Luke Yeomans dies

Just thought id share this news with the herp community... I never met him but the work he did was first class
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-13965282

Tricolor eggs day 5

A quick update on how the Tricolor eggs are doing in the incubator. Here you can see the tadpoles starting to develop quiet clearly.

I collected the rest of the glass for the chameleon viv too so the front support back support and top piece with misting system holes are in place now

 detail of the hole for the misting nozzle

Just some proof of the auratus boy

Earlier, I said a new call had been heard coming from the green and black Auratus tank.... this just proves the Auratus are getting excited. Our lonely female blue and black Auratus, for the first time in a long time, came and sat in full view after hearing the call from the tank next door and I managed to get a good picture of her at last!!

Just a note on mixing species or 'fish tanking'. Many people who start out into the Poison Dart frog hobby get what has been coined as the 'pokémon mentality' or 'gotta catch 'em all syndrome'.... there are lots of sub-groups or various morphs of the same species that are divided into small localities and never meet in the wild, these morphs are often able to interbreed creating hybrid morphs. I do not subscribe to the idea of mixing species and believe that all of these localities should be divided and kept separately from each other as they are in the wild. This is to help preserve the species as nature intended it to be.
   'Fish tanking' happens when people see lots of frogs they want to keep and a lot of cool colour variations but they can only afford the space or money for one vivarium but throw many different frogs together to create a fish tank-like look. This is dangerous most of the time, even if you are a very experienced keeper and is frowned upon by most of the dart frog community, both here in the UK and abroad.
   The mixing of species can cause stress and aggression between frogs as well as hybridization and therefore I would ask anyone looking at getting into the hobby to have a good look around at the various species and locales that are available and to select your favourite of these should you only be able to get one or two vivarium's set up.

More exciting news!!!!

Another new call from the frog tanks confirms that one of my Dendrobates auratus green and black is a boy!!!!. I'm dead chuffed with this result as I was beginning to think I had 3 girls. these frogs are native to central America and north-western parts of south america, it is also one of the most variable of all poison dart frog alongside Dendrobates tinctorius. D.Auratus is semi arboreal and spends most of its time hunting and sleeping in tree's but such a small frog cannot jump great distance so they will return to the ground to travel.

Mating occurs when a male attracts a female with his bird like call (what kind of bird I don't know, but you should hear it =), the eggs are then laid and fertilized and tadpoles emerge after approximately 14 days. The parents or more typically the male will carry tadpoles to small pools of water in the canopy usually among bromeliads and will sometimes guard their tadpoles as they develop. They can take as long as 3 months to morph into frog-lets and emerge from the water.
As with all poison dart frogs their skin is permeable and they should not be handled unless absolutely necessary. if you do need to move them, handling should be done with extreme care... I find ushering them into a clean glass and covering the top with a clean hand makes it nice and easy.

Its getting hot, hot, hotter

Just a gentle reminder that as the weather is turning and we seem to be having a mini heat wave we all need to start thinking of effective ways to cool vivariums as well as to heat them. Some of us aren't lucky enough to have climate controlled rooms etc and over heating can be just as much a problem as no heating. Take steps now to combat over heating so you are prepared if we get hotter.... feel free to comment on what animal you keep what vivarium they live in and how you cool it when things get toasty might give others a few ideas =)

a f(r)oggy morning

Well at the moment we can hardly see the village at all as we are covered in morning mist... the village looks spooky when its like this.

I just thought I'd post a couple of pictures of some of the frogs eating

here we have the two male Dendrobates Tinctiorius Azureus, these two boys are about 2 years old ish and will hopefully have two girls coming to make a home with them soon.

And here are two of the new as yet unsexed Dendrobates Auratus green and black scrambling for some food

ok so the build so far....

As previously stated the chameleon viv build is coming along nicely and I thought Id post a step by step-ish walk through of how I've done it.
So it starts with a pile of glass all wrapped up nicely...

and after doing the edge work the first pieces glued together are the bottom, the right side and the back as you can see all expertly propped up with junk I had lying around at the time =)

next to be glued was the front channel and lead off to the drain which is situated in the front left corner, this is in place so the tanks can be misted without risk of flooding. All the water should run down the sloped false bottom and out through a fitted bulkhead.

this next shot shows the sloped section of the drainage run-off

after glueing the drainage run off into place the left hand side gets stuck on the top... then I realised I had nothing to prop the glass in place with so here's the answer

after 24 hours to cure we are left with  this all sturdy and sealed.

unfortunately I changed the design shortly before ordering the glass and forgot to order 2 vital pieces that will support the front at the top... doh!!!... will go fetch em over the next couple of days and post a piccy when I'm done

oh and here's a close up of the drainage run off

Not too many cuts...

