Beaded Lizards

[Skiploder]

Awesome animals, on the whole calm as adults (when properly socialized) and nippy as babies. I keep a small group of exasperatum and horridum. With Najakeeper posting pics of his heloderma, I thought it may be times to fly the colors.

These are easy animals to keep - no UV, infrequent feeding and no huge space requirements. Yes, they are venomous and yes an envenomation is nothing to laugh at, but with proper handling this risk can be mitigated.

Exasperatum:










On of this year's Horridum:



On of these days I'll get my wife to snap the shots with her camera. The iphone + my crappy camera skills do not do these animals justice.

[jclaiborne]

I love seeing pics of these guys thanks for posting them!

[Najakeeper]

Awesome lizards mate, you gotta take better pictures though .

I raised one when I was living in US and I picked up a pair at today's Hamm show. Compared to my Gila's, which hatched around same time, the beaded lizards are huge .

[MarkS]

I love the Heloderma and would like to get a Gila some day. Probably not for a while though. Which one is easier to take care of and which one breeds better? Gila monsters or Beaded lizards?

[Skiploder]

I love the Heloderma and would like to get a Gila some day. Probably not for a while though. Which one is easier to take care of and which one breeds better? Gila monsters or Beaded lizards?

I can't speak for gilas because I can't own one in California - anything I say would be parroting what Steve Angeli has told me (and I have prejudices about relating things I have no experience with)...............but the husbandry requirements for beadeds is colubrid easy (literally).

75 to 78 cold side, an underbelly hot spot of about 90 degrees and a nice comfy hide. My large adults are in FB66 (66"x30" drawers) and my subadults and juveniles are in V70 tubs. They eat infrequently as adult (I feed quail eggs, quail and occasionally rodents) and do not require UV. As they grow, the seem to be in a semi-constant state of shed. Therefore each one is given a nice dark and cool humid hide.

This is in stark contrast to varanids which needs a lot of "specialized" space, HOT hot spots and frequent feedings.

Breeding is not hard - once you can figure out what sex you have and understand their biological imperatives in terms of timing. Visually sexing mature adults is iffy and the incubations times are long.

Mark, I do have a pdf from Dr. Mark Seward which is exclusively for Gilas. If you PM me your email address I can send you the link.

Yasin - I know I take crappy pics. I bought my wife a very expensive camera which she takes very nice pics of the kids with. One of these days I'll have her snap some shots of me and the heloderms.

[Najakeeper]

Thanks for all the info mate.

Gilas are quite easy as well. Same setup with dry substrate and a humid hide works just fine and hibernation is the key for breeding.

How do you hibernate the exasperatum? What temperature do you use? The ones I got yesterday were kept warm till now but they are large enough to sleep the winter of so I may start cooling them in a couple weeks or so.

[jason_ladouceur]

Very nice animals Skip. And don't worry, I couldn't take a decent picture to save my life either lol.
All this talk of heloderma almost makes me regret selling my group of Gilas all those years ago.

[Skiploder]

Thanks for all the info mate.

Gilas are quite easy as well. Same setup with dry substrate and a humid hide works just fine and hibernation is the key for breeding.

How do you hibernate the exasperatum? What temperature do you use? The ones I got yesterday were kept warm till now but they are large enough to sleep the winter of so I may start cooling them in a couple weeks or so.

I think everyone does it a bit different, but I stop feeding breeding candidates around the first of November and then begin to slowly kill the heat around the end of November and leave it off until the middle of March. I take about two weeks to go from an ambient of about 75 to 78 to the cooling range of 56 to 58 degrees. I cool heloderms and non-tropical colubrids almost the exact same way.

For the adults, I use black concrete mixing tubs http://www.harborfreight.com/7-gallo...tub-46936.html and stuff them with spaghnum moss. While I use these year round as humid hides, they become hibernaculums in the winter. It becomes easy to keep them slightly damp which helps prevents dehydration during the winter. It's simple to use a saw to cut a door in these.

[Skiploder]

Very nice animals Skip. And don't worry, I couldn't take a decent picture to save my life either lol.
All this talk of heloderma almost makes me regret selling my group of Gilas all those years ago.

Unlimber that wallet and come back into the fold!

[Najakeeper]

I think everyone does it a bit different, but I stop feeding breeding candidates around the first of November and then begin to slowly kill the heat around the end of November and leave it off until the middle of March. I take about two weeks to go from an ambient of about 75 to 78 to the cooling range of 56 to 58 degrees. I cool heloderms and non-tropical colubrids almost the exact same way.

For the adults, I use black concrete mixing tubs http://www.harborfreight.com/7-gallo...tub-46936.html and stuff them with spaghnum moss. While I use these year round as humid hides, they become hibernaculums in the winter. It becomes easy to keep them slightly damp which helps prevents dehydration during the winter. It's simple to use a saw to cut a door in these.

Awesome, thanks mate.

The animals I got are kept warm 'till now so I guess I can start cooling them in a week or so.