emysemys said:
Is that what those things are called? I've seen them before, and one of my banana plants may or may not have them. Too hard to tell at the moment, and I'm not gonna go in and manhandle the plant until it's rooted better.
Herd Update
- Thread starter Neohippy
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Is that what those things are called? I've seen them before, and one of my banana plants may or may not have them. Too hard to tell at the moment, and I'm not gonna go in and manhandle the plant until it's rooted better.
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2009
- Messages
- 705
llamas55 said:
What do you mean a hole for cleaning? Also about how big is it?
goReptiles said:
He probably means for cleaning the water basin to remove calcium deposits and other sediments.
-ryan- said:
Here is a pic of the snake in with my youngest tort Cordelia, maybe a month or two after we got the little tort. The snake got everywhere and was usually found in the terrarium with the torts, on top of my desk, or on the top shelf of a bedroom closet... somehow. Really amazing Houdini creatures.
By neohippy, shot with Canon PowerShot A580 at 2010-01-06
I can appreciate the 9" of dirt for the enclosure for sure. Plan for mine is 20" depth of soil so I can get some plants with literal tree trunk resilience that can grow a good strong root base. When it all comes down to it, and all my torts are adults, this terrarium will likely become my living room rain forest, or a gigantic terrarium for a crapload of adorable little hatchlings... one never knows.
Do you have any journal type documents on your breeding endeavour? I'd love to get some first hand info on russians. They are my next most likely target herd for when I have my red's set up... however many years from now. The Missus of the house is no help either since she tells me she would love russians, but is leaning towards marginated.
Ever wish you could pull an acreage outta your... wallet?
The tortoise was probably a bit confused when a that roommate moved in!
Right now I am just building the 6'x30" terrariums for my tortoises because I happen to have a 12' wall available, so I can easily fit two in. They are in the basement, which means it's a little difficult to keep temperature up, but overall the design I came up with works well and is essentially waterproof.
I don't really have a journal or anything of my breeding efforts. I have had the breeding group for over three years now, but at the start it was a very large female russian (around 8-9" or so), another female that I had rescued from a family that really wasn't taking care of her, and a male CB russian that at the time was just over 1 year old. I was fortunate enough to get a hatchling from a clutch of two eggs that the large female laid shortly after arriving (the person that had her before was trying to breed them with now luck
). That's the female that I am going to add to the group in another year or two when she has grown a little more. Then the past three years have been uneventful. I have had, I believe, two problems that have led to lack of hatchlings. The first is that the male was so young when he joined the group. He was probably about 4" at the time, which was large for his age, but now he is about 5.5" and I don't anticipate him growing too much more. He looks like a dwarf next to the big females! I was also inadvertently letting the eggs dry out in the incubator.
So now I have a male that I am certain has the capabilities to reproduce, and I now take the egg containers out once a week to weigh them and add water to the vermiculite when necessary (it's always necessary). I started doing this a couple of months ago and the first clutch of eggs that got that treatment hatched (well, 2 out of 4, but not bad). I have five eggs in the incubator now that are getting that treatment. Two are older and will hatch around the 20'th of this month if they hatch at all (I am not sure that they will). The other three were laid sometime around the middle or end of december, so if those hatch they will be february babies. I candled those ones and they are fertile, but it's just a matter of supporting them throughout their incubation, and that is historically what I have always had trouble with.
It's a learning process. Right now it's a 1.2 group, but it will become a 1.3 group in the somewhat near future. I am also waiting to see what sex my holdback hatchling ends up being, but would like to try to add him/her to the group as well. I would actually really love to eventually grow the group more, as I have said, but my concern is actually that I would get too many hatchlings. Just with the two females I have now I have gotten dozens and dozens of eggs over the past three years. Most of them were laid by the very large female, but the rescue does her part too. If I had a group with 4-6 females, I am not sure what I would do with all of the hatchlings. There isn't a huge market for them here and I would really like to find local avenues for dispersing them.
It's all for fun though. Russians especially need help, but the 'bedroom breeders' like me and most of the rest of us can't really put a dent in the impact of wild collection. All we can do is make what we learn about their breeding behavior more well known so that hopefully other people with the means will work on breeding them. When I found out with my russians is that if you want to breed them they need about 8-10" of dirt. They seem to refuse laying in a 'nest box', whether it's in the enclosure or out, as they choose exactly where and when they want to lay their eggs. What this means for the keeper/breeder that houses his herd indoors the majority of the time is that you need an enclosure with the capability to hold that much dirt.
It's all an exciting process. When I move to my own place in a couple more years (let's hope it's only a couple more years) I am anticipating eventually building large enclosures that would have to be built within the room they would go in. Better outdoor enclosures would also be nice, and I have some great ideas for secure outdoor enclosures that I could build in my suburban/urban setting.
My missus says that she wants a sulcata, but I keep telling her that's not a good idea in our climate (upstate ny) because we would have to house it indoors most of the time, and that creates a host of problems.
Right now I am just building the 6'x30" terrariums for my tortoises because I happen to have a 12' wall available, so I can easily fit two in. They are in the basement, which means it's a little difficult to keep temperature up, but overall the design I came up with works well and is essentially waterproof.
