Author: Kevin

Guest Author; Lee Arden of The Spider Shop (to celebrate us becoming a distributor of TSS products) The keeping of Tarantulas is becoming more and more popular. They are noiseless, often docile and none time consuming pets. A pet Tarantula requires very little space, they are also easy to feed and care for. Unlike other smaller pets they are long lived, with some of the more popular species living 10 – 15 years. Tarantulas make a good alternative to traditional pets are a suitable for under 18’s as long as parents supervise during feeding and maintenance. PROS: Unlike Reptiles and Fish very little specialist equipment is needed to house a tarantula. Just an enclosure, furnishing and a heat source. They are noiseless creatures that do not smell. – Low Maintenance!…

June was a busy month for us, and slowly it does seem that normality returns on supplies of animals and equipment that were so badly affected by Covid. We even have more and more Corn snakes, Bearded Dragons and Leopard geckos now – who would have thought such popular pets would ever be in such short supply! Some simply beautiful Crested geckos arrived, including some Dalmation Cresties.  Crested geckos are a fantastic arboreal species that are easy to maintain and very characterful. They do well in natural planted terraria, just remember to keep them on the cooler side – anything higher than around 25-26C can increase the likelihood of stress and health issues. Most keepers provide UVB nowadays for this species, we always suggest Arcadia’s ShadeDweller. This species is so…

We love natural terraria! What makes a naturally planted terrarium so appealing? Where do we start? Would some random thoughts help, in no particular order? • The challenge of creating a slice of realistic habitat! • Knowing we have provided the best for our animals! • The planted terrarium looks great in the living room! • Observing natural behaviour from animals, plants and everything that lives in the terraria! • Fine tuning the environment, there is always improvements to be made! • Creating a balance, a total microclimate within the terrarium! There really is nothing that comes close, when considering keeping a reptile or amphibian. Wherever possible we would always choose a natural eco-terrarium over a simple more sterile bare vivarium. We have covered many aspects of building and maintaining…

Welcome to our new feature, blogs about the animals that have recently arrived or given us joy in the last few weeks! Firstly I need to start with Eric leaving us after being at the shop for around ten years. Eric was our resident Rhino Iggy that we bought as a youngster to keep long term. We miss him very much, but when the offer came in to offer him a long-term home in a breeding project we decided that it was time for him to have a new life. Good luck Eric in your new harem! We aim to have the large walk in room size vivaria that housed him providing a new home for some lucky critter very soon. The rumour is another long-term Iggy – this time…

Everybody deserves a bit of excitement in their lives! Including our reptiles and amphibians! The season of love is upon us again, for our little pals. Plus it’s pretty exciting for us too, there is no better feeling than getting conditions so perfect for them that they successfully have babies of their own. However, there are some key points to remember if you intend to breed reptiles or amphibians. • There are many stimuli to get reptiles and amphibians in the mood. This doesn’t mean there is a Love Honey store for them, it merely means their urges are often prompted by weather conditions and seasons. Research is the key here for each species. Sometimes for tropical species it can be the onset of the rainy season (especially for amphibians).…

There are many ways of incubating reptile eggs. By far the easiest is to use a purpose designed reptile incubator. There are several brands to choose from, virtually all the big names offer an  incubator. One of the cheapest and most popular ones is the Lucky Reptile Egg-o-bator. At first glance it looks a little novelty based with its egg-shaped design and cheerful graphics. But it does the job for a clutch or two of small species eggs, such as geckos and snakes.   Lucky Reptile Hatchboxes and of course their Hatchrite incubation medium make the incubation job easier . Hatchboxes are a moulded plastic box, specially designed for incubating reptile eggs. The Lucky Reptile Hatchrite medium is a ready mixed fool proof medium that is so easy to use.…