*A*M Jakerz Concolor1 Jessica71 Jessica71 Jakerz Concolor1 Jessica71 Concolor1 Jessica71 Concolor1 Jessica71 Concolor1 Jessica71 Jessica71 ILoveGreen Concolor1 |
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Jakerz View Profile |
How much humidity for shedding corn?
Thanks Jake and Jynx |
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| 09/23/08 06:48pm |
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S*A*M View Profile |
Message To: Jakerz In reference to Message Id: 1866774 How much humidity for shedding corn?
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| 09/24/08 10:25am |
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Jakerz View Profile |
Message To: S*A*M In reference to Message Id: 1867300 How much humidity for shedding corn?
Jake and Jynx |
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| 09/24/08 10:07pm |
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Concolor1 View Profile |
Message To: Jakerz In reference to Message Id: 1867778 I Live in a Dry Area as Well . . .
My two big corns are in cages with Repti-Bark as the substrate, and they generally do fine (in fact, Momma Corn is in shed right now, and I just misted the cage for the first time this afternoon). The yearling corn (Momma and Poppa’s baby) has had problems with incomplete sheds in the past (I use aspen as the substrate with her), so next week I’m going to move her to a larger cage with Repti-Bark and use the same procedure. I don’t bother with measuring the humidity (or the temperature since I use UTH’s except during the hot months of summer) because they’re kept in living quarters (cooled with a swamp cooler), and so far--four years now--everyone has remained healthy . . . |
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| 09/24/08 10:51pm |
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Jessica71 View Profile |
Message To: Concolor1 In reference to Message Id: 1867803 I Live in a Dry Area as Well . . .
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| 09/25/08 11:12am |
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Jessica71 View Profile |
Message To: Concolor1 In reference to Message Id: 1867803 I Live in a Dry Area as Well . . .
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| 09/25/08 11:14am |
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Jakerz View Profile |
Message To: Jessica71 In reference to Message Id: 1868014 I Live in a Dry Area as Well . . .
Jake and Jynx |
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| 09/25/08 07:22pm |
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Concolor1 View Profile |
Message To: Jakerz In reference to Message Id: 1868309 Thanks, Jessica . . .
Fortunately there’s so much scenery here--I’ve been to Arches three times; it’s on the other side of the state near Moab--I don’t feel deprived by the demands of my work. And I’ve encountered visitors here who come in from the airport, gaze at the Wasatch Mountains surrounding the Salt Lake Valley, and they gasp . . . And they’re only forty-five minutes away . . . It’s a nice reminder not to take things for granted . . . Of course the fly fishing can’t compete with Montana, but I manage . . . I don’t do enough of that either (probably one reason why I keep snakes as pets as a reminder of what’s out in the hills). |
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| 09/26/08 05:49pm |
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Jessica71 View Profile |
Message To: Concolor1 In reference to Message Id: 1868852 Thanks, Jessica . . .
I love Utah but a lot of people here in the UK haven’t discovered it - they tend to go to the eastern US. Understandable as for us Utah is a 7 hour time difference and a 10 hour flight - but it’s worth it! |
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| 09/27/08 06:26am |
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Concolor1 View Profile |
Message To: Jessica71 In reference to Message Id: 1869159 Yep, Salt Lake is Home . . .