I don't really have a journal or anything of my breeding efforts. I have had the breeding group for over three years now, but at the start it was a very large female russian (around 8-9" or so), another female that I had rescued from a family that really wasn't taking care of her, and a male CB russian that at the time was just over 1 year old. I was fortunate enough to get a hatchling from a clutch of two eggs that the large female laid shortly after arriving (the person that had her before was trying to breed them with now luck
). That's the female that I am going to add to the group in another year or two when she has grown a little more. Then the past three years have been uneventful. I have had, I believe, two problems that have led to lack of hatchlings. The first is that the male was so young when he joined the group. He was probably about 4" at the time, which was large for his age, but now he is about 5.5" and I don't anticipate him growing too much more. He looks like a dwarf next to the big females! I was also inadvertently letting the eggs dry out in the incubator.So now I have a male that I am certain has the capabilities to reproduce, and I now take the egg containers out once a week to weigh them and add water to the vermiculite when necessary (it's always necessary). I started doing this a couple of months ago and the first clutch of eggs that got that treatment hatched (well, 2 out of 4, but not bad). I have five eggs in the incubator now that are getting that treatment. Two are older and will hatch around the 20'th of this month if they hatch at all (I am not sure that they will). The other three were laid sometime around the middle or end of december, so if those hatch they will be february babies. I candled those ones and they are fertile, but it's just a matter of supporting them throughout their incubation, and that is historically what I have always had trouble with.
It's a learning process. Right now it's a 1.2 group, but it will become a 1.3 group in the somewhat near future. I am also waiting to see what sex my holdback hatchling ends up being, but would like to try to add him/her to the group as well. I would actually really love to eventually grow the group more, as I have said, but my concern is actually that I would get too many hatchlings. Just with the two females I have now I have gotten dozens and dozens of eggs over the past three years. Most of them were laid by the very large female, but the rescue does her part too. If I had a group with 4-6 females, I am not sure what I would do with all of the hatchlings. There isn't a huge market for them here and I would really like to find local avenues for dispersing them.
It's all for fun though. Russians especially need help, but the 'bedroom breeders' like me and most of the rest of us can't really put a dent in the impact of wild collection. All we can do is make what we learn about their breeding behavior more well known so that hopefully other people with the means will work on breeding them. When I found out with my russians is that if you want to breed them they need about 8-10" of dirt. They seem to refuse laying in a 'nest box', whether it's in the enclosure or out, as they choose exactly where and when they want to lay their eggs. What this means for the keeper/breeder that houses his herd indoors the majority of the time is that you need an enclosure with the capability to hold that much dirt.
It's all an exciting process. When I move to my own place in a couple more years (let's hope it's only a couple more years) I am anticipating eventually building large enclosures that would have to be built within the room they would go in. Better outdoor enclosures would also be nice, and I have some great ideas for secure outdoor enclosures that I could build in my suburban/urban setting.
My missus says that she wants a sulcata, but I keep telling her that's not a good idea in our climate (upstate ny) because we would have to house it indoors most of the time, and that creates a host of problems.
This is the first time I have checked this thread and I didn't expect to see a fine Colombian rainbow boa. They were the first boid that I ever bred and one of the very first 'exotic' snakes that I had in Jr. High School.
The male Colombian rainbow from my breeding group was 15 years old when I gave to him to a local friend. That male's mother was in her mid 20s the last time I spoke to the guy who owned her! They are a great boa and very hardy animals too.
The male Colombian rainbow from my breeding group was 15 years old when I gave to him to a local friend. That male's mother was in her mid 20s the last time I spoke to the guy who owned her! They are a great boa and very hardy animals too.
Very nice torts.. =)
(By the way, I want your rainbow boa!! *LOVE*)
(By the way, I want your rainbow boa!! *LOVE*)
Pardon my ignorance here, but do constrictors not prey upon tortoises?
The necessary size advantage is certainly there!
The necessary size advantage is certainly there!
Lol! Stephanie, I've been wondering that same thing.. Ever since the mother whose son gave me Zoom told me (part jokingly, part seriously) to just not feed her to any of my snakes.
I am not positive, but I doubt that they would see a tortoise as possible prey. There is not much to attract the snake to the tortoise. There is not a familiar smell (like that which rodents give off), they are not typically warmer than their environment, which is a big part of how constrictors determine a possible prey source, and they would be very difficult to digest. Plus, I would actually doubt that the snake realized that it was anything other than a rock that might move a little bit throughout the night.
-ryan- said:
That is a very funny stand-alone description of a tortoise.
I just read another post somewhere here on the forum of a person whose nephew asked her(him?) to make some legs come out of a rock, like they do on the tortoise.
-ryan- said:
One thing to keep in mind is there are many species of snake that eat other herps in the wild, as well as species that thrive on fish, worms, bugs, and, in one instance, snails. This ability of snakes to specialize in such unexpected prey is the one thing that still has me wondering about this. As admittedly far-fetched as it is, I don't think I'd be surprised to find out there are snakes that have the ability to thrive on, say, hatchling tortoises.
Thanks for all the comments. Indeed she is a beautiful snake. I had no idea how timid a snake could be until I met a Colombian rainbow boa. None of their natural prey comes close to tortoises.
Indeed there are a vast array of snakes that enjoy torts from wee little ones to large ones that get to close to certain rivers. Let's face it, there is always something that will eat tortoises, they are hard shelled cattle for any predators in the area. This particular snake is well fed on nice warm frozen thawed mice. Plus, she is a hunter of the heat and stink variety as mentioned before, not just motion and desperation.
As far as fish, bugs, and snails, here in Alberta we have Plains Garter snakes, which thrive on all of the above. Small snakes that are quite timid, so people are often catching them for pets, only to find out they now need to do what the snake did all day before: Hunt for food for the snake.
Indeed there are a vast array of snakes that enjoy torts from wee little ones to large ones that get to close to certain rivers. Let's face it, there is always something that will eat tortoises, they are hard shelled cattle for any predators in the area. This particular snake is well fed on nice warm frozen thawed mice. Plus, she is a hunter of the heat and stink variety as mentioned before, not just motion and desperation.
As far as fish, bugs, and snails, here in Alberta we have Plains Garter snakes, which thrive on all of the above. Small snakes that are quite timid, so people are often catching them for pets, only to find out they now need to do what the snake did all day before: Hunt for food for the snake.
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