Camilla has been with us 42 days. I would have waited until it was two months to post this, but the ability to reference Douglas Adams for no reason whatsoever was too appealing. You either read Douglas Adams or you don’t.
Anyways…
Camila has continued to be active since the last update. She climbs and moves around her enclosure quite a bit. Even mid-day if she sees us sit down on the couch, she sometimes comes out. I have included some pictures of her on the driftwood. She can even spot the cricket enclosure when It is out, and she has made the connection that it is feeding time. I am still figuring out the crickets. I am debating big container with less trips to the pet store, or a smaller container with more trips to the petstore. Once I have some more practical experience with keeping crickets, I will get back to you.
Cleaning the Enclosure
I have found that daily removal of Camila’s poop from the enclosure makes the weekly clean less smelly. Camila always goes poo in the same spot. We placed one of the stacking stones in each corner of the enclosure, specifically to keep the terrarium carpet flat in the enclosure. The excellent side effect of this placement is that Camila goes in the same corner on the same rock every time. I mention this twice, because all I have to do is pick up said rock and clean it only on the daily cleans.
Terrarium Liners
I have tried a couple of terrarium liners now, and I don’t see the big difference between them. They say you can wash them and reuse, but I found that they shrink. Since I cut them to exact shape, after washing them, they do not cover the entire bottom of the enclosure. The crickets have also found their way under the shrunken liner. So I have decided not to reuse and to replace the liner when it needs to be replaced. As mentioned earlier, Camila likes to go on top of the same rock every time. This would not be affordable if you were going through a couple each week.
Calcium Powder in the Feeding Dish
Our biggest surprise is that one of the smelliest parts of cleaning the enclosure is the calcium powder. When we feed Camila, we place the crickets directly into the feeding dish which has calcium powder in the bottom. For some reason, the crickets and calcium powder mix smells really bad. This is because of the crickets. The fact that the crickets smell is also why I have not decided on an approach to keep the crickets. Make sure you change the calcium powder out on a regular basis to avoid the smell.
Next time…
The next Camila update is definitely going to be about crickets. In the mean time, if you have questions about your own gecko or even want some info on ours just post a comment below.
Cheers!