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Jennie: Hey guys, it's Jennie and welcome back once again to Solid Gold. In today's video, I'm going to take you guys along with me as I feed all of my reptiles and amphibians in one video. That includes my leopard geckos, all of my White's tree frogs, my poison dart frogs and my one crested gecko. They're all living here on my reptile and amphibian rack. My leopard geckos down on the bottom terrariums here. My poison dart frogs in the center bioactive vivariums and way up there, my White's tree frogs and my crested gecko Simba on the top two bioactive vivariums.
These cages were all made by Custom Cages and Custom Aquariums about a year ago. They've been up and running for a full year now, a year and a couple of months actually.
Let's jump right in. First, we're going to feed the leopard geckos. I already have some food ready for them. Here comes Sylvia. She's all excited. She's like, "I think heard some food getting prepared".
Anyways, I have some wax worms for her. I don't usually give them wax worms. wax worms should be fed very sparingly, really only as a treat, because they're very fattening.
Sylvia is getting some wax worms. I got 10 in here. I do not necessarily going to give her all 10 of these but I'm just going to give her as many as she'll take. I want to get some weight on her because she is a little thin right now. She's been laying eggs consistently.
If you guys remember, she had a little bit of an issue, "Hi Sylvia", back in late February, early April where she had an egg that was really, really big. I was concerned because it was almost too big for her to pass naturally. She almost needed medical intervention to pass the egg. She almost needed surgery.
I made a whole video about that. If you guys want to check it out, I'll link it in the description section below so you can learn all about that. She has been laying, I think it always just been one egg too, ever since then.
She doesn't have two eggs like normal. She is always just laying one egg at a time. She has been pretty thin so I'm trying to keep her weight up by giving her wax worms every other feeding or so.
The other thing is she doesn't have much of an appetite either. She is pretty restless because she's in breeding mode so poor girl. I hate to see her going through this but it's natural. There's not much you can do about it. I just love her grumpy little face. You're the cutest. Okay. Go back in there.
Look at this. You want it? Get it. Not the tongs. Here you go. Yes, you liked that, didn't you? Good. I'm glad she's hungry. Some days, I go to feed her and she wants nothing to do with it. Then other days, she's really hungry and excited to eat like this.
All right. Before she gets too full on wax worms, and while she's still nice and hungry, I'm going to try giving her a cricket. "All right Sylvia, will you eat a cricket too? I want you to have a nice balanced meal. Wow, that's a big crunchy one for you. Good job". Isn't she so cute? Nice one. You're so cute.
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She's looking for more. Look at her. She's like, "That was good. I'll take more of that. I'll take more wormies". "Aw, what a little chubber Sylv, good job. Okay, fine. I won't touch you, jeez.
Come and get it. Ew, worm guts just went flying. I think she wants them all, you guys. All right, you can have them all. You look really hungry". [laughs] She's so cute.
When she's going through this time of the year, when she's laying eggs and some days, she wants to eat and some days, she doesn't. On the days when she is really hungry like this and she is eating a lot, I just usually try to let her eat as much as she will because I know that the next day or the next time I try to feed her, she might not eat anything at all. I want her to bulk up when she actually will eat something.
It might seem like I'm feeding her a lot but it's because I want her to eat a good amount when she actually has a chance. "Oh my gosh, that's a big one Sylvia. You got that?". She's like, "I got this. Don't worry about it. It's going down the hatch one way or another". She's like, "Okay. After that, I might be full". "Are you coming back for your wormy? There you go. You did it".
Okay. That one is Sylvia. Now, we're going to feed Rune next and he's my male leopard gecko in here. "Hi Rune, it's your turn. Are you hungry bud?
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Come and get it. There you go". He's starting a little cricket leg graveyard. I think it's funny when they do that 'cause it reminds me of dragons like mythical stories and folklores and stuff like dragons.
At a dragon's lair, they always have piles of bones and stuff where they sleep, around and on top of. It just reminds me of that when leopard geckos have their little pile of cricket legs at the opening of their hide. It's like a dragon with their pile of bones.
Unlike Sylvia, Rune hasn't had any issues with going off food lately. He's just same old, same old. Every once in a while, he'll not be interested in eating but not anywhere near what Sylvia goes through with her egg-laying and hormonal issues.
"Get it Rune, get it. Get it Rune. There you go. You really fought for that one". [chuckles]
He's always going to be a little bit more reclusive than Sylvia and that's okay. They all have very different personalities just like people. That's what you have to understand when you're getting a pet. You can’t necessarily always have expectations as far as what your pet's personality is going to be like because you could hope that you're going to end up with a leopard gecko that has a personality like one that you've seen online, like Sylvia, where she's really bold and personable.
