We have an elderly dog, as well as the four lizards, one snake, tank of 'manders, a cat and a fish. So if we go out of town for more than about 36 hours, I try to get a live-in sitter. I have been lucky so far -- one of the techs at our vet's office has been available. If she is ever unavailable, I am not sure what I would do! Reschedule the trip, possibly!

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Amy

The beauty of reptiles is that they don't take much, and aren't generally going to be upset without human interaction. If you're only going to be gone a week or so, simply having a friend come by once a day - or less in some cases - to make sure they have food and water and that the lights aren't blown is usually good enough. Of course if they're only going to drop by for that, it's best to have a light timer to make sure they get their proper day/night cycle.

Then I'd just prepare everything and leave easy instructions. Give the iguana one bag of this food I've pre-cut for him, and fresh water. That sort of thing. Planning makes it super easy on both of you. The only trick is to find someone willing to work with a reptile, and clean out the cage, if necessary.

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"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.

in the past when going on 1 to 2 week vacations, i usually just used the method of excessive feeding for the week prior and topping off the animals water dishes. but then, i've only had a python and salcutta for the last few vacations. always seemed to work out for them.

but now with hte skinks, bearded dragons, american bullfrogs, and dart frogs, i don't know what we will do. will probably just make a timed food release system. i've seen them made for fish food, in various sizes. one could probably be adopted to be used with crickets, fruit flys, or other foods.

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if you all lived closer to me, i'd pet sit for you. its my buisness.

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yes i am a she ^_^

~My Babies~

1 Rosy Boa (male) Chaos
1 Snow Corn (male) Blizzard
1 Anertherystic Corn (male) Bullet
1 Senegal Parrot (male) Shadow
2 dogs (male) Spot and Bear

One of my son's friends comes to stay at our house when we're gone. He's been caring for Gil for about 3 years now... Gil's comfortable enough with "Wooly" that it doesn't even phase him. About the only thing that might go a bit off is his potty habit.

One thing you might think about doing is try to find a local student with a biology or zoology major to come to the house. Once Wooly is tired of helping me, that'll be my next step. I don't know WHY he'd ever get tired of it though... he made $100 for two days work when we went on our family vacation last month. He cared for Gil, my brother's Bearded Dragon, and all mom's critters.

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~~Steph

"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world." John Steinbeck

you left a sulcata,, with a topped off water dish and excessivlely fed him the week before, then left him for one to two weeks with no care givers to feed him? Please tell me I misunderstood your post.

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I have sucker tattood on my forehead

Hi everyone:
Thank you all for the valuable advice.

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when he was a baby we brought him with us on vacation, which included a two week one (he spent most of the time soaking in the sun on the screened in porch of the beach house we rented :P). but for the past few years we've only been taking one week vacations so have been leaving him at home since he's gotten bigger.

handles it pretty well. he normally lives outside in summer and we usually go on vacation at the end of summer/beginning of fall. during the summer time, i'll grow grass in 2 standard cat litter pans (unused ones of course). then when we leave I put him in his indoor winter pen with some of his regular home made food (for that day) and the patches of grass, which he eats while we're gone. so far theres always been some of the grass left when we returned.

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You can make or buy a mealworm dish where the edges are raised so they cant get out fill that up s/he will eat when they please for the wated they sell little water things what are they called? you know where the bottle is upside down and comes out is the container empties, like for dogs and such. look in the reptile section of petsmart. and for the lighting just set them up on a five dollar light timer. Other than that have a friend check on them every so often.

I noticed in the fish section of our petstore, there are timed fish feeders for vacations - I figure if I'm ever going to be gone and somebody can't come, I'll fill each one with mealworms and set that thing up. One of them had 12 containers and a 24 hr timer, so you could set it to click to the next slot at a certain time, and the mealworms would fall out into a dish below it.

I too, however, have a friend lizard/turtle sit, and she does a great job.

-Anna