• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Record Keeping 101

riverjop

Feather Ranch
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For those of you who keep detail records of your geckos statistics, you , I am sure all ready know this. But for those of you out there who are just getting into Leopard Geckos (or other herps) This one thing may help you watch over you herps and keep a handle on just what is going on with them.
First of all if you are going to get serious about breeding and even keeping any herps you should defiantly invest in some type of scale! (I confiscated mine from my son....Hmmmm? well thats another story!) It would be best to get one that reads, not only in ounces but grams and the more it breaks the weight down in tenths or more the better!
You can either make a chart on your computer, write it out by hand or use one of the special programs out there to track all the different things you want to know. I hand write everything on a chart, then transfer it to my HERP CARE SOFTWARE.
There are many things that you may want to track, like weight, length, feeding, types of food given (I use this for controlling pinky intake), breeding, shedding, sicknesses, medications etc.....
All of these are great to know, but I especially like to track and export onto a spreadsheet there weights. By watching there weights you can tell allot about what is going on...are they losing or gaining weight or just maintaining? When you put it down on paper (or on a spreadsheet) it gives you a much better view of what is going on!
These are some examples of one of my Geckos (Wilma) and sorry for the lapse of dates but I got side tracked. You can see that during the breeding season her weight was generally in the mid sixty grams and now in the "off" season she has gained considerable weight.
4/7/2004 64
4/9/2004 62
6/2/2004 61
6/22/2004 67
7/4/2004 62
11/19/2004 103
11/24/2004 101
12/7/2004 102
12/15/2004 104
Here is one of the babies that had bout with worms, stopped eating and lost weight, was treated with Panacure & Metrozol, and began eating & gaining weight again. She has solid stools and is now eating like she should be at her age.
5/6/2004 3
5/19/2004 6
6/2/2004 10
6/22/2004 17
7/4/2004 15
7/15/2004 16
8/1/2004 17
8/12/2004 19
9/4/2004 23
9/20/2004 27
10/1/2004 29
10/14/2004 32
10/27/2004 33
11/4/2004 35
11/12/2004 36
11/19/2004 34
11/24/2004 33
12/7/2004 31
12/15/2004 33
I just think that it is an important tool in keeping your Geckos or whatever healthy
I know allot of you out there do this on a regular basis and Im sure your records are probably allot better than mine, but I thought this might be of interest for those people reading this who are either just getting into reptiles or just never really thought about it!
Any thoughts or additions would greatly be appreciated

!
Thanks for reading and next week "dissecting your geckos stool with your mothers finest silverware"
 
Hey Overton, I am really glad you posted that. I have been keeping records of my geckos. How much they eat every day and what, did they poop, did they shed, and weekly weight checks. The reason I am so pleased is because these 4 Juvies I got from Chad are the first young leos I have worked with and I was not sure if they were putting on enough weight every week. I ran fecals on them all and they were all clear Also Chad kept reassuring me that they were doing fine. It is just nice to see the actual numbers on your babies gain. Mine usually gain 2-3g every week and last week 2 of them jumped 6g so now I see those numbers are good. And I am so looking forward to next weeks lesson. We did ours on the dining room table but just chopped it up with the edge of a spare slide. And of course a thorough bleaching of the table afterwards.
 
It's either Robin, Kelli, Cody or Marcias turn on the next one! :raspberry

Now remember that the second one had stopped eating and gone thru a trumatic chain of events....but is now fine and eating + gaining wieght!
Maybe someone will print one of there babies weight records?
Anyone? anyone? :)

P.S. it always amazes me what goes thru my head at 1am in the morning! Sick!!!
 
great info

nice post

i think it might be a bit difficult for those of us with 100+ animals to take individual weights of them all =)
however i do agree about taking weights on certain particular animals if there are signs of possible illness or during breeding season etc. i dont take weights on my leos (i did about 5 yrs ago when i had only 30 or so) but for some of the other species i work with i do take pretty detailed records such as weights prior to brumation and out of brumation, weights for possible double clutching (for colubrids), breeding weights (ball pythons/pythons) and weight gain/breeding weights during breeding season for other geckos (rarer species).

personally ive never had any type of problems with my leos so i dont weigh them, only once or twice right before breeding (i like to breed my females at 55-60g+)

below is a quick graph to show an example (i hope it shows up)..this is just my way of being able to take a quick look at my females during breeding season...i didnt list the species...some of the other gecko species i work with are very small (15g or others 20-25g at most) so their weights are very important they can easily lay themselves to death since a clutch can be 25-40% of their entire body weight
its also a good way of doing a quick comparision with other breeders to see what weights are "good breeding weights" and the correlation of the average number of clutches related to initial body weight prior to breeding
i also have other graphs showing correlation of age compared to breeding weight and number of average clutches etc...this works for me...im curious what others do?

-jon
 

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I have an idea!.......Just weight them all at the same time! and divide by the number of geckos? yea thats it! J/K :raspberry
 
record keeping

Great post, Overton! I feel that keeping records of this nature are essential for keepers, but even more so with those of us who also breed commercially. I must admit that I am OCD when it comes to keeping track of how my geckos are thriving. As a former Chemical Engineer, I guess my brain is just geared that way!

I keep detailed spreadsheets and charts that I made from MS Excel, and by taking all the raw data and creating graphs, I can easily see any trends such as weight gain/loss, eating habits, number of clutches vs. hatch rates, etc. I also have records of every gecko I have ever sold, and who their parents were, and lineage, so if someone wants another gecko for a breeding project in the future at least they will have the choice on whether to line-breed or not.

It does require a lot of discipline to stay current, and it would be overwhelming to do for every hatchling on a regular basis. I weigh all of my breeders about every 4 weeks, but only weigh the babies if there is any suspicion their growth rates are slow.
 
i agree, great post overton

i keep records on weight,breeding,egg laying,food intake,shedding,suplementing, basically anything you cane keep a record of i have, lol

like marcia, i think is's essential to the breeder and the gecko to know all their statistics, i have everything documented on my conputer and i update it almost every day, i think it's one of the most important things when it comes to keeping and or breeding reptiles
 
I guess I'll stick . . .

. . . to old school.

I have a scale - can't remember the last time I used it except before a sale.

I think they have a special pill you can take for all that other obsessive stuff. LOL
 
One thing I’m a sticker about is keep track of the leos lineage. I want to be sure who the parents are. I can look back several generations and track the family tree. This is especially good for out crossing. I try to weight my leos as much as possible but I give more attention to breeding females along with large males.

Another thing I’m going to start soon is keep photograph records because you know a picture is worth a 1000 words…
 
I only have 10 right now,

but am already at a loss as to how best to keep track of all the details as I get ready to Hopefully breed. I currently track food intake and type and weigh everybody about once a month (no, not @ the same time!) I've thought about using excel, and started designing a database in Access, but haven't really kept up with it. I'm really not too good with Excel. I even tried that HungryHerp software. What does everyone else use?
 
Lisa I use Herp Care software is seems to work fine for my needs and after you load in the info you can easily export it to Excel with the click of your mouse!
here's a link to the site
http://[email protected]/
 
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