|
Uromastyx Care Sheet by Douglas Dix
Lighting/Heat: First and foremost, Uromastyx are heat lovers, the ultimate heat lovers! They must have a basking site that reaches between 105F and 120F (surface temp). No, that's not a typo, one hundred and five to one hundred and twenty F! This is actually easy to produce with a Zoo-Med or comparable reptile basking bulb shining over a smooth piece of slate or other suitable rock. Adjust the height of the basking light so that it heats an area at least as large as the whole body of a basking Uromastyx and make sure the light is placed high enough to prevent the animals from accessing it. Do NOT use hot rocks or similar "in-cage" electric underbelly heaters. These will not suffice and can cause serious injury to your animals. An under-the-tank heating pad is ok but only for supplemental heat, the overhead basking light is still essential. You're aiming for a general background temperature around 100F in the warm end of the cage, and the mid 80'sF in the cool end of the cage. This permits your animals to self-regulate their body temperature. Night temps should be much cooler, typical of their desert homes. Most people shoot for the low 70's in the summer, the mid 60's in the winter. Along with the basking lights, we recommend installing a UV producing bulb such as Zoo-Med's Reptisun 5.0's or UVHeat's Mercury Vapor basking bulb. The usefulness of these bulbs is debatable and some breeders feel they are a waste of money ($20 to $30 ea. for Zoo-Meds, $45 up for UVHeat's), but the jury is still out. UVB initiates the conversion of vit. D3 precursor into active vitamin D3, and in theory these bulbs produce enough UVB to stimulate this reaction. However, for this to be reasonably effective, the bulbs must be mounted within a foot or so of the basking animal. Also these bulbs gradually loose the ability to produce UVB with use and thus should be replaced annually to biannually. Look for a change from bluish white to a clear white glow with age, faint blue tint = good, white = shot). Some breeders choose to simply add vit. D3 to the diet and dispense with the bulbs. This approach also seems to work, but which is more reliable is still unknown. In addition to UVB, these bulbs also produce UVA, which has been suggested to increase appetite and give desert animals a "psychological" benefit. Again the jury is still mixed with some swearing the bulbs help and others equally convinced there is no noticeable impact on behavior or health. Bedding: Opinions vary on the ideal bedding. It's a common misconception that Uromastyx prefer sand and come from a sand environment. In fact they tend to avoid overly sandy locales in the wild, preferring clay/sand or loam mixes, rocky outcrops or other soils better suited to holding a burrow without collapsing. If you use sand, make sure it is a natural sand (rounded edges) like beach sand or washed playground sand. Man made sand (from crushing gravel) has jagged edges which easily interlock, leading to gut impactions in animals that swallow it. We personally don't like sand and restrict it's use to the nest boxes. We've tried bark, which the Uros loved but the dust produced was unacceptable and picking out fecal pellets was far too labor intensive. We then switched to rabbit pellets (alfalfa), but the problems were essentially the same as bark but with more odor. We switched to high quality wild bird seed (predominately millet/sorghum seed with the sunflower seeds sifted out) several years ago and have been extremely pleased with the results. The Uro's can snack on the seed throughout the day, it's generally dust and odor free, and sticks to fresh fecal pellets, quickly drying them. Seeds which the Uro's crack before swallowing are digested while uncracked seeds pass whole, acting as roughage. The fecal pellets can be quickly sifted out of the cage with a 1/4" mesh hardware wire sieve (easy to make from a cat litter scoop), allowing us to easily maintain a large number of Uromastyx without needing additional hired help. The seed is good for several months per cage, then with one final cleaning, can be fed to our other livestock (Fallow deer) or wild birds. If the Uros drag damp sand into the bedding or pile bedding in the nest box, the seeds sprout, unlike rabbit pellets, which mold. As a side, note, we've also considered using calcium carbonate sand (Calci-sand, T-Rex), but other Uro keepers have told us the dust produced is too great to be acceptable bedding. The fine dust has a tendency to get into the eyes as well, potentially causing significant irritation/injury. There is also some concern calcium-based sands act like giant anti-acid tablets, upsetting the digestion process. Bed-a-beast (coconut fibers) are used by some with good success, but again fecal pellets have to be removed one by one by hand. Ground walnut shell has also been suggested as a good bedding, but is essentially indigestible and thus a potential impaction problem. For hatchlings/juveniles under 7 inches total length we recommend bare tank bottoms or butcher's paper. Hatchlings are much more sensitive to ingesting dry, hard material so it's best to avoid the problem. Shelters: Uromastyx are burrowers by nature and must be provided with some form of low shelter. In most of our breeding pens, we use patio blocks (8"x16" red cement bricks) and/or melamine boards (3/4"thick 8"x18") glued onto 2"x2" boards to give a ground clearance of approx. 