Some new photos of the reptiles

Ah Kat Tai theyare gorgeous, brilliant photo's. I love Silver, very similar shaped head to my Mocha from the side. (He has just gone back in his viv after having a snuggle in my scarf whilst wrapped around my neck for ages).

Lol I think Sahara is a little supermodel gecko, look out Kate Moss!

Unknown said:

Ah Kat Tai theyare gorgeous, brilliant photo's. I love Silver, very similar shaped head to my Mocha from the side. (He has just gone back in his viv after having a snuggle in my scarf whilst wrapped around my neck for ages).

Lol I think Sahara is a little supermodel gecko, look out Kate Moss!

Haha yeah, Sahara is not at all bothered about having a camera in her face or the sound of the shutter.  She always seems happy to pose for a few photos and strut her stuff up  and down the front of the vivarium as I snap away!  Ricki hid whenever the shutter went off until I bribed her with the waxworm lol  Unfortunately Sahara is far from supermodel material, she isn't anywhere near being the required size 0 for that! lol

Silver hasn't been out for ages, he just isn't interested right now.  He gets like that in the winter though, isn't bothered about food, not bothered about coming out...he saves all that for early spring when he switches into roaming mode! lol

Mocha didn't want to come out the other day, he's very sleepy at the moment. Had a bit of an adventure today though before snuggling in my scarf. I took him to the kitchen window to watch the birds & a female looked at him with big shiny eyes as if to say, wow what a big worm (nearly 4 ft). He was climbing on Kiwi's window perch at the time.

Awww so cute!  Silver is about 4 1/2 feet now (I think) quite hard to measure him as he refuses to sit still! lol

That should've been 'female blackbird' in the last post. Silver has similar facial markings to Mocha but Silver looks reddish on top. Mocha is chocolate/greyish coffee colour on top with ochre underneath. Mocha has go a shape on top of his head like a musical tuning fork, very strange I've always thought. However he is my best behaved pet.

 I am a behaviour specialist & we all have naughty pets at work which we find immensely frustrating for our job. We work wonders on the kids though!

Fantastic photos KatTai. What lovely animals - and such big eyes. I know absolutely nothing about lizards or snakes, but have seen a lot of lizards in the wild on holidays. We once stayed in a villa in Lanzarote where two or three of them lived in the stonework round the barbecue. There were small and very shy, and we were very careful when we used the barbie!

My own 3 reptiles, the tortoises, are still asleep in their boxes in a fridge. I took them out yesterday for a check, and so far so good, they are all alive and apparently well. It is a dangerous time for them, and difficult to be sure if they are OK. but as long as they are alive, asleep, and not urinating, all should be well. With the weather we are having at the moment, it would be nice if we could hibernate!!

Ooh I agree Sparrow, but then thinking about it who would look after all of our animal babies whilst we were snoozing.

I do love the baby tortoises you see in the petshops, but the thought of finding room for a big enough viv to keep them happy in for the first 5 years is daunting.  I'd love to adopt adult ones but they are never needing a home in my local reptile rescue centre.

I tried to take a photo of Amber my female gecko today, tucked up in her little cave, but she turned her back on me - charming! Shadow was quite grumpy yesterday as their heat bulb had blown & I didn't realise for about an hour & the viv had cooled down. So no photo opportunities there.

Amber is at the bottom, Shadow at the top. This is an old photo, taken on my phone so not very good quality. They are old & rescued, Shadow has parts of his toes missing & a war wound from previous neglect.

Lol easier to spot than your gecko's Kat Tai :-)

They are little beauties Birdmum. How could anyone neglect something like that?

One of my tortoises is a rescued one. He belonged to an elderly lady who couldn't look after him any more so she gave him to a Tortoise Rescue Society. They did a roadshow near where I live, where you could take your torts for a health check. I enquired about taking a rescued one. They asked me to send photos of the facilities I had in my garden for my other torts, and asked me a lot of questions, then agreed I could foster one. They call it fostering for some reason, but really it is adoption. That was about 5 years ago now. The old lady had the tortoise for 40 years before she gave him up, so goodness knows how old he is. He is very small compared to my other two.

Like other reptiles I suppose, they aren't easy to look after. They are houdinis, and need a very secure enclosure in the garden or they will be off. They can climb if there are any claw holes, such as with chicken netting or rough brick. Apart from summer when they are outside, they have to be indoors and have a heat lamp for basking. I've never had a baby one and would love one. I always look at them in pet shops, and have to be dragged away!

Ahhhh, Sparrow do they camp out at night in the summer then, I thought they had to be brought in. My friend had one & he just wandered around the garden all day & came in to the house at night.. What kind of housing do you have for them? Are they all the same species / type?

When I adopted Shadow & Amber it was called 'fostering' for the first year. I send them a photo every year in February (Adoptive Birthday), & a note to say how they are. I  got Mocha my cornsnake from a petshop though when he was a hatchling.

Lol he is about 4ft long now. Still cute though!

Birdmum, he is lovely. How long have you had him and what does he eat?

The torts have an outdoor house made of breeze block bricks with a stone slab as a roof and a concrete floor. I fill the house with hay. I treat them like bedding plants. They go outdoors during the day sometime during April but come in at night until frost is no longer a danger. Then they stay out all summer until the end of September. They normally just go to bed when their day is over, but if we have a hot, muggy period they will sleep outdoors under some ivy or other trailing plants.

Indoors for them is our large shed, where they have an enclosure with a heat lamp for basking, and a flourescent light. They sleep in a plastic container on its side, full of hay. If it is frosty I bring them in the house. The shed is all I have. Greenhouses are better. Frost gives them brain damage.

They are all the same species - male Mediterranean Hermanns.

I do worry since I started feeding the birds that a magpie might take a fancy to them and carry them off!