the nursery's best friend

10 Jan '07 6:34 am

Gordon, thankyou for showing us the pictures of your shy dog. What a great colour he is - do you know that certain ladies would spend hundreds of dollars to get their hair lookng like that? hee hee. Most of us seem to be one dog and maybe more than one cat type gardeners, they seem to be the universal gardening pets.

And Faith - your black beauty dog is a great potato hunter! How funny. We could all start a 'disgraceful dogs' thread, to see whose dog has done the most outrageous thing? Tell you one thing, the one really ghastly thing that my dog Rusty did will never be made public!

I like the fact that a dog will look at you wth eyes full of love about three seconds after being told off. Nice, lacking the dreadful complications of the interpersonal stuff with e.g. teenagers. Aargh!

And some dogs are always puppies in their behaviour, and they don't seem to mind!

11 Jan '07 2:16 am

Faith – Willie is just so cute; I love the way he looks so alert when you obviously called his name to take the photos!

Gordon – I’m not exactly a tropical gardener, living as I do in SE England (lots of rain but not warm like in tropical climes!), but how’s seven snakes for exotic pets? Mr. Green

I’d show you some photos, but it’s just one of those things that we keep meaning to do and never get round to!! Rolling Eyes

We’re also going to be getting some bearded dragons soon and I must take photos of them while they’re still babies!! Watch this space…

Moosey – you keep bringing up this disgraceful act of dear little Rusty but never actually giving any detail. If I were to look at that from a psychological point of view, I might say that you actually want to tell us all but are worried to!! Very Happy

So why not put my curiosity out of its misery and tell us?!?!?!?! Hee hee. Laughing

11 Jan '07 6:16 am

Bambi, I'm giggling! You super psychologist, you! But I can't divulge Rusty's dog-disgrace. Not enough water has flown underneath the bridge. Though the word 'flown' is unfortunately a little close to the bone. Bone! Aargh!

Please take some more pictures of those snakes. And what are bearded dragons? Are they some sort of lizard? Cheers.

11 Jan '07 11:57 am

Bambi - Please tell us more about the bearded dragons, and the snakes, too! In my garden, I have a resident garter snake, who I call "Sam". I see him about 2 or 3 times each summer. It makes my day whenever I spot him sunning him/her self, as it reassures me that he's still all right! Snakes like this one are harmless to humans and pets, and they eat slugs (so I've read). It also makes me happy when I hear my little tree frog singing (squawking would be a better description) as well. I've seen him only sporadically, as he's VERY tiny and well camouflaged. He's sort of olive green with grey eye patches over each eye. As far as I can tell, he's hidden somewhere under the front of the trailer for the winter, at least that's where I heard him just before the cold weather hit. I can't get over how such a tiny animal can have such a big voice!

Anyway, please, more on your pets!!

-gordonf

12 Jan '07 3:03 am

Hmm, the plot thickens - such tempting clues, Moosey!! Hee hee Laughing

Gordon, you obviously haven't met my little beeny Wooster!! She's the smallest cat I've ever known but more than makes up for it in volume! Very Happy

Every morning, while hubby and I are getting ready for work, she always runs around the house, crying at us (seeking attention! Wink

) with such a loud voice - it's so cute!! Very Happy

Anyway, you're right dear Moosey, bearded dragons are a sort of lizard - I've posted a picture below of what they look like; I can't wait until we get ours!! They're relatively easy to keep once you've got them set up, but they do need special UV lights and basking spots, etc. as they're native to Australia and, if kept properly, will grow to about 2 feet and live for 8-10 years.

Our snakes are also kept in controlled conditions in vivaria, although four of them are still babies so we keep them in plastic pots which have holes drilled for ventilation (they don't like being in enclosures that are too big - unlike mammals, they don't need tons of space). I absolutely promise that I'll take some photos this weekend and post them on Monday, but here are a couple to start off with - they were taken in July and are of our two teenage(!) corn snakes, Baskerville and Dr Watson. They're probably about twice this size now as they're greedy little wotsits and always scoff down their mice when we feed them!

We've also got one adult corn snake and a smaller baby corn (hence these two being teenagers!), two young royal pythons and a milk snake, all of whom I'll introduce to you next week!

12 Jan '07 3:39 am

Bambi, my love, what do you mean by "scoffe down their mice" ?? I hope you do NOT mean you give them to eat alive, wee baby mice ??

