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Girly K Dubs89 Phrynosoma_Texas_FS3 Girly K Phrynosoma_Texas_FS3 Girly K Phrynosoma_Texas_FS3 AshJoe |
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Girly K View Profile |
Baby horned lizard please help!!!
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| 03/29/07 02:31pm |
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Dubs89 View Profile |
Message To: Girly K In reference to Message Id: 1226505 Baby horned lizard please help!!!
i hope this helps |
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| 03/29/07 07:10pm |
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Phrynosoma_Texas_FS3 View Profile |
Message To: Girly K In reference to Message Id: 1226505 Baby horned lizard please help!!!
You are so concerned that it might die, yet your whim to keep it ( becasue your kids need a toy ) overrides it’s welfare? You’re bound and determined to keep it, even if it kills the thing aren’t you? When people start talking about the "kids" and "being attached" when it comes to trying to keep a wild animal that they are not qualified to keep, I always wonder who the adult is in the house. Isn’t this the kind of thing we should be teaching them? |
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| 04/07/07 02:48am |
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Girly K View Profile |
Message To: Phrynosoma_Texas_FS3 In reference to Message Id: 1236970 Baby horned lizard please help!!!
As for the lizard, I would have let it go had the spot my husband found it, had not been buldozed and a concrete slab layed down. So fyi, I have spent hours reading and studying this site as well as others, and found they are not so hard to take care of. We are building an outdoor home for it. For now I catch ants for it daily, have the correct lighting and environment. She is doing fine. So any more attacks on my character would be great if left untouched. Thanks. |
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| 04/10/07 07:43pm |
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Phrynosoma_Texas_FS3 View Profile |
Message To: Girly K In reference to Message Id: 1241145 Baby horned lizard please help!!!
You came here asking for help...but, you see, to me the most important one needing help here is not you, but the helpless captive that you have taken. I care more about the welfare of the lizard than your pea picking feelings on the matter. It seems you will do what you want though, and that tells me what I need to know about you as a person as well where it concerns this. You did not provide information about it’s habitat, nor ask about possible relocation options, or if you should keep it, or any other such thing. So you were just intent on keeping it because you thought it was cute or something, so just be honest and admit it. You came here asking, but that doesn’t make you ENTITLED to whichever kind of answer you wanted, to parrot your feeling on the matter and make you feel better about your decision. You want to take in an animal that is threatened and protected in many states (for good reason ), and play catch up trying to learn on the animal before it dies. Well it’s always a dumb thing to get an animal and THEN try to learn about it. And here’s the great thing about knowing right from wrong and having common sense in those kinds of matters....those principles transcend your individual experience and "who" you are. It doesn’t matter who the heck you are. Now you make it out to be a "personal attack" all you like and cry "victim". But this isn’t about you dear. You learn from the internet if you like, and think they are not that hard to take care of. Personally, I don’t know where you would have gotten that kind of information, when 20 years of herp experience and specifically 5 years with these kinds of lizards, I can tell you otherwise. If they were "not so hard", then given their obvious appeal, they would not be a species of concern, or threatened, or protected, and they CERTAINLY would be sold more in the pet trade if they were so easy. But, you see, I’m experienced in these things and you are not. So you don’t know this. I can also tell you that there really aren’t that many websites and information out there about the captive care of these lizards, so where are you reading this I don’t know. You see anyone can put things out there and make it sound easy. It’s easy to say that when you live somewhere where you can gather them by the bucket loads too when you kill them. |
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| 04/11/07 01:39am |
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Girly K View Profile |
Message To: Phrynosoma_Texas_FS3 In reference to Message Id: 1241556 Baby horned lizard please help!!!
In the meantime, I was reading phrynosoma.org. I believe again this is a site you posted. I obtained a 20 gallon terrerium. I have uv lighting, playsand, rocks and a heat lamp. I feed her ants 2 x daily. And water 2x per week. I have 2 thermometers to moniter temp. She eats without problems, accepts water and defecates every other day. She is active in the mornings and burrows at night and mid afternoon. She is slightly bigger than a quarter. She is a p.solare. I learned from that web site. Now honestly your input would be great. Even if you tell me to release her. Just let me know if I can release her anywhere. I am surrounded by desert. Or is it possible to keep her? If we built her the proper outdoor enclosure? I know your probably laughing at me or disgusted either one. (due to my lack of expierience). But this is something I am really wanting to learn more about. If I dont keep this one, I will be getting something from the reptile store. Any way Your help is appreciated. I was going to tell you something else, but I forgot. Thanks Kirstin P.S. just to east your mind, no one handles her except me and that is only on a need to basis. And they are not endangered here. You can own up to four. Thanks again |
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| 04/12/07 07:04pm |
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Phrynosoma_Texas_FS3 View Profile |
Message To: Girly K In reference to Message Id: 1243876 Baby horned lizard please help!!!
