Anyone out there have any cold blooded pets? Lizards, snakes, turtles? It appears there aren't many on here. Either that or they're too shy. Well I have one bearded dragon, one russian tort, a uromastyx, one leopard gecko, 2 crested geckos, one african fat tailed geckos, and one milk snake.
For those of you who don't have any reptiles, do any interest you? Would you like to have any? Or your general thoughts on reptiles? I know many people dislike them, but inhibitions aside, do they interest you at all? One thing that bothers me with first time reptile owners is their lack of knowledge. That is, the fact that they don't research the proper care procedures for their animals prior to owning them and just dive into caring for them. When this happens they end up not having the proper husbandry set ups for their animals and end up hurting them or worse.. killing them. I've seen people who have used the wrong substrates, had wrong humidity, temperatures, had the wrong type of animals together, little or no uvb on an animal that requires it.
Once, for example, my sisters boyfriend bought a bearded dragon. Now he isn't any 15 year old but rather well into his 20s. Regardless, he didn't research bearded dragons as well as he should have. This is for those who think that these things happen to younger people. Not true.
Anyway he had reptile carpet for his beardie (thank goodness) and good ceramic heating, but the problem was he didn't have a proper uvb light. He had a regular light from the hardware store. There are nowhere nearly adequate for them. I went into a fit and told him what types of bulbs were adequate for beardies: zoomed 10.0s, any mercury vapor bulb, zilla 50, etc. I have been using the new zilla 50 deserts for a while and those were the ones i recommend he get. I liked using these because of the good reviews they got and the people who recommended them to me. So if you get a beardie, or any other reptile that requires maximum uvb, I'd get these.
Anyway so he started using the uvb and luckily the only damaging symptoms I had noticed prior to him being on the uvb was a bump or two in the legs and back. And his activity level had decreased from when I first saw him. Luckily, he was spunkier after being on the uvb. So just a heads to anyone who is thinking about owning a reptile, please do your research first. I don't want to read about you in the forums with problems that could have been prevented.
Cold Blood
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