2". The goal is to produce a shelter just high enough so that the Uro's can feel the top of the shelter while standing inside it. It's best not to place these directly under the basking area but also not in the coolest part of the cage. For most cages we also add a nest box to simulate a burrow/sleeping chamber and the naturally higher humidity contained there-in. This is usually made from a Rubbermaid "Roughneck" brand 3.3 gal. or larger soft plastic tub. We then insert a piece of 3" diameter pipe into the upper side of the box to act as the "burrow" leading to the nest/sleeping "chamber". The tube then extends approx. 18" from the side of the tub with the end touching the ground, preferably along the back wall of the cage. We prefer soft PVC drainage pipe as it's flexible, cheap and ribbed for easy footing. Fill the tub with slightly damp 50/50 sand/potting soil (preferably soil w/out perlite). ___ 3' "Vision" Brand Cage ___ Housing: Uromastyx generally have a low tolerance for cohabitating with other Uromastyx. Under most circumstances, two mature males may not be kept together! Sooner or later one will attack the other, possibly causing serious injury. While females of most species are more variable in this regard, many females also are intolerant of same-sex housing (Mali's and Ornates are occasional but not reliable exceptions). Many Uromastyx will tolerate being housed with a member of the opposite sex, but exceptions exist even here (note: Moroccans and Orange benti in particular tend to be common exceptions to this rule). Females of all species tend to become very belligerent towards all other Uros, male or female, once they are bred and begin preparing a nesting site. Most are very moody the first few weeks pre-and post-laying and may need to be separately housed for several weeks or even months. The aggression can be subtle and easily missed if you're not around the animals throughout the day. Periodically examine your animals, noting their weight and the condition of the skin along their flanks. Individuals intimidated by others tend to gradually loose weight. Aggressive animals tend to bite others along the flanks, leading to distinct thickening of this area. If allowed to continue, this can lead to significant tissue damage or even death, even if the aggressor never directly breaks the skin. If you wish to try to house a sexual pair or trio together, first setup the cage so that each individual will have access to separate basking, sleeping and feeding sites. Then introduce them to the new cage simultaneously. Uros are by nature territorial, and even calm animals tend to attack new individuals placed in their cage. A notable exception occurs between individuals of vastly differing size. In particular, large adults are very tolerant of sharing their cage with small juveniles, the bigger the size difference, the better. As far as cage size, the larger the better. Our ground pens run approx. 4' long by 2 1/2'deep by 2' high and house mostly pairs. We primarily use Vision brand 3' cages for housing single individuals and our stud males to which we cycle several females in and out of throughout the breeding season. Vision 4' cages are used for our larger primary females and compatible pairs. If you wish to use a standard aquarium or terrarium as a cage, we'd strongly suggest not going smaller than a 45 long tank for young adults and no smaller than a 20 gal. for hatchlings. You might need to cover some of the sides to prevent the Uro's from excessively clawing at the glass. Placing cage ornaments (logs etc.) along the edges will also help in this regard. A better option would be to build your own cage out of inexpensive melamine boards to produce a cage at least 4' long, 21" wide, 18" tall for an adult pair of Uromastyx. Many breeders maintain their Uro's in large steel or plastic livestock water tanks. This is an inexpensive means of housing them but the aesthetics are somewhat problematical for "in the home" housing! We keep our hatchlings 6 per cage in melamine tanks 12" wide, 24" deep, 8" high. Uros are active creatures and like to run around. Shoot for as large a cage as you have space for. ___ Dutch Clover ___ Diet: Uromastyx are primarily herbivores, with a taste for insects on the side. Our primary diet is composed of live alfalfa (not the dry hay), bird's foot trefoil (an alfalfa relative we grow), dandelion greens and flowers, clover leaves and flowers, Bok Choy, Napa Cabbage (a Bok Choy relative, NOT a true cabbage), turnip greens, collard greens, and frozen mixed vegies (peas, cut green beans, carrots, corn, lima beans - all thawed before feeding of course). We supply other flowers when in season (hibiscus, violas (miniature Pansy), cats claw (a late-season dandelion-mimic), nasturtium, rose, pumpkin/squash). We dust the frozen vegies every feeding with