What happens is that people who know very much about these lizards, and are in any way concerned about their conservation, tend to be a little protective of them. I tend to be more protective than most, but that’s because I have devoted a lot of time and effort into answering questions and communicating with people in this forum and a half a dozen others for years, and I see person after person in these forums, time and time again, who want answers from people with experience on how to take care of these lizards ( or other animals ) after they have caught one. Yet, when told if they have no experience or insufficient knowledge and they really shouldn’t keep it, and instead should let it go, they suddenly become more versed in the animal and decide that they know enough about it to know they can keep it anyway. Well, unfortunately I have very little time anymore to devote to this, and as most inexperienced people tend to kill them rather quickly after contacting a forum like this...there tends to be little time for me to impress upon these people the importance of letting the wildlife go before it dies. They will either care for it’s life and listen to that, or they will not. There is not time to educate people sufficiently in the keeping of reptiles, and particularly these lizards, before they nose dive under the wrong care. There are many other reptiles that are less sensitive and more hardy in captivity...but this is not one of those reptiles. There are also many other reptiles for whom the loss of one here and there does not have the significant impact to wild populations, that the loss of a Horned Lizard does. Besides keeping reptiles, I’ve taken in birds, and am now also rescueing and rehabbing baby squirrels, and I used to work with and train dogs. I have experience with a variety of animals, and lemmie tell you, MOST people are not even qualified to have the dogs they have. They usually know nothing of pack order, dominance displays, or proper socialization...nor do they even recognize easily identifiable and pretty dang obvious cues. Mammals are easy. They can show emotion, pain, etc. pretty easy. Reptiles are ambiguous and harder to read, even for the experienced, and most people without experience tend to impose mammalian or human standards and emotions to reptiles, causing the reptile to suffer and the reptile and/or the person be placed in jeopardy due to lack of education. I just had to tell a sick lady the other day, to go see the doctor because she probably contracted salmonellosis from a bite from her new Iguana. She went on feeling bad for a week before even asking about it. She probably got the bite from either playing kissy face with her new stressed out friend, or doing something else wrong with the handling. Then there are the people that want to know how many crickets they should feed their tortoise, or how deep to keep their water. Not even knowing that tortoises are herbivores, and neither can they swim. Just a few examples I see all the time of people not understanding the animal before they get it. I am familiar with Mesa. I have three solare that came from just outside Apache Junction. I know they are not endangered or threatened yet in Az., but give it time. With more of this development further into the desert, they will be soon. They are regulated in Az though, and you need at least a hunting permit. It is not necessary to return the lizard to the "exact" spot. That would be ideal, but, if there is suitable habitat that is not threatened within a few hundred yards of where it came from, that would be fine too. So long as it is close by, has suitable resources such as ant colonies and places to burrow and hide, and that any dominating land features such as mountains are visible with substantially the same orientation as would be seen from the original habitat location. Most people look for help with keeping the animal, and they think that that is what I do when I post things. That is not what I do. I advocate for the animal, and if it’s best interests are better served by being let go; I say so. Sometimes it sounds unduely harsh. But it only sounds that way if you are looking from your own human prespective. If you are looking from the animal’s prespective and welfare, it is not harsh at all. I am curently caring for 4 baby HL’s that were expressed mailed to me because someone could not pay for a reptile vet visit after they were caught from the wild and got sick. That’s what most people are like. Have you checked into what that sort of thing costs, and are you prepared for it? It is also a bad idea to let kids have anything to do with reptiles as pets in general until they are in their teens, and I cringe every time I hear something about the "kids being attached". I hear that several times a month, and it almost always ends bad for the animal be it a HL, frog, turtle, squirrel or whatever. They always want to interact and handle the animal, and play with it. Kids just don’t have the maturity or knowledge to be messing with them and can’t be expected to have that kind of responsibility. That’s why they are kids, and adults have to take care of them and decide what is best...because they can’t decide for themselves and can’t take even care of themselves. They should not be expected to care for, or have responsibility over another life that is dependent. I hope you understand that dynamic whatever you decide to do, and that ultimately you are in charge and not your children based upon what they want. If you do keep a HL though a 20 gallon isn’t going to cut it, and neither is a fluorescent tube if that’s what you bought. It would really do the best outside which will require a purpose built enclosure, or if inside it’s going to need mercury vapor UVB lighting. It lives on the desert and needs more UVB than what junk fluorescent tubes put out. In almost any case I will offer what help I can, but I’m going to put out there the disclaimers and say what I think needs to be said in the animal’s interest first. I appreciate that you are wanting to learn more. But let this baby go and learn more FIRST. Then if you must have one, go look for an adult. Baby HL’s present a whole new set of challenges that you won’t be prepared or equipped for if problems develop. They are just too small and there is little that you would be able to do if something happened to a baby. It has much better chances of survival on it’s own. I understand that if you don’t keep this one, you "will be getting something from the reptile store". I don’t know if that is supposed to be a form of coersion, but I would say that is the best thing. Let this little one go...study up on reptiles in general...decide which suitable beginner reptile you would like ( such as a nocturnal Gecko ( Leopard, etc. ) Green Anole, or corn snake )...study up on it’s specific care...and then go to the store an select your animal. Any one of these reptiles are better for beginners for a variety of reasons. There are more people keeping them so there is a wider base of captive knowledge for a beginner, which means more websites and resources, the snake and Gecko have lower UVB needs and can usually be met without a UVB light, they are more forgiving and hardier in captivity in many respects, they are not almost singly dependent on any one food source as a solare is on harvester ants, many reptile vets are experienced with Geckos, snakes, etc. and have seen them before, whereas many vets won’t even see a Horned Lizard because they don’t know enough about them. I could go on and on....please consider that before you decide to keep a HL in captivity before you are fully educated and equipped. |
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| 04/16/07 08:20am |
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AshJoe View Profile |
Message To: Girly K In reference to Message Id: 1226505 Baby horned lizard please help!!!
I have a horned lizard that has been mine and my fiances’ pet for almost four months....we thought she was always puffy and stressed out but this morning she gave birth to nine total but only seven survived....I would just like to know is it dire to separate the mother and her young....and how large of tank should I buy to accomodate this many lizards?!? |
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| 07/05/09 09:47pm |
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