Steve1878":4nawo89d said:Got to say as a first time beardie owner there is a lot of conflicting information out there... I bought mine from a local reptile specialist and it came with wood chip substrate and a coil uv they also said 4x2x2 was the biggest area id need. The other reptile shop said to never use wood chip to only use tube uv and 4x2x2 was bare minimum. Now having spent nearly £300 it's not easy to then replace everything but the substrate quickly got changed to tiles. I still hear mixed views on the coils the original shop swears they are just as good and actually looking round sites it appears most the old problems with coils have been fixed eg they don't cause eye sight problems and in a 4x2x2 do provide enough uv these days. The real problem I have though is that the food around here is rubbish I can rarely get calci/pheonix worms and can only get silkworms online which when you're at work all day is pretty pointless as you can never sign for the delivery. Which leaves me with very expensive roaches she rarely touch's no matter how hungry she gets and locusts as the only healthy staple (I lost a cricket once and as a result couldn't sleep for ages due to the noise). So I grab calci worms when I can and then just have to make do with locusts and supers/wax worms as treats. Why no where regularly stocks calci worms or silks I will never know.
SydneyGaia":2zh0ux6l said:I can only imagine that, if a license was to be required for all herps - let alone if they became illegal to own -, access to proper supplies would dwindle as well. After all, when there is a drastically reduced, or nonexistent, demand for a product the supply is going to plummet. That would not be a good thing.
It's not so much the fact that people do not know what they are getting into when starting. as much as the decreasing cost barrier for reptiles. An anole is $5 - you can find beardies on sale for under $50. Reptiles are seen as disposable pets, and that is more of a culture thing than a license thing.
The average consumer does not understand that that $50 is only the very beginning -- tack on another $500-$1000 to start for a correct enclosure, lights, initial vet care, etc. To them, a disposable pet was only $50 -- no way are they gonna spend $300 more on it in vet bills when they could just buy another one once the current herp dies for 1/6 of that vet bill. That mentallity would cause outrage if it was concerning parvo with a dog, but not many people will bat an eyelid if it is pertaining to a reptile.
People realize that when they are adopting a dog because 3/4 of US households have a dog or a cat at some time. That is not the case for reptiles - most people do not even realize that you can, and should, take an exotic to the vet.
The same is true with parrots and the bird trade, and we are talking about highly intelligent animals with an 80+ year lifespan in that case. The fact is that ANY pets other than dogs and cats will not receive the attention needed in the headlines and financially - especially, when the animal is as different as a herp (cold vs warm blood). (I used to volunteer at an exotic animal shelter with 600 homeless parrots, who are capable of carrying baggage from past owners with them -- some sad stories to tell. I'll get off my soap-box though.).
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