Tortoise tables are a bit different to the standard wooden vivarium set ups, and so the equipment required for them will also be different. Tortoise Tables are brilliant for tortoises, and in most cases work out to be much better than vivariums’ for tortoises, mainly due to the larger floor area, as well as the great ventilation that they provide.If you have purchased your tortoise table, t...
You’ve heard about MBD. It’s bad. But what does it actually do to a reptile’s body, and how can you ensure you will never have to deal with it?MBD, Metabolic Bone Disease, is a disorder caused by the abnormalities of minerals, including calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and Vitamin D, which causes the bone structure to weaken as the calcium is released back into the bloodstream, to preven...
Horsfield tortoises, also known as Russian tortoises or four-clawed tortoises, originate from central Asia. They typically inhabit hot, dry, arid regions close to the desert and occasionally in mountainous environments. In nature they roam harsh environments for several months of the year, slipping into brumation (reptile hibernation) during the colder season, where they bury down, remaining inac...
Bearded dragons are found throughout Australia. The most common subspecies in captivity are the inland (central) bearded dragons and Rankins Dragons. Both live in a similar habitat of arid woodlands and desert type habitats as well as scrub and grasslands. Bearded dragons are diurnal (active during the day,) in their nature and are commonly found hunting and foraging amongst vegetation a...
UVB lighting is a hugely important aspect of reptile keeping, for almost all species. The hobby is starting to realise that our outdated views of UV lighting, especially for nocturnal species and snakes, is incorrect. The way in which we provide our UV is also changing, with the introduction of products such as the Arcadia ProT5 kits. These come as an all-in-one unit, which is much more preferabl...
UVB Lighting Part 2 Sunbeam or Shaded?In our last post, we talked about methods of lighting your reptile enclosure. These came down to two main focuses – the Sunbeam method or Shaded method. It was seen from the work done by Frances Baines and co, in their latest publication on Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research, that reptiles can be categorised into Ferguson Zones, as originally laid out by...
UVB lighting is something that has advanced more than anyone could have imagined over the last few years. The basic information that reptile keepers had was used well, but it’s now obvious that this is out dated, and though often repeated through to new hobbyists, is more often than not incorrect these days.There are many aspects of lighting that we have learnt more information about, and can ...
Many care sheets and information pages talk about using custodians to create a nice natural bio-active set up - but what is that, and why should you want to do it? Let’s look into it, and see what all the fuss is about.Custodians are small creatures that live in your reptile enclosure, and basically break down the waste that is produced there. That’s right. They break down and consume all th...
Thermostats are a vital piece of equipment for keeping reptiles – not every species will require one, but most do. They will allow you to control the heat that is created in the environment, which means not only will you be able to set the temperature and know it’s perfect for your pet, but it’s also a safety feature – it can’t over heat and cause and stress to your pet, or do any da...
So, to set the scene for those that missed it. A new trait has been discovered in Ball Python genetics in Iowa, US. A designer Python breeder, JD Constriction.com, hatched out a baby Royal that had something extra to it, something they were yet to identify.They posted a picture of their newest discovery, “The Pastel Axanthic “Thing””, which went viral – how do you think we heard abou...