It has a nice crossroads location with Yellowstone six hours to the north as well as Grand Teton and Jackson Hole about the same distance, while the five national parks in Utah are all less than five or six hours away and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon maybe eight or nine . . . The desert herp populations are interesting, which is where I got my interest way back in the last century. I still haven’t found some of what are more common species, like the rubber boa; blue racers and gopher snakes are fairly easy to find, but the Division of Wildlife Resources has put up some common sense regulations to protect what are probably somewhat fragile populations. There’s a park near my parent’s house that used to hold tiger whiptails (a magnificent and fairly large lizard), but there are none there now. If I can locate some young’uns near where I live now, I may try to transplant some; I caught a gravid western fence swift out near Tooele two years ago and moved her there, and now there are half a dozen that frequent a fence wall that holds back erosion and protects the native vegetation. I’m actually doubtful those were prairie dogs you saw but more likely a smaller cousin, a ground squirrel the locals call "pot guts." They are numerous in alpine meadows all the way down to the sagebrush levels, and alongside the roads that bisect them. Prairie dogs are larger and live in colonies; they are smaller than the Eastern woodchuck or the yellow-bellied and hoary marmots (so called "rock chucks" that live near the timberline) but adults are about 12-14 inches in length. http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/utprairiedog/ http://www.nps.gov/brca/naturescience/upd.htm The decimation of prairie dog populations were what threw the black-footed ferret numbers into a tailspin to the point they were thought extinct for a time. The ferrets prey pretty much exclusively on prairie dogs. A population was discovered near Gillette, Wyoming, and carefully monitored. When an outbreak of canine distemper occurred, the survivors were captured and a crash breeding program begun. It appears to be successful, and a local wildlife conservation group I belong to has worked for reintroduction and legal protection of habitat (and angered some Southern Utahovian rednecked sorts as well). http://www.blackfootedferret.org/ |
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| 09/27/08 03:22pm |
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Jessica71 View Profile |
Message To: Concolor1 In reference to Message Id: 1869360 Yep, Salt Lake is Home . . .
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| 09/27/08 05:02pm |
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Concolor1 View Profile |
Message To: Jessica71 In reference to Message Id: 1869419 Working With Lots of Animals . . . Well, My Mother . . .
This was the critter: http://www.desertusa.com/animals/rock_squirrel.html Rock squirrels look a lot like Eastern Gray Squirrels, particularly because of their bushy tails, but they live in burrows on the ground and rarely climb anything taller that the dwarf scrub oak or mountain mahogany that exist in profusion in our desert foothills. They have been the subject of considerable research on their immunity to rattlesnake venom (gotta keep some mention of serpents going; presumably people here are visiting because of their fondness for and interest in reptiles); the Venom ER show a few years ago on Animal Planet focussed on this evolutionary "arms race," and the Southern Pacific Rattlesnake (c. oreganus helleri) has likely adapted by developing neurotoxic venom to help it continue to subdue one of its preferred prey items (any genuine herpetologists, feel free to chime in with additional information). When I first read about your wanting to know what species of ground squirrel you’d seen, I thought it was Franklin’s Ground Squirrel, but I decided it was best to go a-Googling. Franklin’s was the picture in the little wildlife field guide I had as a kid, but I see now it lives in the Midwest and has become fairly rare because of the extermination practices used to control it (GRRRR!!! First they kill the coyotes, the snakes, the badgers, and the foxes that control the population, and then they resort to gassing and poisons because the wild rodent populations mushroom). I’m guessing now that it was the Uintah Ground Squirrel, particularly since the Uintahs are a mountain range in Eastern Utah extending into Colorado. These articles have some pictures: http://www.maxwaugh.com/yellowstone04/groundsquirrels.html http://www.rmnp.com/RMNP-Critters-UintaGroundSquirrel.HTML The belly region on the second animal in the second link shows why it has the common name I mentioned, "pot gut." They get quite fat around here, particularly near areas where humans picnic . . . Here are some prairie dog pictures, for contrast: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_dog http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/utprairiedog/ As I noted, they are slightly larger than ground squirrels (with heads larger in relation to their body size), and prairie dog "villages" can number hundreds of animals. Salt Lake’s Hogle Zoo (where the Utah prairie dog picture was taken) has an exhibit of prairie dogs (near the entrance where it’s possible to view the animals up close in almost a natural setting). But for real "natural stuff," the Uintah ground squirrel is an actual wild "resident" of the zoo, since it is native to the Wasatch Mountains that jut above the canyon where the zoo is located. There are always a few running around on the zoo’s walkways . . . The other "beauty" that’s often seen is the golden mantled ground squirrel: http://www.rockymountainnp.com/RMNP-Critters-Golden-MantledGroundSquirrel.HTML The stripes on this one lead many people to believe it’s a chipmunk, but they’re larger and lack the facial stripes of their smaller cousins . . . http://www.rockymountainnp.com/RMNP-Critters-UintaChipmunk.HTML Chipmunks tend to be found in the higher pine and spruce forests, and my experience is golden mantled squirrels are found in more open areas . . . |
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| 09/28/08 03:22am |
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Jessica71 View Profile |
Message To: Concolor1 In reference to Message Id: 1869782 Working With Lots of Animals . . . Well, My Mother . . .
