The best intentions...

...can often lead to poor results.  Witness the snapping turtle's shell in the picture below.  This poor animal was "caught" as a baby, and was not housed properly.  It must have been fed enough, as it didn't get this big by eating nothing, but it was not fed corretly, meaning it did not get the benefits of UV to assimilate calcium  and so it's shell is compromised.  This animal cannot be released back into the wild as it cannot swim correctly.    A sad outcome for this guy, by someone who meant well, but just didn't know better.

Dogloos and sulcatas

FINALLY got the tortoises outside and OVERNIGHT, for the first time this spring.  Hopefully we won't have to bring them in again until this fall.   We did have them outside a few times this year already, but the night time temps were too cold, so we'd haul them back and forth.  And a basketball-sized tortoise is hard to maneuver! 

For the sulcatas we use dog igloos for housing;  they really seem to enjoy them.  They go in them during hot times of the day, and at night when they put themselves to bed.  This is our largest, sitting outside his/her igloo.  It's one of the largest size you can buy.  We took out the floor and just laid the igloo on the ground.  The tortoise has dug a hole in the ground inside, but has made no attempt in at least four years to dig out of the pen. 

At the end of the summer, there will be a track around the perimeter and the grass mowed short within the pen, but for now, it's in "tall cotton" (or clover and grass.)

Looked outside the front window and...

...saw this dark shape in the driveway.  Of course I gotta go take a look, with camera in hand.

Of course the dog went outside with me, to check out the "intruder!

It was a red-ear slider, a male no less (usually when we find them on the road, they're females looking for a place to lay eggs.)  We've had a lot of rain recently, as anyone who lives in the midwest knows.  He must have gotten washed up and a bit disoriented. 

This guy is also at least a mile from the nearest water!  I'm sure of the distance because we live exactly 1 mile from the Finley River.    Here's another picture for size comparison:

We'll be letting him go back in the river later this afternoon. 

Food for thought...

Ever think about how alot of us raise our own food for our animals, and it's usually all organic, but we buy food for ourselves, and it's usually not organic!  Does that mean our animals eat better than we do?  They probably live better than we do, if you think that they don't have to hunt for food; they don't have to do any house-cleaning; their "house" is usually temperature-controlled to their liking.   

So here's a pic of some well-fed feeders!  Meal worms really like bananas!

First turtle this spring!

First turtle crossing the road, that is!  At least the first turtle we've seen this spring.  It's been very rainy, which usually brings out the critters, but it's been cold also and this probably saves many of their lives.  If it were warm and rainy, the highway slaughter would be awful.  We had to wait for a few cars to pass by before we could get this guy off  the road.  May he add many more rings to his shell before he goes to the Great Strawberry Patch in the sky!

Herping around the house...

We have 20 acres, surrounded by about 300 more, part of all of it is wooded.  So we have herps living, outside, wild, among us.  We admit, we have "salted" the property a bit, with odd bits of tin and plywood, to make "habitat" we can expose to see if anything is living under there.

Today, behind the shop building, our dog found this guy living in the shade of a willow tree.  Scared her to death!  Thankfully she's around snakes all the time, but never tries to harm them, or even go near them, for that matter.  Since we mow in that area, we're going to release him further back in the property.  Hope there are more...this was the first prairie king we've found; black rat snakes are much more common.  Sometimes we have better luck here than when we purposefully go out looking!

After the sale...then what...part 1

I was just perusing another web site where there was a thread concerning shipping of animals, arrival of "dead" animals, and what's the buyer's recourse.  I use quotes around the word dead because oftentimes we want to think that the seller sent a dead animal, just to get our money.  I doubt this is true, in the majority of cases, although I have no doubt it's been done by unscrupulous people. 

There are things that can be done to avoid such disasters.  One of the first things that come to mind are the heat packs that people use.  These heat packs are activated by oxygen, and if you have enough of them in too small a space, they can use up the oxygen that the animal needs to breathe.  Secondly, even if the day time temps seem acceptable in your neck of the woods, how about the night time temps?    And if they're coming by airplane, those cargo holds aren't neccessarily pressurized, so those temps can get very cold.  Thirdly, do a little research about the seller before you make the payment on your animal.  There are new people coming into the business all the time, and it may take them a while to get a reputation, but they may still be known in the herp community.   If they're already established, someone should have something to say about them. 

Okay, now, as the seller you've made the deal.  This can represent a whole new set of problems.  You know you've sent the animal in a proper container, at the proper temperatures, and notified all the proper people that the animal was coming.  On the other end things break down because the person forgot the animal was coming, and it sat in an airport cargo area for a day or two.  Or, after picking it up,  they left it in a cold vehicle while they went off to party.  Or they left it in a hot car, while they went off to do something.  These are scenarios they don't tell you.   I guess you can accept the flack they'll throw at you via the internet.  You can refund their money and never do business with them again.  You can even try to replace the animal.  

There's always two sides to these mishaps.  But, speaking to the buyer, for peace of mind, spend a little money, travel to a show or sale, and buy the animal while you can look at it, and talk face-to-face with the seller.