Kowabanga

Recently I have gotten quite used to (though admittedly I still get small frights) when I hear a "bang" coming from my snake enclosures. The first time was quite scary actually as the sound isn't exactly minute. This is due to the jungles maneuvering around the enclosure at night, as they do, though they all love latching onto the sliding glass lock whilst they hang onto the rod in the middle, and when they don't hold on properly they fall to the ground (not that far) causing a "bang". I really have to look into sanding the rod soon.

Feeling Yukky >___<

Have been down with...something. Just feel so uncomfortable all over with recurring fever. Lucky I'm on holidays now and won't be back to work till Friday. A quick update on the herps. Been trying to finish my enclosures. It's a slow process but it's getting there! I need more thermometers. :(

Beware of Snakes

Just saw on The Insider that Will Smith & his wife lost one of their dogs (an Alaskan Malamute which happens to be my favourite breed) to a rattlesnake bite (more correctly 3 bites). The famous Caesar Millan, aka the Dog Whisperer who is also a long term friend of theirs helped train the rest of their dogs to be aware of rattlesnakes and to stay clear when they're in close proximity of one. I'd love to train my puppy to stay away from my snakes. She's almost identical to an oversized rat.

Shopping List

Some things I'd like to have/need:

• Hygrometer
• Snake hook
• NEC T10 light tubes
• Another twin probe thermometer to double check
  

N. Amyae

N. Amyae
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

Still too early to tell the sex of my baby Amyae. Wanna take a guess? :)

Terrible lighting + after I domestically violated my camera the last time it hasn't been able to focus properly. :(

Introducing My Quails

Here's my two pairs of gorgeous quails. Having kept a pair of lovebirds in my room before, I was quite put off having any type of birds for the rest of my life. They were messy, extremely loud, and have I mentioned they were horrendously loud? Anyway, I suddenly had the urge (as I do) to start breeding chickens for eggs as eggs around here are just not fresh enough. So, taking into account that I have very limited space, I opted for small chicky variations such as bantams. Then I decided on silkies because I've always loved their comical look. Then after some googling, I decided to go even smaller, resulting in the decision to start keeping and breeding quails. That way, I can satisfy the hunger of both my snakes, my beardies (the occasional eggs) and myself. Thanks to my impulsive personality, I wasted no time in accidentally going into a pet store and accidentally purchasing two pairs of quails without much thought. I didn't even have a setup ready, or any idea how to keep them properly (apart from my limited knowledge gained during my search for the right type of chickens). So everything was irresponsibly done after they arrived home.

Quite thrilled with the fact that their calls are actually not annoying as that was my main concern. If kept indoors, the smell will eventually get to you, so I moved them to the balcony, where I can't smell them even with the lid completely opened. Initially I was worried about the temperature being too low outside, but they've proven to be quite hardy little things. They do eat a lot and spoil their water quickly so in that sense they're not totally zero to maintain.

Arghhhh-vabator

I've been trying to set up my two hovabators for a while now. As it's my first time using an incubator I wanted it to be as perfect as possible (coz I'm sure something else will go wrong). One is a still air model for reptile eggs, and the other is a fan forced model for quail eggs. I'm having problems stabilizing the still air at 29 degrees. I have them both in my enclosed work room downstairs which has limited draft and temperature fluctuation. I've just tried the "turn knob and remove dust from wafer" technique so lets see how we go. Optimally I'd like to achieve this:

• Still air model: 29 degrees celcius
• Fan forced model: 37.5 +- 0.5 degrees celcius, 60% humidity

As I'm quite new to the prospects of dealing with humidity, it's slightly overwhelming. :(

Found a few good links for quail incubation tips. Here's one.

