Uromastyx.org

I have experience with acclimateing WC animals and with keeping Uromastyx in pairs, but they were the Saharans. I was wondering how many have success with housing thier ornates in pairs and what the dimensions of the cage is. I am using a two tiered cage and can provide multiple basking spots, temp gradients, hides, and access to food. I of course have backup cageing, if needed.

I would say from my experience you have about a 20% chance of being able to house them together. Uros suck when trying to keep pairs together. Usually one gets beat up. Yes geyri are the easiest when it comes to keeping them together. I would say ornates are one of the worst. Good luck and keep us posted.

I keep my ornates as a trio in 1 cage and they do great, only after egg laying females will defend their nest so I will seperate the other female. This year bot female laid eggs, which all hatched. I have CB animals and they are really calm and docile lizards. Over hre my ornates are the more relaxed uro's.

But probably WC will have a much harder time to adapt........

gr. Kamiel

These are the most docile lizards I have ever seen!! They already feed from my hand, are inquisitive, show no signs of shyness, and are absolutley pet-like in every way we think of a cat or dog...they even come to the cage front for chin scratched and to be petted! I am amazed by thier temprament!

For acclamation purposes I would defiantly house them separately. You need to monitor there food intake and poop output, plus if one of them has a higher load then the other of parasites then it could cause issues with the healthier one. Pay special attention to the female as they seem to have a tougher time acclimating then the males. Weigh them once per month and if you see that they are losing weight take them to a vet and have a fecal check for parasites. A light load of parasites does not hurt but if they have a heavy load and are experiencing weight loss you will need to treat for parasites,

I personally house my Ornates separately 100 percent of the time, I find better growth rates and better ability to monitor them, but then again most of my Ornates are wild caught.

There is a lot of merit to what you say about monitoring them. I am home 4 out of 7 days a week and that helps keep an eye on things, but I will move them apart. I need a few weeks to get some supplies, but I have a stock tank and everything ready to go, if there is any trouble. I try not to house in the stock tank, b/c it affords less climbing activity and is ao bulky for the limited amount of space it provides. I really like my two tiered ferret cages for the ornates. It is plenty of room for climbing, temp gradients, and lots of air flow. Being as open air as it is, I have the ability to give such cages areas with no drafts and have no trouble getting the temps up.

Wow, that is interesting. I have never heard of anyone using 2 tiered ferret cages for housing. What do you use for substrate? How hot is your basking spot?
Is there any danger of the Ornates climbing the walls or ceiling?

Well, they do climb the ceiling and walls, but it is coated wire, so perfectly safe. My basking spots can be as hight as 140F, but I chose to keep them at around 120F with ambient temps 88-94F, depending on the amount of sun they get through the East facing window. These temps are in a centrally heated and cooled house, so no individual controls to the rooms.
Substrate pn the floor of the cage is Carefresh. It is a shredded cardboard egg carton sort a substrate that they don't eat and is not dusty, very absorbent, and last a long, long time. They generally go in that area of the cage to defecate and occupy the higer tiers of the cage for daily living. Here I use a layer of double stacked slate or cermaic tiles in the 1'X1' size. They heat up ell, groop the ails, and are easily sanitized. I also use these for making hides. I had tons of succes keeing Bearded dragons as pairs in these cages. I like the ones that have two ramps,with a 2.5'X1' platform( the middle tile stardles the two tiles to either die of it to fit all 3)...the highest one gets a UVB strip light mounted to the side and the lower one gets no UVB. One side gets a higher wattage bulb and the other a lower to give different basking temps andaccess to avoid the UVB. My ornate cage isn't the same mosel though and only has one ramp, leading to a one large platform, so it will have a somewaht different layout, but will have the same basic crieteria met. I'll post pix, when I am fully furnished and up and running..right now the cage is bare to facilitate monitoring of stool and just has a couple of faux rock hides, food dishes, and a couple of lights.