Well yesterday's viv build went well and I'll be posting some pictures later. I've still got all my fingers but did receive a nasty cut to the palm of the hand after two sheets of glass pinched me as I set them down. All in all I'm really liking the design and hoping it provides an excellent home for Pharoah my male Veiled chameleon.

more calling, more eggs

Thought I'd post a video of the original male tricolor calling. These little guys are quickly becoming one of favourite species as they are so active and the calling starts at 7am and doesn't stop till about 4pm every day =)

also yesterday evening I got home to this 'little' surprise

As I said previously the Tri's can lay up to around 30 eggs at a time and this batch has 32 really good looking eggs. I have removed these and put them into a home made frog spawn incubator... lets see what happens.
Also in other Rural jungle news I'm hoping to get the glass cut for one of the new chameleon vivs today so hopefully I'll be gluing it all together later.... here's a quick sketchup of the design:

Our iguana Clarence

Here's a quick snap of Clarence our green iguana.

 He's 4 years old and our pride and joy.... well Kelly's anyway damn thing hates me more with everyday but I love him all the same. Kelly has built a good solid relationship with him and he will let her do whatever she needs to with him or his viv as long as she doesn't pick him up.
Here he is making sure she's got all the marks off his glass doors.

a couple of paintings

Here's a couple of digital paintings by me while I try and learn how to use Photoshop cs5.
This is Phyllobates Terribilis yellow

and this is a picture of one of the male tricolor's on his favourite calling spot

If you check my profile picture you can see the original photo this came from... the damn little buggers don't sit still long enough to paint so photo's is all I have to work with =). Both paintings have taken about 4-5 hours to complete and if anyone would like to commission a painting contact me via email all I really need is a good shot of the frog and I'll see what I can come up with +)

New sounds from the tricolor viv

I woke this morning to an unfamiliar call in the tricolor tank, one of the recently purchased frogs has started belting out his song and has already been noticed by one of the females. The larger male we have seemed a little put off by this new competition and stepped up his game by calling longer and louder than he ever has... I guess a bit of healthy competition cant hurt. With two nice large females and another 3 froglets growing up in there from 2 different bloodlines hopefully I'll be overrun in no time.
one of the froglets compared to a penny.

These tiny frogs can lay around 30 eggs at a time without any problem and do this pretty much every fortnight. They prefer to lay in film canisters that I position at various heights throughout the viv. This however is not fool proof as last week they laid a batch on the exposed leaf of a bromeliad. Although tadpoles can be seen developing I don't think these will make it, the white yolk sac normally bursts killing the tad when they look like this.

The phantasmal dart frogs covers two species that originate from the El Oro, Azuay, and Loja provinces of south west Ecuador and the Piura, and Tumbes departments of north west Peru.

E. tricolor like these are found in central Ecuador, on the western slopes of the Andes (El Porvenir, Bolivar Province).

Disaster strikes!!!

I have just been trawling through a load of old photos hoping to find the 'making of' construction shots I took of the first vivs build process and it turns out they were lost after a hard drive failed on me. Luckily I have some printed photo's of the finished article that I have scanned and uploaded.

I called this Vivarium the aztec pool, it features a huge easter island style head staring through the gloom towards a pool surrounded by mossy banks.







This Vivarium went on to house a trio of Dendrobates leucomelas or 'bumble bee' poison dart frogs this is a picture of one of the girls

Well here it is...

Hi there my names Ben and for a number of years me and my fiancé Kelly have been busy at home and hopefully this blog will give you a glimpse at what we do. We have a number of animals at home here in a quiet spot away from the main roads in Kingskerswell, Devon. All of them are captive bred specimens and we (Kelly and I) have had the pleasure of breeding a few of them ourselves.

I first saw poison dart frogs in captivity at Paignton zoo some time ago now (cant remember when exactly) and was instantly captivated by these 'jungle jewels'. I set about studying as much as I could about them in order to start keeping them at home. After about a years worth of research (and a lot of understanding from Kelly) I went about decorating my first vivarium to house some of these fantastic and very entertaining frogs. I will start by posting and explaining vivarium design techniques used and hopefully get a few photos of the process up as well... but for now here is just a taster....