Question
Tiny eating a Dandelio
Tracie, I have emailed you questions before about Sue Sue (Suey), one of our female uromastyx having a skin problem around her front nails. That is completely gone now-The Lamisil, betadine and witch Hazel worked great!!
Now I have a new problem. One of the other sisters (Tiny) lives in an aquarium with our little dwarf male Uromastyx. They have lived together ever since Tiny came to live with us in March of 2008. When Tiny was first here, her sister Suey bit a few of her back toes off thinking that they were worms-We immediately moved Suey into her own tank. Tiny remained living with Ozzy because they became very attached to eachother. Often sleeping in eachothers houses together and Ozzy laying on top of Tiny most of the time (even when she walks around, he sometimes rides piggy back). I noticed a few months ago that Ozzy has now became an adult! He began doing the mating movements (going around in circles, bobbing his head and leaving white secretion marks on Tinys back). I never saw him try to mate with her though. The aren't the same species. He has however tried to mate with our large Uromastyx female, Chewy, one day when I sat him down in there for a moment to clean their tank. Anyway, the last few weeks, I have noticed that Ozzy has been attacking Tiny-suddenly out of the blue, she will begin flailing around and I will look and he will have hold of her. It is always her feet. He bit one of her front toes completely off the other day. At first I thought maybe I wasnt feeding him enough. But that is not the case. He eats like a pig and there is always food in there for him. What is going on and what should I do? Poor Tiny lost 3 back toes to her sister Suey last year and now Ozzy has taken 1 front toe completely off and bit several others bad enough to bring blood and cause infection. I worry about whether they would be happy apart-they have been together for 1 year and 3 months. I am attaching a photo of Tiny before Ozzy bit the front toe off completely. You can see where she has already lost the tips and nails of some of the back toes in the picture. Thank you in advance for your reply. Camille
AnswerHello Camille,
I am happy to hear that the fungal treatments worked so well for Sue.
It is usually pretty effective if it is used consistently for awhile.
Unfortunately, most of the time reptiles cannot be successfully housed together. It is rare occasions that they can. The actions that appear to be them bonding such as laying on each other, etc, are actually actions of dominance.
I think we as humans, like to think that reptiles can bond with each other, but I think alot of times we tend to read too much into their actions towards each other. While it seems cute when they lay on each other, it really is quite stressful for the other one. I believe too many times that we force them into situations that in nature, they would never be in.
Personally, I usually recommend that most, if not all, reptile species be housed alone unless you are looking at the smaller species such as geckos, anoles, or sometimes collard lizards.
The larger species don't tend to do well housed together as they are more solitary animals.
I believe that you will need to separate Tiny permanently into a tank all by herself or she likely is not going to make it being attacked repeatedly like that.
You might need to separate Ozzy & Sue as well or he may try to breed her to death as reptiles will do during breeding season. The sad thing is that the female in captivity simply cannot escape as she could in nature. It causes way too much stress & will affect her health.
We don't know why they can get along for long periods of time & then all of the sudden start to have problems. They all have their own personalities & one day, something will just cause them to attack their tank mate.
I hope that helps out. I realize it probably was not the answer that you were looking for.
Let me know how Tiny is doing.
Tracie
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