Off Topic

Hello everyone,
This week i would like to step away a little from talking about reptiles and our forum at herpuniverse
and say a massive congratulations to a few fellow blogger's, Julie at julies journal Corinn at oh hey, whats up and Heather at Beautiful British Columbia Well done Ladies on getting the IZEA insiders positions, I really enjoy reading the blogs and I'm sure this will just make things you post even more fascinating to read.I wish you all every success if anyone deserves it it's you guys!!
I love reading peoples blogs, I've learned about gaming,cooking, found new interesting books to read, places to visit and so much more and hopefully by reading this one people learn a little bit about reptiles.
Til the next time
H x

We have achieved so much!!

Firstly, I would like to introduce myself as the other administrator on Herp Universe! I'm known as Geckoella on the forum and I should be contributing to this pretty frequently from now on so I thought I'd say hi, and a big thankyou to all our current blog visitors! November has marked a few milestones for Herp Universe. We now have a total of around 128 members and we have achieved 6000 posts already in just three months! We would like to say a big thankyou to everyone who has signed up and given their unconditional support, it means a lot!

Recently on the forum we decided to try and find out what our members thought about our hobby. I think the overwhelming majority of members agreed that there were major issues within the hobby which need resolving in order to put animal welfare back on the top of everyone's agenda. We came to the conclusion that not only do we need to tackle the issue of poor reptile keeping, but many shops and businesses also need to be held accountable for their actions when things do go wrong. We agreed that the sale of reptiles should be revised, to ensure animals are going into capable and caring hands.

We realised that there are so many problems and they are madly obvious. We can talk about these issues all we like but still it feels like there is no solution to these problems. The RSPCA isn't effective enough in monitoring possible cases of mistreatment and neglect, after all they believe a reptile is being treated well if it has clean water available at all times! Environmental health is not effective enough in monitoring businesses, and they have been known to call the RSPCA in for advice at times. In my opinion, the only way we can move forward is by working together to sort out such drastic problems. Easier said than done, but we should at least try for the good of the animals we love so much.

Winters on the way!!!

I hope everyone had a nice Halloween!!

There's a definite chill in the air and we even had snow this week!! I can't believe how quickly its come around, but I'm sure i say that every year. My friend has already put his gorgeous Tegu's into brumation for the winter,this is similar to hibernation in other animals, but it differs in the metabolic processes involved.This year we have decided not to brumate any of our snakes (most are a bit young) so we will keep their temps up and continue feeding them up over the winter , ready for breeding the adults in the spring.
Thankfully the reptiles don't seem to suffer as badly as the poor dogs do at this time of year, from all the fireworks going off every evening. They whine at all the noises and tend to hide away. I wouldn't think of taking them out in the evening at this time of year, i think they would be too scared. The poor things don't understand that all those loud bangs are supposed to be fun, defiantly not fun for my poor doggies.
If anyone is going to a fireworks display, i hope you have a good time and stay safe.
Until the next time,
H xx

pet insurance

One of the hot topics over on our forum HerpUniverse is pet insurance for reptiles, and how to find a good provider. There's lots of companies that offer insurance for dogs,cats rabbits etc but finding a good provider for reptiles and exotic pets seems to be difficult. I still haven't managed to find one that is reasonably priced, and it leads onto another subject, good reptile vets to take your pet to when god forbid, the worst happens and a reptile becomes ill. For me, i guess i am very lucky in the fact that good friends of mine are, experts in reptile medicine so they are usually my first point of call. If a snake of mine does need vet treatment, again i am lucky in that a very good, reputable, reptile vet is only a 20 minute drive away. But with treatment so expensive finding good insurance would be wise.
on a lighter note, this post on HerpUniverse made me chuckle:
To weigh a snake:

Find large digital kitchen scales
Place bowl on top of scales
Place pillowcase in bowl
Set scales to zero
Remove snake from viv
Put snake in pillowcase
Retrieve snake from round leg and replace snake in pillowcase
Retrieve snake from hair, put band aid on bite and replace snake in pillowcase
Hurl self across room in order to catch snake
Place snake in pillowcase
Put pillowcase (with snake) in bowl on top of kitchen scales
Retrieve pillowcase from floor and snake from under wardrobe
Put snake and pillowcase in bowl, hold still for a few seconds
Take weight reading
Lose pencil
Find pencil
Retrieve snake from top of bookshelf and pillowcase from inside laundry basket
Write down weight with one hand while restraining angry snake with the other
Replace snake in viv
Treat your wounds
Prepare self for an evening of being glared at.

That's how to weigh a snake.

anyone who has ever tried to weigh a snake will I'm sure understand.

I would also like to say a big hello to all my friends over at Forum Finder if you have a blog,forum, or website FF has some great resources tips,tricks and lots of fun, its well worth joining and a great community to be a part of.
Bye for now, have a great week everyone,
H xx

Hatchling's

They say good things come to those who wait, well here's one of our tiny anery corn snake hatching's. They arrived in the world a week later than expected but we have four beautiful tiny baby's.Right now they are no bigger than a worm, one is a little bit feisty and tried his best to nibble my finger ( which tickled like mad!!!) the others are very very docile and calm.
It was a big shock to me, with most of our snakes being either adult size or there abouts, i had forgotten how tiny hatching's are, they are growing well and I'm trying very hard not to say OK we will keep them all.
There's still a couple of reptile meetings left on the calender this year, but here in the UK it is getting very cold and they are all quite a distance away so we have decided not to attend anymore for this year(4 hours in a cold car in awful weather does not appeal to me)
I like attending the shows, to see who is breeding what, catch a glimpse of herps you wouldn't normally get to see, and of course catch up with friends for a coffee and a chatter, and we usually come home with a new addition too!!!!!!!
H

Spiders!!!!