Pasta :: The Noodle in the middle

Pasta :: Striped Jungle Python
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

Finally took some piccies of Pasta. She's my absolute favourite snake. Extremely placid but feeds like a hawk, and of course, stunningly beautiful. So far she's the only snake using the stick thingy I installed. I think this may be due to the fact that she isn't as heavy weighted as the others so can hold onto it well enough. The others seem to slip off from their weight + the smooth surface. I might sand it a little to give it more grip and see how that goes. :)

Trick with the Invisible Crickets

I went to the pet store today as I was nearly out of crickets and wouldn't have enough till my bulk order of crix show up. They seemed to be out of smalls, but "luckily" (just wait) I found a box of smalls on the top shelf, slightly out of sight. Well, out of sight for people my height anyway. When I got home, I set up a nice tub with gut load and cricket gel (no not gel made out of crickets! These are the water crystal thingies that works really well as a water source), then tipped the crix in. Out popped a few, then a few... a few then no more dropped... and when I say a few, I mean really "few". If I sat there for a good few seconds I could easily have counted how many were in the box. They costed me $6.90. It almost seems like I paid $1.00 for each of them. Total Grrrrr.

My Beardie Houdinied >___<

Today was quite cool but okay for a winter day. I thought it would be lovely if I took my beardies out to sun. I filled up two tubs with luke warm water, placed them outside right by the side of my balcony so they could get some sun and left them to swim for a while. When I came back outside to check on them, one of my bigger girls had disappeared. After a couple of minutes I became frantic (I have a bit of a delayed reaction sometimes) because knowing their great sense of height, she most likely would have jumped off the balcony and pizza-ed right then and there. I crawled down on all fours and searched the grounds but of course she was nowhere to be found. I thought about sticking up fliers all over the estate but I didn't think the people around here would appreciate someone keeping "venomous dragons" in the same vicinity as their house. I came inside, got the keys and was ready to bolt out the door when I saw her happily hanging off one of the screens. She was quite unhappy and was very offended when I tried to calmly coax her off (get off the friggin screen you *beep*). Yes, I've learnt my lesson! Never ever leave your animals unsupervised no matter for how short a time, and never ever trust they can't get out of anything or anywhere (with that being said, I don't think I've blogged about the time I lost three snakies all at once...)! >___<

Preparationz

Due to the possibility that my castelnaui could be gravid, I went out and got a few things today (mostly following Sparticus' suggestions):

Bunnings:

• Peat moss
• Perlite
• Vermiculite (really only needed perlite, but I thought what the heck I'll get some anyway)
  
• Digital thermometer

Campbell's warehouse for business owners:

• Takeaway containers (750mL I think) & Lids (I wasn't sure which ones to get, there were smaller standard ones but I thought these ones would hold eggs of any size)

Betta Electrical:

• Digital scale
  

Crazy Clark's:

• Plastic buckets to put the mosses and lite's in
• 100 Piece Kitchen Container Set $25 (I figured there has to be at least one that's the right size for the laying container)
• Some cheap river rocks to ornament the enclosure

I did find a container within the set that seemed kind of suitable for laying. I'm just not sure it is quite wide enough. The good thing with it is that it already has a hole in the lid (easy access to pour out what ever you're supposed to keep in it). I put a good amount of peat moss in it, wet it down and put it in the enclosure. I coaxed (plucked and planted) my gecko into it to let her know it's there and she sat in it for a fair while. I know she'll find it herself when she's ready to lay but being myself, I couldn't wait.

N. Aspers

N. Aspers
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

One of my favourite pics of my gecko is not actually taken by me. Guppy took the photo when he picked them up from the airport for me a short while ago. Happy to say, the fiesty little bub is growing big and strong. The breeder I got them from sure knows how to breed perfect babies! They were packed and freighted so well too. Kudos to you! :)

Castelnaui: Preggos~ ? :D

My female castelnaui has been religiously sitting under the heat lamp for the past couple of days, and seemed to look fatter everyday, so I flipped her and had a look to see whether she was preggos or not. At this stage it seems like she could be. The male is a hypo, and seems to throw out quite a high proportion of hypos, so it's all very exciting! :)

Southern Leaf-tail Gecko

Southern Leaf-tail Gecko
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

These little (or relatively gigantic) geckos are so humorous. I picked up one out of the takeaway container that they were freighted in to take a piccie and it was just my luck that I had to pick the psycho. It wriggled like a lunatic which I didn't expect as I thought they are generally quite calm as adults. Not wanting to lose this one to the big wide world, I put him into the enclosure and picked up the other one. This one sat on my hand fine, I took some piccies and let my guard down. Then she suddenly went "bwaaaak", took a leap of faith and landed majestically on my laptop. Lunatics.

