Well LEAPIN' LIZARDS  is pretty busy these days.  We have a couple weekends with two parties booked.  
Come see us at the Petrolia Farmers Market on July 2, from 10Am until noon!  

I am so thrilled with the positive response I'm receiving.  I was kind of skeptical when I started all this but it is going over really well.  No, I'm not continually booked but bookings have been steady.  Enough so that I may even start to dream a little about what the future could hold for this business.  

On another positive note,  Gonzo is doing well,  He received daily soaks for about a week.  He also received some force feedings of reptaid and a medicated reptile food.  After 2 days he had perked up a bit and looked more alert.  After a week he started to eat again.  and four days later he had a nice big healthy poop!  lol... yes, when a pet is ill, eating and pooping are things to get excited about.  He still needs to put some weight back on but I've no doubt now that he will do that.  

I will update the Meet the Animals page soon with pics of my new frog Moe.  He's a big white lipped tree frog.  

Crested gecko babies have been ordered from ACReptiles.  Anthony Caponetto is one of the larger breeders in the US of crested geckos.  He has some really , nice looking geckos.  Of course, my budget doesn't allow for some of his top notch cresties, but I've no doubt that the babies he picks out for me will be real lookers too.

Guess that's all for today! 

So.......It's been a very rough couple weeks.  My pink toe tarantula has died,  my female crested gecko has died,  my whites dumpy tree frog has died,  and gonzo, my male bearded dragon is sick.  I can not express how I feel about all this.  I do the very best I can to care for each of these animals.   They come second, only to my human family.  This is very disturbing to me and has me asking myself many questions.  Do other herpetolculturists experience clusture deaths such as this?  Do others in the business of taking their reptiles out for the purpose of educational presentations experience this?  Could anything have been done to prevent the deaths and one illness?  Is what I am doing wrong?

Most of the answers I don't know.  I do not know why the tarantula died.  I do not know why the frog died.  I THINK i know why the crested gecko died.  I do not know what happend to gonzo, but I THINK I am helping him appropriately.

What do I know?  I do know that my animals are fed healthy diets.  I do know that my animals cages are cleaned regularily.  I do know that I do not have so many parties booked that the animals are over stressed.  I do know that in several cases I have more than one of a given species so that each individual animal is not taken to every presentation.

What am I going to do about it?  I am not going to get another pink toe tarantula with out further research and investigation into possible causes of death.   I will keep all future frog species separately.  Although not proven as cause of death, my whites was housed with a red eye tree frog which is generally frowned upon in the reptile hobby.  The red eye remains alive and well.    I suspect a pathogen called entamoeba invadens.  I have been reading up on it and my gecko seemed to have presented similar symptoms.   You can read about it HERE  .  And apparently I may be guilty of transfering it from my turtle to the gecko as indicated by THIS ARTICLE .   As I'm writing this,  I am now suspecting that the same pathogen may be what is wrong with Gonzo.  I so wish we had a reptile vet in the area.  As I said, the animals do come second to my human family so it will probably be next week before I can make the trip to London to a reptile vet.  As I conclude this post I will see where and how fast I can get some flagyl online.  If I can.  It is a very treatable pathogen if caught early.  I will try to save Gonzo,  he's worth it.  I will have to make a point of caring for each animal individually and making sure my hands and equipment is cleaned in between. 

So I'm not much of a writer but I've been trying to think of ways I can make this website more interesting.  I'm thinking about doing some reptile related blogs.  Perhaps there's folks reading this that want to learn more about how to look after a bearded dragon?  Or maybe some one isn't sure what to feed their gecko.  Then again, maybe no one is reading this at all.  If there is, I would like feed back on this idea.  Let me know what you'd like to know more about.  Perhaps I could do a focus on a different animal each week, listing resources for where to learn even more.   Let me know.  PLEASE!

Oh friends of Leapin Lizards.  You really must forgive my lack of writing over the winter months.  I do suffer greatly from the winter blahs and don't accomplish much more than the necessities.
Two weeks ago today, I brough home a blue tongue skink.  He is a young six months old and doing well.  He is very calm when being handled.

Today was a lot of fun as I helped Abby and Sophie celebrate their 7th and 5th birthdays.  It was a lot of fun.  There was one poor little girl that had a good fright when the crested gecko jumped on her.  Poor thing I felt so bad.  I think both the kids and adults enjoyed seeing the animals.   

Sadly today as well though I said good bye to my pink toed tarantula.  She was a beauty and I'm not positive about what happened.   I had been getting concerned that her abdomen was too skinny so maybe she wasn't really eating (although most of the crickets I fed her dissappeared).  What ever the cause I will never know.  I always do my best but my heart always breaks when a little critter doesn't make it.

Something I've been thinking about since I sarted LEAPIN' LIZARDS is the addition of a turtle.  After much research, I decided I wanted to go with a land variety of turtle, or more specifically a box turtle.  So...while keeping my eye on Kijiji, it was actually an online acquaintance of mine that directed me to a young box turtle in January.  So about a month ago, Salus joined our family.  Salus's care in the past has not quite been adequate for her type of tutrle and she has taken some time to settle in.   She is just starting to eat for me and hopefully in another few weeks she'll be thriving enough to come out to birthday parties with me.  Read more about Salus on the Meet the Animals page!

Yesterday I did a birthday party for a cute little 4 yr old girl Olivia!   Before the party started she kept trying to give me toys to take home!  lol... We have more than enough at my house!.

Olivia kept asking me " do you have any more?"  I do hope I had enough to satisfy her curiosity.  I think she liked the little tiny Petii gecko the best.  She wanted to see them again.

I hope Oliva and her friends enjoyed seeing the animals. 

lol.... I know I have a problem.  I just can't help myself some days.  Those little itty bitty tree frogs are just so darn cute!  Of course the really treat was a very nice zoo med vertical terrarium with a front opening door.    I know I don't really need it, but it will look so nice on display and is small enough that I can just bring the frogs with me in their home!

I need to work on some names for these guys too.   In fact.  I'm going to start working at naming all the animals that I take with me on shows.  I really haven't been too good about that.  Maybe some kids will be ab

Yes,  I know I should be all moved in and settled.  But you know how it is.  You start one job, move on to another.  Think of something else to do and eventually, very slowly get things done. 

Most of the animals are in here.  Lol...I say here, because this is where I have my desk set up and where I do all my work, and spend time on the net at night. 

I've been pretty busy trying to business cards made, researching the latest additions to my collection.  Researching what I want to add to my collection.  Browsing Kijiji looking for things to add to my collection!  lol

Many thanks again to my friend for helping me with curriculum id

Hey Dillon!  Happy Birthday again!    Dillon's mom Sherri asked me to come to her sons 6th birthday party!  It was on Halloween!  I'm a BIG fan of Halloween fun and I had fun seeing Dillon and all his friends in their costumes.  They all were very excited and had a lot of questions and stories to share with me!  Most of all they wanted to touch, feel and/or hold every animal they could.   I do hope they all enjoyed the presentation.  Dillon wants a bearded dragon for his birthday.  I wonder if he'll be getting one?  Thanks for ha