Concerning the Bearded Dragon , he is a work of Divine Art! Tell me: before you adopt such babies , do you read about their real life habbits in their natural habbitats ( :I mean, do you only follow the instructions of the petshop owner/manager?)? Cause , I remember, the first time I decided to adopt a kitten , to live permanently in a --- bright --appartment , full of spaceful balconies, about 25 years ago , I bougt an adorable book for Cats to read first : " The Complete Book of the Cat", by Angela Sayer. It was the perfect book, cause there is a special chapter dedicated to having cats living in an appartment! I remember my "battle" with my husband to convince him, cause he believed that animals like cats should have open spaces, like gardens around them to live ...But my adorable Hermes had a Siamese mama and a huge snowy adorable papa, living already happily in an appartment, in our own building!! Ha!! I won , of course..Oh , how I loved that animal kid of mine! Bless you, Hermes,in your Animal Paradise...Darling little Hermes can be seen here : http://forums.mooseyscountrygarden.com/garden1063.html

13 Jan '07 2:14 am

Liza - No, they don't eat live mice; in fact, I think it's all but illegal to feed live vertebrates to reptiles (the beardies will eat live crickets and mealworms (both invertebrates) – something I’m not exactly looking forward to, but must steel myself to!). You also have the problem that if you’ve got a live mouse in the tank with the snake, but the snake isn’t feeding (as they sometimes don’t), the mouse might actually attack the snake and with their sharp teeth, could cause quite a lot of damage.

This may sound horrid, but I order batches of mice online and they are delivered already dead and frozen - the bottom drawer of my freezer is filled with all different sizes of mice! Then I just take out what I need, defrost them and give them to the snakes. The mice are specially bred for this purpose and so are free of any disease or infection which could harm the snake and they are killed in the most humane way possible.

As for the beardies, hubby already knows a vast amount about, well, most animals actually – including binomial names, habitats, etc: he’s one of those people who absorbs that kind of information like a sponge! We’ve also bought a few books on the subject of keeping the dragons and have done quite a lot of research online too. They need quite a specific environment but, once you've got it all set up, the thermostats and timers pretty much keep it going for you. They do need feeding fairly often though, but then we feed the cats twice a day (with extra treats in between too - spoilt little things! Wink

) so that won't be too difficult to get used to.

You're right, Liza, I too believe that some cats can lead extremely happy and healthy lives without going outside - there are arguments for and against both sides of the case. Hubby and I do worry sometimes that Jeeves wants to go outside more than we let him at the moment (we keep them in after dinner during the winter because it's dark and lots of people tend to let off fireworks at this time of year), but then during the day, he can quite often be found asleep on our bed even when the cat flap is open!! Rolling Eyes

The main thing is that they are happy and healthy, which is exactly how your darling Hermes looks in your photos, particularly the one where he's poking his head out from under the duvet - how gorgeous is that?!?!?!?! Very Happy

13 Jan '07 6:31 am

Bambi that's reaslly interesting, how you manage to order your 'snake food' online. And it makes perfect sense. But it's got me giggling - imagine the chaos if visitors raided your fridge, tryng to e.g. do you a good turn and prepare a winter casserole - with the - ahem - wrong meaty package!

Something the same, but different - where I live rabbits are such a destructive force that there is little sentimentality allowed. They are noxious pests. And it's the same with possums, who decimate the native bush. Yet in Australia (their land of origin) possums are protected species! In NZ there is quite a tourist trade in possum-skin things (like possum-fur socks), which must seriously offend some Australian visitors!

Cheers, and say hello to the snakes.

13 Jan '07 5:17 pm

Bambi, your pets are certainly not dull, are they? Very Happy

I must confess to being sqeamish and the idea of even feeding frozen mice to anything gives me a case of the 'icks'. Maybe I could do it with my eyes shut, I don't know... Laughing

And Moosey, I think I'm beginning to suspect just what Rusty might have been up too, but I take it you're too 'chicken' (or some other bird related pun) to tell us?
Oh dear...

14 Jan '07 9:26 am

Mary, what you say about rabbits and possums is just SO sad! But I completelely, fully understand...My husband right now reads this book , that explains how we-humans choose to auto-destroy or save our planet since "the beginning of time" - on our planet.. Among other sad things he told me from the book is , that rabbits, foxes, and deer were introduced by the Europeans into Australia and -- probably -- N. Zealand, while the original flora/fauna of these exceptional parts of our Earth were/are NOT made for them (meaning , the flora/fauna were/are not able to confront their sudden destructive force, while they struggle/d to survive in a land not made by the Creation for them. And while they multiply, things get even worse... Only the fatal ignorance is to blame here, of course...). The book is called : "Collapse - how societies choose to fail or survive", by Jared Diamond, published on 26/1/2006.

the nursery's best friend

bEARDED dRAGONS

Real mice??

Poor wildlife...