Criptic's Page On Herps - Reptiles - General Care

Once again, I can not stress enough how important it is to find the information necessary to provide your herp with an appropriate home. There are plenty of places that you may find information on specific herps. There are now an abundance of books out. These books are available both online or in brick-n-morter stores that specialize in exotic pets. For online sources please view my suggested reading page.

Another big source is reptile magazines. There are a couple really good ones out now, and usually cover a variety of subjects as well as having very detailed care information for specific species. And, of course, there are a ton of web sites with very excellent information on the care of a specific species as well. Most of these are by people that have successfully kept, raised, and breed the particular species they claim expertise in. But, make sure to search several sites online and not taking one persons word as final. After reading several sites you will start to be able to weed out bad information.

Not all animals have books out on them, and any information on them maybe difficult if not impossible to find. In cases like these I have found that you may have success with getting information about the area that the herp came from. Good sources for this is geography books sites about the country itself, weather data, etc. Another source on the reptile maybe a natural history book on the type of animal, sometimes they have small blurbs on specific species within. Books on the flora and fauna of the country also carries observation information on the species inhabiting it. These will give you strong clues to the environment as well as care that is required for the care of this animal. This process may take a little experimentation to figure the exact niche that your animal fits into, as well as how to feed, breed, and just care for them. Any information that you figure out, that is not published, please find a way to share this information. Start a web site, write an article for a reptile magazine, anything. There are plenty of free web hosting sites on the net (geocities.com angelfire.com to name a few). But, the important thing is to get the information out there. Help others that maybe starting with a particular species, and save the lives of some poor species of herp that was imported and ended up in the hands of a good intending herptoculturist that may be having problems helping the animal thrive.

There are a few clues about the what your herp environment requirements maybe by looking at the body structure of the animal. This combined with the information of the area where your herp came from, should provide you with a good start to caring and maybe even successfully breeding your rare herp. Always keep very very detailed notes. This will help you later after a success, or failure. This will also help you organize your information when you are ready to share with the world what you've found out!

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