You could get one and end up with one like Rune that just likes to hide all the time and does really care to be seen very much. You just got to accept them for who they are because they're not going to change.
"HI". I say he's shy and he is, but he's definitely handleable. Once I have him out, he just chills and hangs out. He's so cute but he definitely prefers to be in his enclosure, in his hide, sorry bud, you're tangled up in my hair, and not being looked at. He is handlable.
Look how pretty he is, look at that pattern, so cool. "You're so pretty, Rune. What are you looking at? Are you going to bite me? Don't bite me. You're so handsome. Are you ready to go back? There you go". He's like, "Yes, home at last".
All right, we're done with the leopard geckos and moving on to the poison dart frogs. Something a little less hands-on. Well, they're called poison dart frogs, they're actually not poisonous in captivity.
Researchers believe that it's because of a prey item that they are able to eat in the wild that they're not able to eat here in captivity. In captivity, we feed them flightless fruit flies and they think that it's some type of ant that they eat in the wild that allows them to create the toxins in their bodies.
They don't have access to it here in captivity so they're not poisonous in captivity but it's still not a good idea to handle them because they're so small and fragile and also, their skin is really absorbent. It can absorb things that are on your skin and that can harm them.
I got my fruit flies already dusted here in my feeding cup and I'm going to put these in the frog tanks. I have two bioactive ovariums with-- Each tank has two of my dendrobates tinctorius dart frogs living in them.
I decided to split them up and put two of my dart frogs in each of the tanks instead of keeping all four of my dart frogs in one tank and then getting a different species of dart frog for the other tank just because I would rather give the animals I already have more space.
I'm going to put these fruitflies in there. I'm going to try something I've never tried before. I don't know how well it's going to work out. It'll be a bit of an experiment. I'm going to try taking my lapel mike off of me and putting it inside of one of the dart frog ovariums and see if I can catch the little tank smirk noises they make when they eat the fruit flies because it is so adorable and it's really hard to catch on camera to the extent that I can actually hear it in person.
I'm hoping this is going to work. Fingers crossed. It's going to be so cute if it works. Let's try this.
"Are you guys ready for some flies?".
[smirk noises]
Can you guys see how feisty they're getting with each other when they eat? They both try to sit on top one another when they're eating and interfere with one another eating. They can't just both do their own thing and both focus on their own eating. They both have to be interfering with the other one and trying to compete.
That's part of the reason why I split up the group of four into groups of two. I even tried two different pairings. First, I tried one pairing and then they were being aggressive, food aggressive like this with each other. I switched out two of them and then I tried a different pairing and they were both being aggressive with one another again.
I think I may have gotten unlucky enough to end up with all four females or maybe three females and one male potentially. I don't know.
The other thing is I've looked at them for hours. I've spent hours looking at them and cross-referencing different sexing guides to being able to tell males from females and they all look the same to me. I'm pretty sure that I got all four females. That's the reason for the aggression that I'm seeing.
It's not bad aggression, They're all nice and healthy. They have a healthy way. They're all nice and chubby. None of them are being bullied to the point where they're hiding back in a corner and not eating or anything like that and wasting away. I think they're doing fine but that's the reason why I wanted to split them up so they each had more space at least.
Unfortunately, I don't think I ended up with a pair but I can't really bring myself to get rid of any of them because I'm attached to all four of them. At this point, I've had them for, how many years, two or three years, something like that.
I love them. They're all named, they all have different personalities. They're all my babies. I just can't bring myself to get rid of them. I just decided to split them up and not being able to get a different species of dart frog. I just give the ones that I already have more space so that they hopefully won't get to be too aggressive with one another and I can keep all four of them.
So far so good. It's been six months that I've had them split up into two pairs like and everybody's still doing well. I think it's going to work out.
All right, now I'm moving on to the White's tree fogs and I absolutely adore these guys. They are near and dear to my heart. They are my puggy little babies. Do you guys remember when I got Gazoo and Gazoo was literary this big. She was so tiny and she grew super fast.
I've had her for a year now. I think I got her in June of last year and then I got Petri shortly after and then I got Lentle and Ducky in July. I got them when they were a little bit bigger but they were still pretty small compared to how they are now.
They're all pretty much full-size now. They are adult size. They're so big. Anyways, "Hey guys, I see you hiding down there. There's Gazoo hiding right there and there is Lentle hiding right next to her". Then we've got-- Who's up here? Who's up here? "Hey Petri".There's Petri and Ducky picking out behind him like a creeper. "Are you guys looking for some crickets?".
[laughs]
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"Gazoo, haven't you already had enough? You are the chubbiest out of all of them". Look at Petri with the dirt on his face. Oh my God, so cute. Wow, that was smooth dirt wipe.
