Richard in Melbourne Australia

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Richard.C
Kimberley Klan
Kimberley Klan
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Richard in Melbourne Australia

Postby Richard.C » Tue Aug 09, 2016 2:27 am

Habitat

Blotched bluetongues are the cold weather specialist of the tiliquas,other species like easterns and shinglebacks can occupy range with them but they tend to need to do things to handle the conditions better,eg find areas that hold more winter warmth ect

Blotchies arent restricted there and seem to thrive in cold damp conditions ,which is something people need to take into account with there long term keeping of them.

Husbandry

I keep most of mine outdoors,lowlands blotchies occur naturally here as do easterns,but i also have quite a few kept indoors as well,been slack in making more outdoor enclosures,lol

Outdoors here they typically go down for brumation in april,usually mellow right off on feeding in march,and they brumate usually right through to september,though some start popping out to bask a bit by late august,the temps here usually are so inconsistent they dont start eating again well into october,some seasons as late as november

Long cold wet winters here and the majority of the outdoors kept ones ignore my nice dry brumation boxed and choose to curl up in dirt or wet grass all winter long,exposed to the elements which can include in inches of hail that has hung around for 3 days before it melts

Most other tiliqua would perish doing that,blotchies seem to take it in there stride

Indoors keeping i dont mimmick that harshness and actually keep them quite dry,i like to provide a large enclosure so i can offer a big temp gradient,so whist i offer a hot basking area,as they move away from there it can get quite cool,in bigger enclosures the ambient in the past has been low enough to allow some to stay down cool end and brumate ,and they have produced babies this way before,but its less consistent,and can cause ussues with others that cant decide wether to brumate or stay active

Brumation
Indoors i wait till 1st of june usually,sometimes earlier and i just shut all heating and lighting off

Ambient temps here range between 6 degrees celcius and 19 degrees celcius,those two being the extreme lows and highs,usually stays between 10 and 14 degrees celcius,i only cool them for 4 to 6 weeks

After that i just turn lights and heat back on,usually the ambients still very low and they hold out on mating for months,not far off when the outdoor ones go,as they seem to wait untill ambients raise to a certain kevel first,which here is often into spring,september onwards,but its possable to boost heat and get them to go sooner,i just find its way better to be patient and allow ambients to rise slowly



Some husbandry notes

Remembering this species is a cold weather specialist,i see people do things differently to cater to that,or others not and keeping them like warm weather animals.

Blotchies love heat,dont get me wrong,but i think along with heat they also greatly benefit,longterm,with access to areas to escape heat if they choose,so dont be scared to allow cool end to get genuinely cool,and also over night lows ,they are built for that and greatly benefit long term from that

Cold weather specialists remember

One thing i see often is failure in breeding/week or deformed babies and even slugs and still borns

Especially with keepers out of audtralia

To me,i see that being heat related mostly,possably not brumation temps but more waking them way to soon into summer like conditions

Some things i see are u need to wake males a couple of weeks earlier so they shed before females cycle,as males do need to shed first.

I dont wake males earlier,watching the outdoors ones to i dont see males waking up earlier either,i believe the wake males earlier stems from waking them into to warm conditions

In nature and captivity,these guys wake in early spring even late winter but temps are still extremely inconsistent,may get warm days but arounf that u still get alot of winter like conditions and they can take a month or two to even start eating well,in short they dont wake up to summer like consistency in weather,for example a couple of cool springs has seen no mating until the first or 2nd week of december,thats summer here

Indoors i keep in groups and i wake them all up together,if i heat cage to much to soon i have poor breeding results,possably females being ready long before males shed,if im patient though and let ambient rise naturally,read slowly,i get quite good results

Living in a cold climate helps me there though

But if u live in a warmer climate,the waking of males first will likely be your best avenue of consistent success

Sometimes you need to consider your available conditions to how you go about keeping certain species,as it can vary greatly between keepers

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