All my animals are up..

.. from hibernation now.

I have started to feed a little, taking it slow in the beginning as I don´t want them to die or returigate from overfeeding.

Hoping to breed:

Vipera a. ammodytes “Morph”: Zokadelic

Vipera a. ammodytes, Yellow

Vipera renardi

Timon lepidus

Hyla arborea

Merry Christmas!!!

..and a Happy New Year!

To all of you that have been wieving and reading my blog this year..

Here is a picture that I have been working for hours in Photoshop with..  Not.. 

Holidaytime! Almost..

Well.. Now it is almost time for a holiday, at least from the animals. They are now halfway down into hibernation. It´quite nice to put them into the refridgerator for a couple of months.

It feels that way now, but I know that when all the terrariums have been cleaned and “furnitured” again, I will be fed up by just going and looking in the “jars” that is without inhabitants..

 Night, night all my small friends, I see you again a “quarter to spring”..

Some pictures of V. ammodytes giving birth.

There pictures was taken in july 2006.

I really hope to be able to take new pictures this year, or even maybe catching it with a videocamera..

Hibernating ending..

Yesterday, I started to take some of my animals out of hibernation. I have had them all in a separate refridgerator in my garage, with temperatures ranging from +6,0 degrees Celcius to +7,5 degrees Celcius.

Started to tkae the male vipers out and some of the lizards, putting them on the garagefloor for a couple of days in a temperature of roughly +12 degrees Celcius - +15 degrees Celcius. This is to prevent the animals dying from a heatchock.

So, I will be busy this coming weekend, decorating terrariums for them. This is one of the pleasures in herptilekeeping, at least for me..

 Temperatureconverter

The Hyla arborea project..

I am going to try to breed Hyla arborea , European Green Tree frog this year. The project is going to be an outdoor one.

I have recently reconstructed the bathroom in my house, leaving a shower unused, of rather exchanged to a bathtub. Now, this shower is to be made into a hopefully suitable outdoor vivarium for these little frogs. I have never had an outdoor viv before, so this is going to be really exciting to me.

First, I have to make sure that the little buggars don´t get out of there, therefore I am planning to put a meshroof on the top. First I have to build a rim, and then put the mesh in it. The mesh have to be made of stainless steel, not only not to rust, but as a protection against birds. Crows and Magpies, mainly.

There have to be sufficient airflow in the vivarium, so the lower half of the backpiece is also going to be made out of stainless steel-mesh.

In order to make the frogs in the right “matingmood”, there have to be water running from a mouthpiece of a shower for a couple of days. A pump that transtorts the water around, from the little “pond” in the bottom of the shower to the mouthpiece and around again.

I sure hope that my nextdoor neighbours can stand the noise from the calling males, they have good voices and can reach up to 90 decibel..

Hopefully I will find some good plants to put in as well..

Here´s some thoughts about my Vipera a. ammodytes..

As some of you do not know  the story of “Zok“, I will now tell you all about it..

It began with two animals with (for the location) a normal coloration and pattern, a female and a male. They mated, and a whole pile of babies came out in June 2001. All looking as their parents, except for……. Zok. He was totally different in both coloration and pattern. A lot darker and with a broader zigzag-band.

 I have fed him and seeing him grow over the years. Getting more beautiful by every skin he shed.

Last year I thought that he was old enough to be a father, so I put him with the female that I wanted him to mate with toghether with the gray male (i.e he´s dad..) in a terrarium. And sat down to wait..

It took about 20-30 minutes, and the males started to wrestle (middle movieclip..) eachother as the are supposed to do. After letting them fight for an hour or so, I took out the gray male, as he was no supposed to be the “champ” this time. Zok then started to look around for the female. I left them to their business. Later on that evening, I looked into the terrarium and they was attatched to each other.

After a week or so I separated Zok from the female, so that I had two females in one terrarium and two males in another. As time went, the yellow female started to grow, she was definetley gravid! Yayy!! In july 2006, 13 small vipers came out. Here´s a link to some birthpictures and pictures of all the small.. Piclink

This year I will try to breed Zok with he´s mother, to see how the whole color/pattern thing acts then. I am trying to find out how it works with the genes..

Caresheets

I have some caresheets for some European herptiles..

Vipera ammodytes

Timon lepidus

Hyla arborea

All files are pdf:s..

What “herps” do I keep..

Well..

I´ll tell you.

Vipera ammodytes ammodytes, Nose-horned Viper
Vipera orlovi, Orlov´s viper
Gloydius halys caraganus, Russian pit viper
Elaphe quatuorlineata muenteri, Cycladian fourlined snake
Zamenis situla, Leopardsnake
Hyla arborea, European green treefrog
Timon lepidus, Occellated lizard
Podarcis situla cettii, Italian wall lizard
Podarcis milensis, Milos wall lizard
Podarcis pityusensis kameriana, Ibiza wall lizard

Still winter..

Well.. As it is quite cold and snowy right now, (atleast where I live..) all my animals are still in hibernation. They will probably be woken up in a month or so..