Newsletter, feeding snakes and South Africa

None of these seem related at all but they are. I just published the latest Keeping Reptiles newsletter and included in it was an article called "What do I do when my snake won't eat". There was also a nice article on reptile genetics that explained in simple terms the genetics behind breeding reptiles for different morphs. This also included a glossary of herp genetic terms and I thought it was a pretty good article. Part 2 will be published next edition.

Another article was developments in South Africa's herp keeping laws. They have proposed legislation that outlaws the keeping of many herps due to concerns about invasive species. The list is quite extensive and realistically restrict them to indigenous species. This is a difficult issue.
On one hand I have sympathy with the keepers of these herps who almost universally are responsible, keeping them housed and secured appropriately. It seems that many of them will now have to kill the animals as they cannot even transport them to other destinations. The number that escape is minimal and the probability that they will meet another escapee of the same species is quite remote.

I can also sympathize with the government position. If there is an accident and a potentially harmful species does take hold, that has no natural predators, the result could be devastating to some local species.

I live in a country that has suffered dreadfully from invasive species such as the cane toad, which kills many native animals, particularly reptiles and birds and now ranges across vast areas of the country with no indication of stopping. Other introduced species like rabbit, fox, northern sea star, crown of thorns and water buffalo to name a few of the animals that have significant impacts on the local fauna and flora. When they do take hold they are almost impossible to eradicate.

The roaches still continue to give me grief. I had about a dozen shoot out today and it took me ten minutes to round them up. The dragon gets good exercise at least. The snakes are also out and about, telling me they want food as the weather warms up.

Roaches don't jump but they run very fast.

The roaches finally arrived a few days ago. They were shipped in a poster tube, tightly and robustly taped at either end and filled with newspaper and roaches. I think I'm going to have to get serious and get a plastic container with the special paint to prevent their escape if I intend to use them as a food source. Getting them out of the tube, while quite easy, makes it difficult to do a number of things.

1. See how many there are left
2. Put a reasonable number into the cage for feeding
3. Give them food
4. Have some idea of their health

The poster tube has newspaper in the center so I cannot see how many roaches are actually in the tube. When I try to put some in the cage I either get just a couple popping out or I get a flood - there doesn't seem to be any midway point. This morning there was a flood. The dragon was going crazy trying to catch them all. I spilled a few on the floor and I'm pretty certain I didn't get them all.

I know I should put them into a small container and put them in the fridge to slow them down but that requires forward planning. It also requires roaches in the fridge. I'm not much at the former regarding roach feeding and I'm on thin ice with the latter. I get away with rats and mealworms in the fridge but I suspect I need to get another fridge and put it in the garage if I intend to cool down the roaches.

The roaches will just about well eat anything but at the moment I have no idea what they are eating in the tube. All I can see is stuffed newspaper. I tried to pull a bit out this morning, which is where all of the trouble started. A few roaches came out but when I pulled a bit of paper out there was a veritable flood of the bastards. I went into a blind panic as the last thing I want is dozens of roaches running around the house. Crickets at least have some aura of acceptability and 'she who must be obeyed' can have a little chortled with friends etc. She would be hard pressed to find anything remotely amusing to tell her friends about if these were roaches. "We've got dozens of roaches running around the house, haw, haw" doesn't come off nearly as funny as crickets in her circle of friends. Thy run like hell and can climb anything. I think I've secured the perimeter so far but I can see I need to perfect this.

On another matter, the local herp shop has changed rodent supplies. Prices have doubled for the rats and there are now no mice. I'm prepared to give them some slack while they find another supplier but I'm a tad cranky at the prices. There is another supplier who has both and I'll be going to them in the immediate future and chase up the other when they have found their new supplier. I hope they find one soon.

Where are my roaches?

A while back I talked about using roaches as food for my dragon. Despite the potential for my imminent demise and the danger of this posed by 'she who must be obeyed' I have garnered the courage and order them, along with some spare globes and a ceramic heat lamp to replace the one I bought 3 months ago and cannot find (not a cheap item to misplace).

Well, it's been a week since the order. I know they come by post but I have had to get some extra crickets in the meantime and I'm wondering whether I've done the right thing.

