Insect Direct

nice setups Hans - I cant wait to take in some natives some day :lol:

id geuss male but im def no expert, i had one just recently which i thought was a male until it went silly for a week or so then dropd 14 rinkly eggs in its tank lol. try bend its tail up and look at bulge just below the vent, if one bulge should be fem if you can see 2 definate bulges lumps then u gt a male. easyer to sex with age or once they drop eggs is even better

a python can eat a deer now tht was cool. frozen turtles anyone :bounce:

could have 1080 onit 8)

sand is dirty stuff you can seive it all day but it still gonna have urine and bacteria building up from the day you add to bd tank untill the day you replace :lol: I do like sand dont get me wrong but it should be replaced often imo tiles are a once off and can be wiped down relatively easily.

dam t&e i found add for tortoises once but ended up some guy overseas who recond he could ship here no problem :roll: , i gave up as all sounded way to good to be true :lol:

cheers for the minda i saw the add lastnight or this morning and i'd forgotten already :lol:

all very nice bulldogod, i especially like the enclosure in pic 1 and 3 broms2 - yea they seem rather paranoid about substrates i geuss tiles are pretty good all around, safe, keep heat, easy to clean, diy friendly I've just made a setup and went for tiles in the end as everything else seems to be questionable and must say so far tiles been all good

diy terrarium; http://www.freewebs.com/crossfireenclosures/index.htm some ideas of setups; http://bearded-dragons.com/boards/index ... 221.0.html

yea beardies prefer more floorspace as appose to height really, which ever your highest point theyll tend to hang so pays to make that the basking spot/lamp above etc. slidings doors all good for cleaning, just clean one side then slide doors across clean the other :lol: or doors can come out all together but getting tricky now.. cant see anything wrong with hinged doors tbh perspex is all good if your rough like me (doesnt breake like glass :lol: ) and if your not worried about display so much as it will get scratchd up hard with bds glass - good but harder to cut your self - looks better imo posibly cheaper to as acrylic/perspex can be pricey stuff If you go for sliding doors they sell the plastic tracks for them at bunnings

definately take out the sawdust though, i wouldnt be surprised if theyve been laying eggs in it? the locusts create there own organic pelletised substrate in no time :lol:

mine was bare bottom / flyscreen mesh bottom with 2 holes cut out for egg laying cups to sit flush with ground, plastic mesh ladders all around oh how could i forget the grass had a hole cut out to so i could add fresh jar with grass daily. before this setup i just used a cardboard cut out thing similar to repto's picture - worked swt this was in an old fridge, and the bottom was 25-30 C and up top was 40-45 C i was using perlite in foam or plastic cups for egg laying and worked well (laying & incubating temps 25-32) ice cream container seems abit overkill, once you crack it its prety buzzy what comes out of just a cup, theyre easy to cover/recover etc. once babie hatch take glad wrap off let babies out then recover and put back in incubator - kp an eye on it more wil hatch. otherwise once they hatch take out put in rearing tank and mist atleast twice a day to kp unhatched eggs moist as could take a few days for them to hatch especially if your egg tray were kept with adults for a few days etc.

its better to be on the cold side than to warm so ive never worried about heating and never had any problem - not much that dont breed around here :lol: if doing a realy big wc i normally turn the hose down so it only trickles into sumps or whatever (in theory the slower its added the more time fish have to adjust =less shock) fry tanks, take some water out if nd be then i just go get a bucket/jug from a trough outside then syphon that through abit of airtube (sometimes with tap on the end to reduce flow) into the tank. livefood + greenwater and a wc all in 1 :lol:

female with eggs perhaps?

I put fragile tape and this way up etc only thing that may give it away is the airholes in the box. crickets bouncing around/chirping or turtles tryna move about lol

thats just dishonest young man haha yea adult male crickets will for sure :lol: i can just imagine the courier driver hearing crickets - how sooothing lol seriously though i send mainly under tht size so shouldnt be a prob.

ok i normally send though the post office, bt if you ring them they normally say nope we dont take them. I ring courierpost (as ive recieved many a live things through them) they put me onto pace ("sister company who deals with live goods so they tell me, sounds good) so i contact them and nope we dont deal with livestock so they put me onto air nz :roll: all abit over the top for a box a crickets thing tht ennoys me is ive had live parcels come from just about every company yet when it comes to sending it seems a diff story :evil: yes i can keep taken them into the post office (the ladies in there know me and my tricks but seem happy) but yea as buisness grows i nd to sort a courier asap. Generally I send small parcels consisting of turtles, newts, some fish, live food etc etc sooo yea im just after any advice or suggestions, cheers

I read somewhere the other day as a good rule of thumb for wild caught bugs/live food "collect today feed tomorrow" sounds good ae :lol: not sure many can be bothered but if you were worried about that then keepn them for 24hours or so may help get rid of any thing nasty they have eaten, good chance to gut load them to but yea i know a guy selling crickets if you want peace of mind

i just found some bns (and a plattie lol) that have been unheatered over winter and seem fine, tanks must of got down to atleast 15 C out there as its only 18.5 now and things have definately warmed up!

breed easy enough but they all stink rats not so bad but hmmm zoo's get rats from somewhere/one maybe ring them it wouldnt hurt to ask

hovabator $240 + delivery on tm Ive heard of people incubating eggs floating them ontop of a tropical fish tank etc, dunno how they secured it in there but yea i find the hovabators bad enough with temp fluctuations so h8 to think what trouble 1 would have with anything diy etc

not aloud them as pets but zoos seem to have them so maybe a zoo licence is required?

i could be wrong but i thought we had 2 species of abns in the country and one been more a whiter colour and for memory both had slighlty diff pattens, then theres the hifin abns which take the cake all together

add a good cave and bns are prolific breeders, u may already have a cave if so i recon they prefer nice tight fitting caves or atleast the entry should be so the male can do his biz. get the drill out and bore a hole no more than an inch wide and deep enough for the full length of the male (20mm should do it) in some driftwood, works well for whiptails to

guttered - u sure a comon bn male hasnt been in there, seems abit weird u didnt get any abns. if not id geuss your abns maybe a result of common bns been bred to abns