Miner-Al -( I ) mineral supplement (contains vitamin D3 and various minerals, primarily calcium) and dust once per month with Repti-Vite (an all purpose vitamin supplement for reptiles). We try to feed a mixture of food items each day, alternating from the above group. We pre-chop the food for hatchlings but simply tear it fresh into chucks several inches square for adults. We also offer a dish of "Pretty Bird" brand finch pellets to our Uros at all times. This is a synthetic bird seed which has multiple vitamins added and is much better digested than most bird seed (check your fecal pellets, you'll find a lot of undigested bird seed in it if you really look). Hopefully if the Uros main diet is lacking in some nutrient, they can make up for it as needed by eating this "pseudo-seed". When available, we also try to keep some cactus pads in each cage (Opuntia sp, commercially produced as human grade food, de-spined at the store). These last for days, allowing for periodic nibbling at will. Do NOT feed spinach, beet greens, Swiss chard, or cabbage, and limit broccoli. These either bind important nutrients or tend to induce metabolic problems over time. Peas have their faults as well but if you supplement with calcium and zinc, the benefits greatly out-weight the potential harm. In our experience, it's very difficult to acclimate wild-collected specimens or underweight long term specimens without adding peas to the diet. In particular, we don't consider Sudanese or Orange or Rainbow benti to be successfully acclimated until they are eating peas. Insist on this when buying these 3 species, it will greatly improve your success potential with them. We also offer an occasional cricket or superworm (Zoophobia sp.). These are a great way to tame your Uros. Most are easily addicted to superworms and will go to great lengths to procure them. Conventional wisdom suggests gravid females fed a slightly higher than normal amount of insect matter produce better clutches, but the sample sizes are still pretty small. Remember insects are excessively high in phosphorous which causes the body to excrete calcium into the feces. Be careful to supplement w/ calcium whenever you feed insects and never feed more than just a couple per sitting and only a few per week at most. Hatchlings in particular easily develop metabolic problems if fed too many insects. Water: Opportunities to drink are a rare occurrence in the wild for most species of Uromastyx. Uromastyx solve this problem by producing metabolic water from their digesting food. As long as their bellies are relatively full, they are making more than enough water to meet all their needs. Thus we don't normally offer water to our healthy Uros. The exceptions are for newly acquired/shipped animals, individuals which haven't kept up a reasonable gut mass of digesting food, females which are near term-gravid or have just laid their clutch, and for fresh hatchlings. Individuals with near empty bellies MUST be offered drinking water on a regular basis. If a Uromastyx goes off-feed, their bellies slowly empty. As this progresses, their bodies tend to dehydrate. As they dehydrate, appetite is often further suppressed, resulting in a spiral down towards death. (Note: dehydrated animals have limited abilities to process proteins so NEVER offer insects or dry bean mixes to an overly thin, dehydrated Uromastyx. The burden on the kidneys and livers may prove fatal months down the road). Despite all I've stated above, there are still very few circumstances when it is acceptable to put a water bowl in a Uromastyx's cage. If you feel an individual needs water, take him or her to a tub filled with approximately 1" of bath-water hot water. It must be as warm as you can safely make it so that the individual stays near their optimum body temperature (105F). Some will drink on their own, others can be enticed by dripping water on their snout. Many individuals will not drink while being watched, you must leave their line of sight. It's also wise to leave them undisturbed for a few minutes after drinking to avoid them regurgitating. Truly dehydrated animals may need to be tubed with an electrolyte solution. See your vet if you are unfamiliar with this procedure. The hindgut is also capable of absorbing water, so use of dilute electrolyte/vitamin enemas may also be useful for seriously dehydrated individuals.
