Uromastyx.org

Hi All!

Im new to this forum and would like to tell you a little about myself and what i hope to gain/give as a member of this forum!

I have two hatchlings sauromalus ater (common chuckwalla) both male and will be getting my first female at the end of this week which is very exciting!
I keep many animals and have always been around animals, when young i was considered a bit of a ferral child lol as we had a pack of three dobermans lol.

My chuckwallas are named Loki and Sol and are siblings. They are now five months old and i am having an amazing time keeping them.

I have done a lot of research on chuckwallas and although i do not have much experience with them, i have read a lot so feel confident having them in my care.
I hope to share what i have learned with others and also to gain knowlege from other Chuckwalla keepers so i can provide my babies with the best care possible - they truly are my pride and joy!

I have misplaced my camera which is rather silly! but i do have a few pictures of them which i will post shortly!
they are growing nicely and seem to be in very good health. I have been very careful when interacting with them and have only ever pick them up when i need to, and consequently they have come to find some trust in me and will come to say hello and climb all over me when i open their viv doors!
they seem to really enjoy being petting, although this is only ever done on their terms and they are very active little chaps providing me with hours of enterainment daily!

i would love to hear about the behaviours other keeps experience from their chucks and just chat generally about the day to day husbandry of these amazing iguanas!









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Hi Welcome to the forum!!! Maybe you can get some conversations flowing once again here. Buy the way, I forgot to say how pretty and cute your Chucks are!!! You are so lucky you are able to get captive bred baby Chucks there!!! But that is the way to go with those guys.

yeh i know, even being captive bred, they are very skittish in the mornings when they first come out to bask lol.
and they seem to be grumpy with me at the moment, not their usual affectionate selves.

it does very most seem like this forum is a bit quiet! hopefully my constant posting with encourage people to use it! lol and theres lots of questions i need to ask about breeder keeper records and location indetification, breeding, genetics etc etc etc!

thank you so much for your lovely comments about my chucks, i do feel very lucky. they are little stunners and both very individual. i dont seem to notice them growing but when family come over they always say how much they have grown lol!

Welcome to the forum! It has been a little quiet here lately, but there are still a lot of us lurking around from time to time.
Are you in the UK? Who did you get your babies from?

i bought my two male hatchlings from a private breeder not too far from London UK. The couple have a wild caught pair of blackbacks, which they have had for around 4 years. the mating couple produce eggs every year but last year was the first time the breeders had been able to incubate the eggs and three hatchlings made it. two of which i have and a female which is with someone by the coast whom i keep in contact with to compare husbandry, growth and development. his female is actually slighty larger then my boys, only outweighing my largest boy by 1g. we both believe this to be because he was feeding his female hatchling meal worms often and my boys have a plant only diet and refused the crickets i offered. since i informed the keeper, he no longer feeds animal protein.
i plan to breed and have a female to collect next week, she is from Monkfield Nutrition, i will have to find out where they get thier chucks from. the female will be no older than 12months which i would prefer.

i have some concerns about my chuckwallas, they were very tame as i paitently waited for them to build trust in me and they would jump onto my hand or out of the viv on to me and hand feed all the time. but the last couple of days they have become very skittish and the smaller male freezes when i approch his viv.

the larger male is eating very well and is really fat but the smaller male isnt eating so much and is considerably smaller in weight, not so much lengh. he was smaller when i got him and then caught up in size to his larger brother, now he is smaller again

i am not too concerned at the moment as he still has a bit of weight on him but i would be so much happier if his appetite picked up...any advice? i cut their greens very finely and they have a very varied diet and get dandelion flowers for them whenever possible but even so, the smaller one still doesnt have the greedy gene!

why would thier behaviour change so rapidy? nothing have changed in their environment and they seem well enough, shedding and eliminating well. the heat and uv gradient couldnt be any more accurate, of course the cool end is in the low 80's but it is summer, the cooler end will drop a little when the weather cools down.
thier main bask sites are around 118f but they can choose to move out of it into temps of 105,110,115 and warm end is around 95f. there any many different spots with differing temps that they can choose from and often do move around to different areas of their vivariums.

but they havnt been as active as usual either in the last two or three days. they were becoming more and more active and more relaxed by my interaction but its all changed so quickly.

id really like to get a carrot tail. if i was to get a female carrot tail or a hispidus could i breed it with the blackbacks? if so how would the young turn out?

thanks

Hi Welcome here, I think we already had contact over the mail

gr. Kamiel

Hey Kamiel,
Its Emilie. Been meaning to email you with hispidus questions! I'd love a hatchling when they produce for you, maybe meet you at Hamm one day

How's the ater clutch and the ornates?

Hope your well!

Hi Emilie,

Well the hispidus eggs were all infertile, the normal chuck eggs are doing good, I hae 7 eggs in the incubator. And for the ornate eggs, the first clutch all hatched, 11 out of 11 eggs so thats nice.

gr. kamiel

well done thats great news with the ornates!
My new female is in and im collecting her Tuesday next week! Ive been told she is a good size and pretty chunky so im hopeful that she will do well.
My boys have been acting very strangely the last couple of days, having become very skittish and the smaller male is eating less then i would hope for. they are in their own vivariums now and they seemed to be ok the first few days of their move, even more active then before but as i said they have been acting strangely and are not as active and the small male freezes sometimes when i approch the vivarium.
they bask just fine though and the larger male is still very fat and round.

hopefully next time the hispidus eggs will be good and i can meet you at hamm to collect a female

can anyone tell me if there is breeding between sub species? and what repocussions this has?

nice to hear from you Kamiel

Emilie,
Some animal protein is ok. In our experience, chuckwallas of all ages tend to ignore crickets, but a lot of them will eat meal worms.
A couple meal worms every once in a while will be fine. Also, be cautious with the dandelion flowers. The fibers can be dificult for young chucks to digest, and impaction is possible.
Your temps seem fine. You may want to separate the two males. It sounds like the smallere one is being submissive to the other one. They should do ok together for a while longer, but at some point, they should be separated.
As far as their attitudes, a lot of them will go through kind of a "teenage phase", where they seem to get a bad attitude towards their keeper, despite all environmental conditions being the same.
On the subject of breeding a carrot tail with a hispidus or black back, it is generally frowned upon.
I believe that "calico" chucks were only made to somewhat circumvent the CITIES laws. S. Varius is CITIES Apendix 1, which means special permits are required just to transport them across state lines. There is a lot of red tape involved. Calicos are hybrids, and do not have such protection. Much like the Cyclura lewisi hybrids.
Carrot tails would never have the opportunity to breed with hispidus in the wild, since carrot tails are only found in the South mountains near Phoenix, and S. hispidus are only found on a few islands in the Sea of Cortez. Most true black backs in the trade are also found in Arizona and California. Though, most wild caught chuckwallas in the pet trade come from Nevada. Carrot tails became so distinct through isolation from other nearby populations of chuckwallas.
I understand that getting locality specific chuckwallas is harder in Europe. S. Ater has at least 8 distinct pattern classes. These classes could breed together, as they are all the same species, but should really be kept seperate. The more they are outcrossed to different pattern classes, the more the line that separates them begins to blur. Again, though they COULD, there is really no logical reason to do so.
Just our take on the matter.