Chuck Pics

I decided to snap some pics of my chucks today. I had been pretty sure that my cb chuck was a girl, but his pores "popped". So the baby's a he, and now that the sex is definate I could give him a name: Rigel. Unfortuneately Rigel's camera shy so i was only able to get a pic of him from across the tank before he ran and hid. Gracie was much more cooperative, she even let me get a close-up! Note her nice fat thighs in the second pic

-Alice

Great pics. I have really started liking these guys in the past few months. Perhaps, I am working my way up to getting one

I love my chucks, they are very personable lizards. If you can, go cb they're a lot easier. If you have to get a wc, try to get the smallest / youngest one possible. The older chucks can take over a year to get acclimated, and if they've already started declining at the retailer / wholsaler they usually don't make it I think that the wc's give chucks a bad reputation in terms of doing well in captivity. I caught Gracie as a small juvie and it still took her about 7 months to settle in and start eating regularly. Rigel, my cb chuck, started eating right away and will even take food from my hand.

-Alice

Thanks for the info. I will definately go CB when I get one. How do you have yours set up.?

My two are housed in a 100 gallon tank, I think that its something like 5 feet long, 1.5 feet wide and 2 feet tall. I'm using play sand as a substrate. I've also got a lot of rocks. Since my room is on the second floor, I wanted to try to keep the weight down so I incorporated a big cork tube, cork slab, and a big clay flower pot. I also got one of those big sand blasted grape vines, I got it primarily for decor, but as it turns out, they love to climb it. I've got the warm end heated with a 100 watt mercury vapor flood and a 100 watt spot. On the cool end I've got a 50 watt spot and ome of the Zoo med reptisun tubes. The high basking site on the warm end gets to about 120.

Chucks like tight retreats, I stacked two flat rocks on top of the clay pot to make the high basking site. Because of the shape of the rocks, there is a gap no more than half an inch. Next thing I know, one of my guys had stuffed themselves in. It's now, Rigel's favorite retreat. So with rocks, it's really important that they won't shift because the chucks are surprisingly strong (and determined) when they decide that there's a crack they want to squeeze in.

Chucks typically don't do well in open glass tanks, so if you go with a glass tank it's important to cover the back and sides. Since Gracie was having difficulty acclimating, I actually had all four sides covered. Now that I feel she's established, I'm taking about an inch off the front every other week or so. A lot of the handy people recomend building cages about 5 feet by 3 feet or building out door pens. I've read that 60 gallons is about the minimum size for a single chuck.

Here's a morning pic with Gracie on the rock and Rigel sandwiched underneath. I've also attached a pic of the central part of the tank, with the buffet

-Alice

Thanks, I will use all that info!

You may also want to peruse some of the old threads on the KS chuck forum. There are a few guys on there who have been working with chucks for years. That's where I gleaned most of my info, and it really paid big dividends in getting Gracie successfully acclimated.

-Alice

Thanks for all the info! I see a chuck somewhere in my future.