I ordered two units of these that were about 30 days old and I know they live for up to 365 days, although I don't yet know how to keep them alive. The supplier said the postage is the same for up to 250 grams of the beasties. That's a lot of bugs. I thought I would order an extra unit, the postage being the same but now I think I might have an interesting issue. Apparently they can climb anything.

I'm hoping the box they come in has the special coating around the top to prevent them escaping but it does raise some issues about ordering food online. You order and sometimes you are not sure completely what you will get and you hope the supplier has this all sorted because essentially you are bit in the dark if you have never used that supplier before. This is also the first time I have ordered food online. I am hopeful that it is a success as the other supplier is quite expensive and it sometimes difficult to get there to pick up the food. Another problem is that they are sometimes in poor condition by the time you get them. I think the roaches are a bit tougher and hope they travel well. I post the results when they arrive.

Keeping Reptiles Newsletter readers recently asked me some feeding questions on her childrens pythons. I found out today that she put the food in a shoebox and into the cage. It was promptly devoured. This was one of several suggestions I offered her. The full question and response can be read here.

I've also been answering other questions on parasites that I will post in the next day or two as there have been more than one exchange of emails and I would like to finalize it before publishing it to the website.

Crunch goes the snail

One of the benefits of blue tongued lizards is that they keep the snail population down. That's one of my problems also.

Let me explain.

We have around our home a resident population of blue tongued lizards. There is at least one breeding pair that I know of and I found several young last summer. In winter they are mostly dormant, but so are the snails. As the weather warms up, the snails start to come out and so do the lizards. Because we have resident blue tongues, we do not get many snails.

This is a good from the gardens perspective but we also have two pet blue tongues, Banana and Apricot - named because of their predilection for the fruits in question, who also enjoy snails. So we often find it difficult to get snails for them. Whilst they will happily eat lots of ther food, snails appear to be one of their favorites.

So to the rescue comes my father-in-law.

The other day he arrived with a large jar full of snails. The blueys had a feast and we still have plenty left over.

This is quite a bonus all around as he gets to go out and catch snails and we get lots of free food for the blue tongues. There are some blue tongue lizard care sheets and diet information on my site here if you are interested in these gentle and wonderful pets.

Latest newsletter and musings

The latest Keeping Reptiles newsletter (you can get it from here for free) has just been published . There was a nice reply from a reader:

"Cool stuff Mark-keep it coming. Just put my Texas Indigo snake into a new 72" by 24" enclosure I built with your design book-we're both loving it!
Bill"

It's always gratifying to get feedback like this. The newsletter is always well received and we have quite a few testimonials for it. It's a bit embarrassing as this edition was a bit delayed as I had some work done on my bung finger and the school break also intervened.

I forgot to put in Jeff's story about his Burmese python, but it's probably just as well as I don't think I had yet asked his permission to publish.

The website, Reptile-Cage-Plans.com, has been running for nearly 12 months now and the traffic is still growing. Feedback has been good from customers and there is now a good range of testimonials. There are plans to make some more reptile cage plans and these are being developed in the coming months.

The site is running to over 80 pages (approximately). It may have to have some serious revamping of the backend shortly so it is more navigable. At the same time it is not meant to compete with some of the very large sites such as Kaplan's. It is just a matter of building a mass of useful material over time and trying to address what people's needs are.

"How to build an Incubator from scratch in less than a Day" has been added to the bonus packages, so there are now nine bonuses and they are all really good value. I have some other bonuses I would like to add in the coming months. Reptile Cage Plans.com is also instigating an affiliate program. You can email me if you are interested in this and I will notify you when it is going to be launched.

Every time the newsletter is sent it prompts a range of questions from customers. These are being published on the website. The aim is to have a bank of questions that people can view and wander through over time. The latest one was about temperatures for Bearded Dragons in Winter in New England (I'm assuming New England USA, not Australia). Hopefully the answer was useful. You can read it here if you are interested. There is also a link to a very useful Bearded Dragon Care sheet that is free to download. It's about 14 pages and you will find it a very useful resource if you keep dragons as pets.