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This is Ducky's favorite spot. This is where he is all the time. Come get the crickets, Ducky. We can't let Gazoo and Petri get them all. Petri, back there is trying not to swallow a leaf. "Spit it out, Petri. Oh my God. Don't eat it, don't eat it, spit it out" .
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All right now that the little piggly wiggly White's tree frogs are finally done eating, I'm going to get Simba and I'm going to hand-feed him with his paste food and then I'm going to put it in his tank for him to eat at his leisure whenever he wants. Look at him up there,on top of his little bamboo stick. He's just like, "Something's going on".
He freaks out every time I try to get him out of his cage. I just try to be calm, let him do his little freak out thing, let him get it out of his system because the last thing I want him to do is jump out of the cage and land on the floor. I just let him freak out for a little bit.
"Do you want to come get fed or not?". That is the question. "Come on. Come on, please. There you go, see". I'm not taking him out yet because I can tell he is still little jumpy. "Yes, I now Simba you've got to get it out of your system, don't you. Lick it up your face. There you go. Yummy, right".
I don't always take him out and hand-feed him like this. In fact I usually don't, I usually just put his little cup of paste food in his enclosure and then he goes and finds it when he is hungry but every once in a while, just to interact with him, I'll take him out and feed him like this and then put the rest of it that he doesn't eat during our interaction back in his enclosure so he can find later.
A lot of people think that crested geckos only eat need this paste food but actually they really do best when you also give them insects to eat. In addition to the paste food, I always give him some crickets, at least once a week, as well. Look, how cute. That's all I'm going to give him for now put the rest in his enclosure and put him back in there and then give him some crickets. "Good job, Simba. You didn't even freak out that much. You did pretty good".
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All right now everybody on the reptile and amphibian rack has been fed. I misted the top two tanks. I like to do an extra misting at night sometimes.
You guys may have noticed there is another what appears to be another reptile or amphibian tank sitting on my desk out here. That is a brand new Pacman frog that I just got today. Brand new, I literally just got her a few hours ago.
Here she is, I'll show her to you guys. She is super, super tiny, super, super cute. I have her set up in this temporary tank here but this is basically all a Pacman frog really needs. It doesn't necessarily need to be a temporary tank. I put saran wrap over the top of the screen lid just to help keep the humidity in a little bit better.
She has Eco Earth substrate that she's burrowed herself into. She does have a little cocoa hut hide but most of the time Pacman frogs, they'll just burrow themselves into the substrate instead of using their hide. She has a little water dish and she has a Pothos plant that is potted in organic substrate.
I'm so happy. I honestly love her so much. I haven't come up with a name for her yet. I'm super obsessed with frogs. I've always loved frogs and toads for my whole life ever since I was a little kid. Look she's burrowing in even further. Anyways I'm not going to on and on too much about her in this video' cause I literally just got her. I figured I should show her too since I'm showing all of my other reptiles and amphibians.
I have some crickets left over here. Some of the smallest ones I kept to see she's hungry. Since I just brought her home tonight, I'm not sure if she's going to be ready to eat yet. I'll put them in there and she can eat them when she's ready.
Knowing me, I'm sure I'm going to eventually build her some mega mansion enclosure like I did with all the other reptiles and amphibians because I love to do that for them. I'm sure that will be coming at some point in the future.
Isn't she cute though, I'm really excited to watch her grow. I'm really glad that I got a really tiny baby one because that way, I will be able to watch her grow just like I did with White's tree frogs. Oh my gosh, they were so tiny. Gazoo was smaller than a size of a dime when I first got her and now she is gigantic and she is just a little chubber so it will really fun watching this little one grow too.
Thanks for watching guys. I know my video uploads have been a little bit spotty, to say the least, lately. I haven't been very consistent lately but I really, really appreciate those of you who have been super, super supportive of me and understanding of the fact that--
I don't know you guys. I can't even really put it into words and it's really frustrating for me to not be able to put into words why I'm having such hard time with life right now in general. It's a combination of physical health problems and mental health problems just coming together in a perfect storm right for me now. There is a little fly buzzing around my face driving me nuts.
Just taking things one day at a time so thank you guys for being here along with me one this journey through the ups and the downs, giving me someone to share all of this with. Thank you guys for watching. I will see you in the next video, whenever that will be.
I did promise you a video showing how I made the beta fish tank dividers. I will still be uploading that at some point here whenever that is going to be, I don't quite know. Sorry about that but yes I do have that filmed and I have it actually partially edited so I just need to finish editing that and then I will upload it when I'm able to do that.
I have some thoughts as far as the direction that I want to take my channel in, going forward, so I might sit down and film a video just talking you guys through what I'm thinking in terms of that. I want that to be a separate video because this video is already getting long.
We'll just stop this here but thank you guys so much for watching. I'll see you in my next video and until then stay gold. Bye bye.