After the last blog post i received lots of feedback about spiders, theres loads of you out there like me apparently that aren't too keen. I thought i would share with you some of the pictures posted on the forum at www.herpuniverse.com
these are some of our members spiders, and it has shown me (and hopefully you too) that not all spiders are icky black EWwwwy things . The first one in the picture above is a Avicularia versicolor, picture thanks to and © Steph Cooper

The picture below, is slightly more like the image that springs to mind when you think tarantula, its a Brachypelma vagans aka red rump picture thanks to and ©Gareth Pritchard
















This last picture has to be my favourite, and the picture that first convinced me that spiders can be beautiful, its A. purpurea picture thanks to and ©Monsterspinnen.de


I'm still not 100% convinced i could ever own one but at least now i am starting to see them in a different light and can appreciate their beauty, and hopefully you guys can too.
H xx

One of those days???

Do you ever have one of those days? nothing goes right no matter what you do? and bad news gets piled upon bad news? that's how today has been for me!!! I'm not looking for any sympathies, just venting a little frustration.
It started as soon as i got up, i forgot to put the bins out and had to rush up my garden path as the bin men were doing my neighbours bins and prey they would take mine too (i got a few tut tutts but they did)
I wanted to take pictures of some of the snakes to include in this blog post, but none of them were feeling co-operative, (Samantha and Mr.Tigger, i think they need some lessons from you two, your both so photogenic).

I'm happy for one thing though, the forum at www.herpuniverse.com is still going strong, despite some peoples best efforts, and we still have our friendly outlook and common goals.I am really enjoying seeing the pictures of the members reptiles that they post on the forum, i can see some going onto my future wish list for sure!!! I'm still not 100% convinced i could ever have a spider as a pet, but looking at the pictures that have been posted, i am slowly getting over my fear and starting to see them in a different light, some really are beautiful creatures. Once again i would like to thank all of our members at herpuniverse, you guys make the forum what it is growing into, a warm friendly place to chat about reptiles and herps of all shapes and sizes.
H xx
http://linkbacklink.blogspot.com/

Big snakes.

I was talking with a friend recently, who does a lot of work for animal welfare and reptile rescue. We got to talking about big snakes, Burmese pythons and the like, during the conversation some very interesting points were made, which i thought i would share.
He gets almost daily phone calls from people begging him to take in their unwanted large snakes, and he has to turn them away as he already has too many. Zoo's are finding it increasingly harder to take in large snake species now as they are getting full of them too.
People go to the local pet shop and coo over the "cute little baby burm" don't do their research properly or are mis- informed by the pet shop who after all is after a sale and bring home little baby, then 12 months-2 years down the line, the cute little baby is a huge and still growing rather large baby and that's when the problems start, and my friends phone starts ringing.
So who's is at fault? the pet shops for stocking these snakes and selling them to anyone with the right money??? The irresponsible owners who take on such a snake without doing their research? or a mixture of the two? and what can be done to stop the problem becoming ever worse?
There are many great owners out there who own large snakes, keep them in the proper enclosures or have dedicated rooms for them so they get enough room to move and exercise and these people should be praised, but for those who think its OK to keep a large snake species in a one bed roomed flat, because its "cool" or whatever reasons you had for buying the snake, please think twice and i hope you find someone like my friend who is willing to take them in when the time comes.
Maybe it's time new legislation was introduced, or for the d.w.a licence to be amended to include larger snakes, to ensure people know what they are taking on and shops cant sell them to just anybody.
thanks to:
http://linkbacklink.blogspot.com/

While surfing around the net last night on various diffrent sites around the world, i picked up on a subject that i thought was worth a disscusion.
I have noticed on varying sites when something is being sold many people say you should only trust reputable breeders, whilst i understand the ethics of this i dont agree totally with that statement.
There is a lot of "small people" not breeders but hobbiests that get clutches why should they not be trusted? is being a hobbiest and not a big name mean you know less than a breeder whos pet is generally a number and not a named family member? If your not in the right clique does it mean you know less about the animals your selling?

I have bought from shops,Breeders and private hobbiests all of my purchases have been healthy and to be honest the worse for knowledge has been the shops, i have found from breeders that often what they are selling are not necessarily there own breed animals but some picked up from shows, some from the "small people" that they have picked up cheaply and seen a way to turn a fast buck.
I can say i have had more contact from the "small people" about any purchase i have made than from any Breeder and while i am not picking on anyone and i do have breeders i would and do buy from, i do think that to get to being reputable you have to be willing to have a percentage of trust.
I think many breeders like to put people off from buying from the "small people" and i dont think its just concern that we the buyer are being ripped off i think its that the more small people selling is more competion they have to deal with and with a market that is slowly being flooded with reps of alsorts maybe the breeders are clutching at strings and looking to put obsticles in the way in order to keep their own profits up.

The forum is one month old!!

Wow!! what a month it has been since www.herpuniverse went live, i would personally like to thank each and every one of the 50 members who have signed up, those who have contributed to the forum and those who have made suggestions to improve it. For us it is all about the members, sharing their knowledge and love for reptiles, and you never know, maybe learning a thing or two along the way?
We are very lucky at herpuniverse, to have some of the nicest members around.Without you guys it would just be a blank canvas, your all great!!!
We have launched our " Banner contest" and are now eagerly awaiting entries, as the one i made is , well, rubbish lol.For those football (soccer) fans we also have the " forum Fantasy Football league" competition running, just for fun, so if footballs your game , check it out in the off topic section.
Theres also new caresheets and an anatomy section added to the forum, and contributors who would like to write an article for the knowledge lab sections please feel free to do so.
See you all on the boards at www.herpuniverse.com