Experience with wild caught lizards?

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Jess

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Does anyone have any experience with buying wild caught lizards? I've really been looking into getting a pair of red eyed crocodile skinks, but it seems impossible to find CB ones... So far I have only seen WC. I really don't like the thought of getting a WC animal, since they can have loads of parasites and don't always take to captivity well, and I'm not really sure I can agree with the ethics of it either. I talked on the phone with someone from a website I might order them from, and when he checked they were WC, but he told he that the were juveniles and that they were still "nice" (They didn't bit him I guess? LOL). I would LOVE to have these guys, but I'm really hung up on the thought of buying WC and I'm wondering if I should just find something else that I can get CB.
 

AHBD

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Hi Jess....in the past I've owned several types of WC with no problems. Aside from my fire skinks I had beautiful emerald swifts, spiny crevice and armadillo lizards that were healthy + robust, ate well and lived for years. Keeping them in large, well planted vivariums [ or lots of rocks etc. for the spiney crevice lizard ] is important, along with buying a healthy critter in the first place. I have no experience with croc skinks though, so the important things to do would be to check the reputation of the seller, ask for current pics of the animal, even like today...as well as the set up they are kept in. If you look up info on how others keep them + the degree of difficulty then you'll get an idea of what you're dealing with.
 

Jess

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Thanks for the input! Maybe I shouldn't be so scared away by the WC part then? Im hoping I can find what I'm looking for at the reptile show this weekend, but otherwise I'll have to see if I can get pictures from the guy I was talking to. They were a vendor that my pet store might buy from, so I hope they would be selling to send me pictures! I've never ordered an animal like that so it makes me especially nervous lol.
 

Jess

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Haha, yes I did! :D And they did end up being wild caught. I talked to the vendor quite a bit about them, so hopefully I made a good judgement on buying them. He said that he had had the RECSs he was selling for 6 months, they were clean of parasites, around 2 years old, eating well on crickets and dubia, and were already breeding. I got a m/f pair, and from what I can tell they are sexed right... I can tell that the one is definitely a male, and the female didn't let me get a good look at her, but I was talking to a second vendor who tried to breed them before and he looked at her too, and said that she looked gravid so I have two opinions saying shes female and gravid LOL.

I got a couple pictures and a crappy video, but I totally re-did their viv yesterday to give them more tunnels and hiding places and I'm going to try not to mess with anything for at least 2 weeks. I'll post some cage pics later. It's basically a mess of plants, cork bark, leaf litter, dirt, and moss.

Their care is pretty confusing though, because there are SO many different opinions on temps, whether or not they need UVB, whether or not they're semi-aquatic... I'm a little stressed out over it but I learned more about where they would live in the wild and I'm trying to mimic that, so hopefully I'm getting it figured out. With the other reptiles I have there is a pretty standard outline of care that people follow, but these guys are COMPLETELY different.

It's a little nerve-wracking not being able to check on them or tell if they've been eating though.
 
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