R.I.P. Sweetheart

Nephrurus Amyae #1
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

The littlest one of my Amyaes died today. When I got him, he had a sunken head but I thought nothing couldn't be fixed with a bit of love and care. Sad to say, but I was wrong. The other Amyae is doing beautifully, a chubby little thing. As Guppy said, it's just one of those things that happens in nature. Some are born weaker than others. Hard not to beat myself over the loss though. Bye baby. Mummy loves you.

Pretty Herp People

I met the best looking, sweetest couple of people today. They sold me three beautiful enclosures and even helped me settle them into my new (and squashy) environment. I'm starting to really love meeting fellow herpers. Sure are a good looking bunch! :)

Thanks so much for helping me out!

Picked Up New Snakie!

Meeting up with anyone is nerve wracking, just as it was today. However, as soon as I saw my Jungle seller walk up to my car I thought hey, he'd be a cool guy just to hang around with. Always nice to know herp people personally, a nice divergence from the reality of making friends with "nicknames" online. :)

Anyways, so I picked up my new snakie! He's humongous compared to Pasta. Seems like he has a beautiful temperament (fingers crossed though. Me here has no snakie hook yet so if it becomes feisty I'm just gonna have to sacrifice myself to the greater good). Might have to lock his cage though as he looks way too powerful for the sliding glass panels. Needless to say, I'm going to have to conjure up a new enclosure for him as the one I so lovingly prepared doesn't seem big enough.

4yo Proven Breeder Jungle Male

I've sourced out my jungle male and I'll be picking him up in approximately 20 minutes. I've seen a couple of pictures of him. Although he looks quite average for a jungle, if the camera wasn't playing tricks (colours are quite hard to capture) his colours look like it could compliment Pasta's quite well. Plus on top of that he's a proven breeder. Can't complain. :)

Chemistry Blog: Genes versus heat – a reptile sex trigger

Chemistry Blog: Genes versus heat – a reptile sex trigger

To many, the topic of ratio of sex (as in female/male) versus temperature of incubation seems to be more of a spectacle rather than a scientific evaluation. This article delves slightly deeper behind the facts that support this occurrence and points out the issue that "...the current rate of climate warming...could potentially result in heavily skewed sex ratios" (Quinn) which inspires a whole new perspective of what might become an epidemic due to clash of population growth/decrease.

I Ma Tart

I'm such a tart. On the way to pick up my beardies last night (that's right, I adopted more beardies...), I passed by the toll bridge. In the midst of confusion, I realized too late that I was in a lane called e-toll. There were no cars behind me so I wanted to reverse but the lane kindly said "no stopping" so being as intellectual as I was, I didn't, and ran straight through it. Arghhh. I'd like to blame it on the insanely long drive (mind you this was nearing towards midnight when I went on this road trip), and so I guess I will. I was quite worried all the way there and back until I reached the same e-toll gate (god bless), especially since I saw a sign that said something along the lines of "toll invasion is some kind of offense and may be more than $100 or so". I went through to the one where actual humans collected the toll fee and told her with big wet eyes what I did earlier. She was loverly, passed me a card and told me to call QLD Motorways. So this morning I did. I dialed the number and waited for the robot to finish reciting her lines. There was an actual option that said something like, "if you accidentally went through e-toll, press 3", and then the lady answered. If you wanna know what happens when you commit toll invasion, go through one yourself. :( :D