Highlights of January

Darwin got a hammock this month and now sleeps in it every night.  No more than 10 minutes after the lights go out, he crawls up into his hammock and calls it a night.  He also seems to like to spend a fair amount of time basking during the day in it as well!

In gecko news:  We are down to having only three babies left in the nursery tank!  Hilo and Igor were born in late December and will graduate, along with Delta who is still living in the nursery due to her tiny size (she is about a month older than Hilo and Igor, and they have already outpaced her in size), up to the big tank in the next week or two.

Here in this fuzzy pic (sorry), Hilo and Igor take great interest in the worm dish, while Delta sits in the background... She appears to be looking on, but we're not sure how much vision she actually has now that her deformed eyelids have actually started to open revealing that she actually does have eyes afterall.  Still, her eyelids cannot open all the way, and one eye seems somewhat laborious for the little gecko to keep open.

And meanwhile in the big tank the newest arrivals, Echo, Foxtrot, and Gamma seem to be sticking together like glue:

J

Mamma's Boy

Usually Darwin is a pretty independent little dragon.  When we let him out of his tank he runs all over the apartment, exploring every nook and cranny.  He's easy to allow freedom to because he never stays away for very long, always coming back to the basking spot we set up for him in the living room to warm up and then run off to explore again.

Today I was off from work and decided to spend the day in my PJs, chillin' with my lizards and was going to let Darwin out early so he could get some exercise while I did a few chores.  I was in the process of taking Darwin out of his tank and setting up his basking spot, but was trying to do too much at once, taking the tank somewhat apart so that I could clean it while he was running about.  Unfortunately, before I took Darwin out of the tank I accidentally let a light fixture slip and it crashed down into the tank, narrowly missing the little guy.  I'm sure it would have broken bones had it hit him, so thank GOD it didn't.  Darwin freaked out when the light came crashing down, which is totally understandable, and when I took him out of his tank to inspect him for wounds (still unsure at this point whether the light had actually hit him or not) he wriggled free and ran across the apartment faster than I've ever seen him go.

I caught up to him and picked him up and placed him on my chest, where he laid his head breathing fast and heavy for about half an hour.  When I noticed his breathing had finally calmed down I started manipulating his arms, legs, fingers and toes looking for signs of pain or swelling.  He didn't flinch at any point, which I took to be a good sign.  I then figured it had been long enough that I could set him down on the floor and get back to cleaning his tank and whatever other housework I was going to do, but Darwin had different ideas.  I picked him off my tshirt but he struggled and reached back out for me.  I tried to put him down but he grabbed my tshirt and scurried up to my shoulder where he buried his face in my bedraggled hair and stayed there for another hour.  My poor little baby was trauatized.

He's okay, now.  It's been about three hours since the incident and he's back in his tank eating salad and chasing crickets.  Thank goodness that was just a close call and nothing more...  But it leads me to think I have to do something about how precarious that one fixture is when I'm trying to clean the tank. 

**Note to self** Take the dragon out of the tank first, then play with the lights and everything else.

~J

*Edit*  Ive had Darwin out since writing this post and although he seems normal:  running around, chasing crickets, eating greens...  He has a limp.  He is favouring his left arm, but so far there is no swelling and when I move his arms his range of motion doesnt appear to be affected.  Hes just climbed up his log into his hammock, so he climbing is not an issue for him.  Ill just have to keep an eye on him and watch for swelling or anything else weird.

Sand Colour Matters

Over the holidays I was a very busy lady with very little time to snap pictures of our reptilian children, so you'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that sand colour impacts a baby lizards skin colours.  Over the holidays our set-up for the leos was 3 tanks:  A nursery tank with orange/red lizard carpet for the hatchlings, a junior tank with black sand for the babies that were too big for the nursery tank but still too small for the adult tank, and the adult tank with orange/red sand.  At the beginning of December sometime we moved two of the babies, Charlie and Foxtrot, into the junior tank with the black sand, and within a week their colours had darkened considerably.  After a few weeks, they were both dark grey with black spots and very little distinguishable orange like they'd had while they were in the nursery tank. 

Then we decided that we'd just throw caution to the wind and put them in the adult tank, as they were growing fast at this point and weren't much smaller than the others had been when they were transitioned to the big tank.  Within a day of moving them to the big tank their colours brightened considerably to the point where Foxtrot now has some of the most vivid markings out of all the geckos. 

I only have an "after" picture of Foxtrot, but imagine that not two days before this picture was taken she was dark grey and black with really no other colour at all:

And speaking of colours coming out, Darwin's colours are beginning to brighten quite a bit too.  He's around 9 or 10 months old now and he's turning from his beiges and browns into his adult colours which are going to be bright oranges and reds.

Anyway, he's brumating right now so he's a little boring lately.  He just lays around like a couch-potato with little to no interest in crickets or anything else.  Lazy little bugger, ha ha.  I triggered his brumation when I changed power-bars to his light supply and the timer didn't work properly, so he ended up with way more dark time than normal.  I'm going to give him some time to do his thing, all the while decreasing his daylight a little more every day, and then I'm going to experiment with the idea that maybe I can trigger him to come out of brumation by slowly increasing his daylight every day.  Maybe... I need to do some more reading and whatnot before I try it.

Well, that's it for now.

Still no sign of Rex.

~J