more time?

Just curious...
How much time do you spend caring for your collection? In hours per day...also, the size of your collection would be helpful.

For those of you with large collections (200 plus), how do you manage good husbandry and work another full time job, if you do?

I'm trying to rearrange my schedule right now because my gecko "hobby" is requiring more time than I'm used to. I have to do a few hours here and a few hours there and it's hard to keep up! My only option right now is to get up way early in the morning (I guess the early gecko gets the worm...sorry)

Thanks for any input.

Paul, I currently have around 100 adults. I have about 25 babies. Currently I spend a minimum of 2 hours a night feeding, checking for eggs and setting up hatchlings. I aslo will spot clean every other night. Babies get fed everynight adults every other night. So roughly I spend 2 hours caring for 75 animals per night. On the weekends I clean and everyone gets a little extra attention.

All feeding and gecko time is usually after 9pm in the evening after my son is in bed for the night. I have just started back to work fulltime and I will say it is a very hard schedule. I try to be in bed by midnight and am up by 6am. You have to find a routine that works for you.

I hope to be able to keep up with the animals as best as possible. The more hatchlings the more work. I expect over 300 babies this season.

I wanted to add this link to a similar thread. How do you manage

Get back to you when I get my own schedule running smoothly. Im trying to get back to work as my season is startingIt is a fulltime job in itself if you have a large collection and breed them because of the hatchlings. Im down to about 50 now some 05`s included, about 30 Ill be keeping, maybe 20-25 will breed over the course of the whole year.

I can do it in about 1 hour a day currently, but in a few months Ill be spending 2-3 hrs a day maybe.

Thats just for the geckos, if I counted all of the time spent on the computer, or taking pictures, etc it is quite a bit more time involved.

I really do commend those that deal with geckos and other lizards. So kudos to the lizard people!

I have a big snake collection that I check on regularly everyday, but there are days in the week where I do not have to clean or feed. I do own lizards and I cannot imagine caring for them as I would never have the time to do so.

Believe it or not, I work a full time job, and also a part time job. I don't get to spend much quality time with my geckos. But I get all the cleaning done with Ed over the weekend. And I work both weekend days usually. I have 40 adult geckos. I am up right now after 9 hours of work to do MORE work

For Example this my next week:

Wed: Work 1:30-10:30, Spend 1-2 hours making sure all animals have water and food
Thurs: 1:30-10 Before work, change out snake waters, do misc animal jobs
Fri: 8:30-5:30 full time job, 6-9:30 part time job, Go home and sleep XD
Sat: off from full time, training for part time from 10-5. Get home clean geckos, and other animals
Sun: work full time 8-7
Mon: off! Animal day!
Tues: 1:30-10 pm, do animal stuff before work
Wed: off full time, part time 5pm-9pm. Before work, animal time

Usually Edward is around, but he left for vacation, so I have roughly 200+ animals to care for by myself. He works part time so he takes on a heavy load of the animal care, seeing as i generally work more than that week that i showed above.

Sooo to answer your question is I eat a lot to keep energy going, and squeeze in time with the animals whenever I possibly can!

Originally Posted by bro paul

For those of you with large collections (200 plus), how do you manage good husbandry and work another full time job, if you do?

Easy! Just quit sleeping, it's a waste of time anyway!

I have about 120 breeder lizards (mostly geckos, a few dragons) and about that many snakes too (but there's ~20 babies left). I'm a student, which I think is in some ways worse than having a full-time job because you're not "done" when you get home. There's always homework and crap to do. Throw the other pets, household chores, band, and eating once a day on top of that, and there isn't a whole lot of nap time left. I have to be up by 8:00, but I doubt I'll be in bed before 4:00.

I get up at 5:30, get to school by 7, get out of school at 5:45, walk over to drivers ed, get home at about quarter to 9. But then again i only have 4 geckos right now and 3 babies to worry about. So i did most of my gecko stuff in the morning. When i didn't have a busy schedule i spent like an hour a day on geckos. Now I'm done with drivers ed, so i can devote some more time to the geckos.

Thanks for the input! (and the link, Jeremy) Sounds like lack of sleep/staying up late is a popular approach. With two young children to keep up with, I'm pretty much worthless after 8pm! So, the early morning thing is my life now...I feel like the dunkin donuts guys from the old commercials...time to make the geckos (now I'm showing my age )

Paul (Sage) - I used to think sleep was overated...until the kids came along! LOL Part of my job requires that I do "lock-ins" with a bunch of teenagers and give up a night of sleep. I used to do it no problem, now it's almost impossible. If I'm up past 1pm...well, let's just say I'm not a good daddy the next day.

Originally Posted by bro paul

Thanks for the input! (and the link, Jeremy) Sounds like lack of sleep/staying up late is a popular approach. With two young children to keep up with, I'm pretty much worthless after 8pm! So, the early morning thing is my life now...I feel like the dunkin donuts guys from the old commercials...time to make the geckos (now I'm showing my age )

Paul (Sage) - I used to think sleep was overated...until the kids came along! LOL Part of my job requires that I do "lock-ins" with a bunch of teenagers and give up a night of sleep. I used to do it no problem, now it's almost impossible. If I'm up past 1pm...well, let's just say I'm not a good daddy the next day.

no way?! Are you talkinga bout LAN parties or something disciplinary. I've been to a few "lock-ins" at my local LAN center. sooo awesome. Anyways to get on topic, I spend about between 1-2 hours every night if possible. I've only got 3 animals so alot of that is personal time. I spend about 45 minutes cleaning and feeding though.

Originally Posted by bro paul

(now I'm showing my age )

LOL!!!! So, in 2 years I will be over the hill too! YIKES!!!


Here is my routine, Get up at 6 am, take the dogs out, go to work, get home, take the dogs out, spend 1-2 hours doing geckos stuff, take the dogs out, feed the iguanas, take the dogs out, play with dogs, take the dogs out, sleep.