An alternative method to offer water is to take a small jar lid (approx. 1/4" deep), fill it with water and place it in the cage early in the morning. Most Uro's have a higher tendency to drink in the morning, perhaps being programmed to seek potential dew at this time. This small amount of water should evaporate off during the day, causing no harm. We routinely have a lid of water in our hatchling tanks, but stop this practice once they go though the first couple of sheds. Note if you feed ground bean mixes, especially to hatchlings, a water dish can cause significant health problems. The Uro's tend to constantly walk through their water dishes. If they then walk through their bean dish, they essentially glue the powder to their bellies and toes. This can result in significant skin infections/lesions which can take months to clear up. Note feeding soft fruits can cause the same problem - the material easily glues itself to their bellies as they walk through it, resulting in significant infections if repeatedly left unattended. A species exception to the no water rule are the benti Uromastyx. While most Uromastyx species will commonly refuse offered water, both species of benti will often accept the offering and drink heartily. While they can do fine without water as long as they keep a belly full of digesting food, since they readily drink, we offer them soaks more often than the other species. Note, we still don't keep a water bowl in their cages, we just offer more opportunities to soak in the tub. ___ Nest Box ___ Breeding: Most breeders believe Uromastyx need to be put through some form of winter in order to sufficiently cycle to induce breeding and fertile egg production. The various species vary over how "severe" a winter they need, with Moroccans, Mali's, and Egyptians needing the coldest/longest winters, Ornates and benti needing moderate/mild winters, and Sudanese needing the bare minimum of seasonal differences to successfully cycle. We've tried numerous approaches to wintering or "brumating" our Uromastyx, with widely variable results. Too warm or too short a "winter" and most species won't cycle, too cold or too long and mortality becomes a problem. The best solution for us has been as follows: First, stop feeding Mali's, Moroccans, and Egyptians about 2 weeks prior to the start of your "winter". Cut severely back on the amounts but continue to feed Ornates, both benti species, and Sudanese Uromastyx. At the same time cut your day length to 10 hours of light but leave the cage temperatures close to normal during the day, while trying to keep no hotter than 70F at night. After the first week, we drop day length down to 8 hours per day. All else stays the same. At the end of week 2, we drop day length to 4 hours per day, and try to maintain the cage temperatures around 60F to 65F for at least 20 hours per day. Then for at least 2 hours per day, we turn on the basking lights so that the cage temperature hits at least 80's F for at least 2 full hours. The goal here is to stimulate the immune system to kick in and gut function to reactivate for at least 2 hours each day. Failure to do this will significantly increase your mortality rate, especially for Ornates, Sudanese, and the benti. If you haven't cleared the guts of your Mali's and Moroccans, they too risk suffering from gut paralysis and eventual necrosis. During this time we still offer limited food to the benti (mostly lettuces for the high water content) but restrict food for everyone else. Note we still have bird seed in the cage as bedding, so some feeding might be occurring, but except for the benti, most Uromastyx will not seek food at this time. We continue this to produce a "winter" of approx. 6 weeks. We then bump the cage day temp to the mid 80'sF and day length to 8 hours per day for a week. The next week we go to normal daytime cage temps and 10 hours day length, the third week 12 hours, the forth week 14 hours. During this "spring" time , we try to keep our night temps near 70'F. Most our Uro's will be up and basking by the end of "spring" week one and eating lightly by week two. By the third week most should be back to their normal activity levels. This system has worked well for us for several years running now and several other breeders use a very similar system with excellent success as well. For egg laying, we use 3.3 gal. or 10 gal. Rubbermaid "Roughneck" soft plastic tubs, lids intact. We cut a 3" round hole in the upper corner of the long side of the tub, and insert a 2' to 3' section of 3" diameter drainage pipe (flexible, ribbed plastic, see photo above). We then cut a hole in the side of the pipe so that the Uro's have easy access out of the pipe and into the nest chamber. The insides of the nest boxes are half filled with a 50:50 mix of playground-grade sand and perlyte-free potting soil moistened just enough to allow it to hold a tunnel. We've taken to adding a handful of lime to the mix as well to lower the overall acidity of the soil. Our long-term established wild-collected animals and captive-breds use this setup without hesitation. Most of the newly imported Mali's have balked and buried their eggs in the bird seed, often under the basking spot. It appears that the nest boxes are best put in w/ the females PRIOR to the onset of the breeding season so that they can become accustomed to moving in and out of them and digging preliminary tunnels. We remove the eggs as soon as they are detected and place them in slightly damp nest box soil or vermiculite in small tupperware containers. The eggs are buried from half way to nearly completely - leaving just enough area exposed so that we can determine the health of the egg over time without having to dig it up. We put a few small pin holes in the lids of the containers but otherwise leave them fairly sealed. If the eggs are slightly flaccid when first discovered, we dampen the tupperware soil to