There is something inherently wrong with paying perfectly good money for creatures I would normally kill with relish. And yet I seem to find myself forking over my hard earned cash every week or two simply to buy insects for the dining pleasure of a lizard or two. Okay, it’s not a lot of cash, but still!
Meet Sarah and Travis, our cricket guzzling, spider chomping, rescued pet lizards. My daughter saved Sarah from the jaws of death, otherwise known as Twinkle the cat, and decided we should keep her as a pet. A couple days later, my son rescued another lizard from Twinkle and named it after cousin Sarah’s brother, Travis.
While I’m happy to admit that it’s actually quite fascinating to watch these scaly pets devour insects, I’m rather disturbed that I’m buying food for them that they could have for free if they just roamed around our back yard. Instead I pay someone to kill the insects outside, and pay for insects to feed the lizards inside. How screwed up is that?
The kids and I go on Insect Expeditions where we turn over rocks and dig for bugs to feed the lizards. And whenever you hear the cry, “Bug jar! Bring the bug jar!” you know that someone has found a spider poking his head up where he shouldn’t.
We often find Twinkle on top of the lizard cage trying to finish off the job he was so rudely interrupted from. He can’t understand why we get hysterical and chase him away. Sometimes, neither can I…
8 comments:
Your lizards are cute! My kids collect bugs too, but not to feed to anything :0)
I just noticed our bug container is sitting on the front porch outside. Do your lizards like frozen insects??
You take a plastic bowla nd add a few bits of meat (we always used raw). Then you put it in the yard and wait a bit. Have something ready and waiting that you can slip over the top without too much hassle. Sneak up on your plastic trap and if there's a good number of bugs in it, throw your lid on. Take bug trap to the cage and dump whole thing in with lizards. (Note that bug trap must easily fit in lizard cage) Sit back and enjoy the free show.
We never paid for bugs for them to eat. I don't even remember it being an option.
Um....I was the kid my mother hated, I'm sure, because I kept lizards and frogs and snakes as pets. When the snake got loose, though, for a whole week, she said no more!
We bought insects, and caught them, too. I still remember searching through that field by our house. It hosted an unbelievable amount of grasshoppers! But when the snow came down in winter, we had to trek over to the pet store.
Yes, does seem silly to buy insects...
Kelly, we haven't tried frozen insects, but they will only eat things that move. They will watch with their beady eyes, waiting for movement and then they pounce! Like I said, we have fun watching!
Sarah, I am going to try that. But we'll also need to figure out a way to keep the cat from eating the raw meat...
Lady Glamis, my daughter loves to have her friend's pet snake wrapped around her head. She'll let that thing slither all over her face, hair neck...kinda freaks me out, but that's just me :-) Frogs and lizards, I enjoy. Snakes, not so much.
You are a cool mom. There is no way I'd let my kids do anything like this. But then again, I don't think we have lizards that live around here. Though we do have salamanders, but the kids have decided they were better left outside. So I'm probably safe.
Congratulations--you won some books!
My sister has a dragon lizard (or something like that) and we went to the pet store, bought a huge bag of live crickets and dumped them in his tank. The chirping and flapping was crazy loud.
The the lizard dragon guy leapt into action and gobbled a ton o' insects in like seconds. I have to say it was kind of gross.
Vivian -- I'm just a tomboy at heart. I can remember playing with lizards and toads when I was a kid.
Suzanne -- I agree, it's kinda gross. But it's also kinda cool. You can't not watch!
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