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| 09/28/08 12:56pm |
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Concolor1 View Profile |
Message To: Jessica71 In reference to Message Id: 1869931 Shows What I Know . . .
http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/wtprairiedog/ White-tailed prairie dogs are generally found at altitudes ranging between 5,000 and 10,000 feet in desert grasslands and shrub grasslands. Conversely, the black-tailed prairie dogs are found at altitudes below 6,000 feet in grasslands associated with the Great Plains and are not tolerant of shrubs within their colony. As one can imagine from the picture, the burrows make excellent homes for gopher snakes and rattlesnakes as well . . . And apologies for briefly hijacking this thread, but it did, after all, discuss the subject of wild herp foods . . . |
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| 09/28/08 02:56pm |
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Jessica71 View Profile |
Message To: Jessica71 In reference to Message Id: 1869931 Working With Lots of Animals . . . Well, My Mother . . .
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| 09/28/08 03:03pm |
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Jessica71 View Profile |
Message To: Jessica71 In reference to Message Id: 1869996 Working With Lots of Animals . . . Well, My Mother . . .
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| 09/29/08 11:49am |
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ILoveGreen View Profile |
Message To: Jessica71 In reference to Message Id: 1870649 Working With Lots of Animals . . . Well, My Mother . . .
Have you tried a humid hide? You can take a plastic container with a lid...cut a hole in the lid big enough for the snake to get in and out....and add damp paper towel inside. I live in WI(very bottom) and I never have to spray my cages or anything when my snakes are in shed...and they always shed whole. :) |
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| 09/29/08 12:24pm |
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Concolor1 View Profile |
Message To: ILoveGreen In reference to Message Id: 1870664 One More Hijack For Jessica (and others)
One realization I find marvelously satisfying and illuminating in the study of all animals and their intertwined relationships are the similarities between different species and the evolutionary reasons they exist. There are mimics in nature (such as viceroy butterflies that imitate foul-tasting monarchs or scarlet king snakes--and other milk snakes--that represent themselves as venomous when they’re not), and other similarities that invite us to exercise our imaginations. And most here know there’s a desert viper in the Sahara whose method of locomotion is identical with the sidewinder of the American Southwest. The question that suggests itself is did they have a common ancestor eons ago (before continental drift separated the two land masses), and what about that "rattle" found on the sidewinder and most North American pit vipers but not on their European counterparts? We know the "rattle" has survival value for prairie rattlesnakes since it affords its owner protection against the hooves of herd animals such as bison, elk, or pronghorns, but why did the sidewinder get one as well? I know the DNA scientists are busy crunching their numbers and nucleotides to attempt to explain and categorize this stuff, and I await some simplified explanations of their judgments and conclusions we layfolks can ponder . . . I’ve long had a similar question about the chipmunk’s stripes and those of the golden-mantled squirrel. They are eerily similar, and I wonder if they offer some sort of visual camouflage trick against an aerial predator or what the purpose is, or how they originated... There are times, of course, in nature where "similar problems invite similar solutions." We have the new "superstars" on Animal Planet, the meerkats (shucks, they even had their own series for a time), and as I watched them, I was amazed at how much their behavior and housing developments and requirements resemble those of the prairie dogs discussed above. With meerkats being carnivores from the weasel/mongoose family and prairie dogs part of the rodent/ground squirrel group, there’s obviously not much of an ancestral relationship . . . And there’s more on that one. Our local zoo has a couple of meerkats on exhibit (surprise, surprise), and the markings on their fur (a grizzled mixture of gray, black, and tannish brown) are nearly identical with the rock squirrels and Unitah ground squirrel (which has a short tail, unlike the rock squirrel) I also mentioned earlier. I suspect it has survival value for desert environments, but the "whys" elude me (and might form the possibility for a dissertation down the road for some young, curious, and ambitious sort reading this; I’m too old for much more schooling). But note that the prairie dogs are a more uniform buff color that matches the dirt from their more extensive excavations . . . Fun stuff . . . Now I gotta go mist Momma Corn . . . |
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| 09/29/08 04:21pm |
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