a slightly greater degree, then repack the eggs in drier soil the next day. The term "damp" is overly vague - we strive to add enough water to change the color of the soil, but not let it feel wet. Gray suggests 4 parts vermiculite to one part water by weight (Vivarium, 1997,8:6). As a general rule, it's better to be a little too dry than too damp. If the eggs start to dimple, add water with an eyedropper to the edges of the container and around the eggs but AVOID getting any water directly in contact with the eggs. Uro eggs seem to mold easily, so excessive water is to be avoided at all costs. Within a few days, the eggs seem to seal and become more tolerant of dry conditions. The trick is to get to that stage. As a side note, be sure to trim the toenails of your gravid females a few weeks before they lay. They are notorious for nicking their eggs while burying them. Uromastyx eggs relay their fertility and viability status very clearly. Fertile eggs have a distinct red circle (the developing embryo) clearly visible at the time the eggs are laid. We orient our eggs so as to position the embryo along the side of the egg, but it's highly unlikely that this is necessary. Fresh eggs are somewhat water-balloon-like when laid, but good eggs usually firm up and whiten within a day or two at most. Eggs which are distinctly yellow or in which you can see the contents moving around inside in a two-toned pattern (milky yellow in a clearer yellow) are already in the early stages of disintegration and will not hatch. Dud eggs will begin to smell almost immediately and are often easy to detect in the incubator within 3 to 4 days. Duds also often keep a faintly oily look to them and rarely firm up. In the past, we've incubated at temperatures ranging from 85F to 88F with so so success. Initial thoughts from various other reptiles breeders suggested that we were incubating too high. However, recent field data for Ornate Uromastyx now suggests we've actually been incubating too low. Several breeders thus tried 92F to 94F last season with excellent results, so we've decided to up our temperatures accordingly. At 92F, incubation for most Uromastyx species should range closer to 55 to 65 days. The hatchlings are quite vigorous and ready to feed within a day or two. Treat them as you would adults, but slightly cooler. Watch for signs of aggression. Dominant animals will significantly repress the growth of the other hatchlings housed with them. Siblings usually get along with each other (with one individual per clutch almost always being an exception). However mixing already established clutches almost always leads to fighting. Sudanese and the benti Uromastyx must have drinking water available as described earlier until the first or second shed have been past. The other species do well with or without this extra water, as long as they keep their bellies full. Note hatchlings MUST be offered fresh fecal pellets from a healthy adult Uromastyx during the first few days post hatching. They need this in order to properly inoculate their guts and grow normally. Failure to do this will often significantly stunt their growth and increase their potential to suffer gut impactions early in life. The drive for them to eat this material wanes quickly, so you must do this as soon as possible. Crumble fresh fecal pellets into their normal food and watch to make sure each individual eats at least some of the fecal mass. Don't use a fecal pellet from an adult whom you've recently wormed or treated with antibiotics. Pick an individual that is obviously thriving and is free from an excessive load of parasites (not a lot of "rice"-like particles in the fecal pellet), but it doesn't have to be parasite-free. Parasite-free may not even be desirable - they jury is still out on that one. By parasites, we're strictly referring to nematodes. Other parasites such as coccidia etc. are undesirable at any levels. Try not to offer hatchlings any dry foods for the first month or two. They easily get gut impactions from overly dry food lodging in the intestines. If you feel a hard mass in their bellies, try to induce drinking and later GENTLY massaging the mass to try to break it up. A warm water enema may prove necessary to hydrate the mass from both sides to free it up and allow passage. If you feed only moist foods and occasionally mist their foods, impactions should not be a problem. Hatchlings are also much more prone to metabolic bone disease from insufficient vit. D3 and calcium in the diet or excessive insect consumption. Avoid the temptation to feed many insects, you are not doing them a favor! That said, growth rates seem to be significantly improved the first few months if you offer the occasion wax worm to the hatchlings. If this is kept to a reasonable level (maybe 3 to 4 spread out over each week) the benefits seems to outweigh the risks. Getting your hatchlings off to a good fast start significantly lowers the incidence of problems down the line, especially for impactions. Hopefully this covers the basic's you'll need to successfully keep and potentially breed your Uromastyx. Enjoy! Copyright 2002 Dougls Dix |