I felt that i should make an official post here. A lot of people have asked why there have been no new updates to the blog. Well, here’s the truth. I can’t blog. When i’m writing in a blog, i want to be personal. And professionally, that can ruin me. The things i really think and feel can’t be publicized in a blog that reflects the interest of a business. So for now, the blog updates will cease. I’ll keep the old posts here for historical purposes. Maybe one day i’ll figure out a way to effectively blog without involving personal opinions or views. Until then…

Here they are folks…

Adult Bearded Dragons free with setup or just $49.99 for the dragon. Both males and females. (Must have UVB bulb)
Corn Snake free with setup or just $19.99 for the snake. Setup is $114.xx INCLUDING tax!

UVB 5.0 Compact Fluorescent Bulbs $9.99

100 Frozen Mouse Pinkies $30
100 Frozen Mouse Hoppers $50
10 Frozen Jumbo Rats $30

And of course, all complete setups will get 10% off.

See you then!

I don’t have to convince you of that i’m sure. But have you all heard about this crap:

“News Corp. and Microsoft are reportedly in “early stage talks” to cut an exclusive deal that would prevent Google from indexing the media conglomerate’s news Websites some of which include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and others. The deal will allegedly give Microsoft’s Bing search engine the exclusive rights to deliver search results and news pages with New Corp. content, according to The Financial Times. The report also says that Microsoft has approached other unnamed major Web publishers to cut similar deals.”

If that’s not a monopoly, i don’t know what is.  It’s amazing that a company would do that to another company.  I’m glad we get along with our competitors.

Anyway, Turkey day is right around the corner.  Then the Christmas rush is on.  That’s crazy.  The new year will be here in no time.

We will likely have a few specials for Black Friday.  We’ll post them to the Facebook, Myspace, Blog, and website.  Be sure to check for that in the next day or so.

Until next time…

Contrary to popular belief, The Tye-Dyed Iguana does not actually sell Green Iguanas.  The reaction we get to this policy varies greatly.  Those of us in the industry understand completely the mentality behind our Green Iguana policy.  Many people, however, are not aware of the larger problem with the sale of Green Iguanas.

Green Iguanas are the #1 most abused and neglected reptile in our industry.  This is due to the overwhelming large amount of false care information in circulation.  The pet shops are also to blame in this situation.  Pet shops must know what they sell, and often they do not.  It’s hard to stop the spread of misinformation when a store front is helping to spread it.

We found ourselves in a situation where people thought we were lying to them when we told them how to properly care for a Green Iguana.  The common mentality is “I did it this way for years, it must be correct.”  Our response to this statement is one word:  Asbestos.  Look how long we installed asbestos in people’s homes until one day we realized it causes cancer.  Or better yet, from 1898 – 1910, heroin was prescribed as a cough suppresant.  Long story short, just because we did it for years, doesn’t mean it’s right.

Instead of selling Green Iguanas, we have opted to adopt them out.  You can add yourself to our Myspace and Facebook pages.  We do most of our adopting through those websites.

We need to take everything we used to do for iguana care and throw it out the window.  There have been amazing advancements in captive reptile husbandry.  We now know how to take care of these amazing creatures.  Here’s a little overview of some basic care techniques.

Basic Caging Requirements
The cage dimensions should ideally be twice the animals length in each direction.  That means a hatchling iguana would need a cage roughly 2 foot cubed, or 2ft x 2ft x 2ft.  10, 20, and 30 Gallon tanks are never sufficient.  An adult iguana will need a cage 12-14 feet cubed, or a bedroom.  This is not an exaggeration.  Green Iguanas are very large arboreal (tree dwelling) lizards.  In order for them to maintain their natural behaviors, they need to be able to move freely in all directions.

Basic Lighting Requirements
Green Iguanas are a diurnal species.  This means they are awake during the day.  As a result, Green Iguanas need access to a heat source, a UVA source, and a UVB source.  Luckily, all standard heat bulbs emit UVA.  They do not, however, emit UVB.  This is a common misconception, again largely due to misinformation.  UVB bulbs will specifically say UVB on them.  Plant bulbs and fish bulbs are not the same thing.  They emit very low levels of UVB, not what’s needed by the iguanas body.

UVB bulbs come in three strengths: 2.0, 5.0, and 10.0.  These strengths directly correlate with the intensity of the UVB rays.  See the chart below.

* Reptiles can get to much UVB just like humans.  Be sure to pay attention to the minimum distances.  For instance if you put a 10.0 on a Veiled Chameleon, this would be to powerful of a bulb for a tree dweller.

You can purchase UVB bulbs here.

Basic Diet Requirements
No lettuce of any kind.  Sure they like to eat it, but Americans also like to eat McDonalds.  It doesn’t mean you should eat it every day.  Lettuce lacks almost all nutritional value.  It’s primarily water and cellulose.  A green iguana’s diet should be composed primarily of dark leafy greens such as collard greens, mustard greens, and turnip greens.  See the chart below.

Pelleted diets can be very convenient for busy lifestyles, but the formula is far from natural.  The number one ingredients in pelleted foods is corn or soy.  Neither of these exist in the canopies of Central America.  Although the iguana may eat it, it’s not an optimal diet.  They make a great supplement to a balanced diet.

Basic Heating Requirements
Green Iguanas need a basking hot spot of about 90 degrees.  This can fluctuate 5 degrees in either direction.  The cool end of the enclosure to be room temperature.  Night time heating is not neccessary unless the animal is dropping below 65 degrees.  At that point a night time heat source is required.

You can purchase heat bulbs here.

Blah blah blah is right.  So happy Sunday morning…   Horray.  Not shit on the agenda today.  We have one party and it’s at the shop.  So in essence, it’s a pretty laid back day.  We are shooting to have some new animals in stock this week.  We hoped to have them last week, but our distributors had crappy availability.  I’m not to sure what we are expecting yet, but we have quite a few cages to fill.

You know, the crappiest part about this blog is the lack of personality i’m able to give it.  I’d love to be able to type about the crappy time i had the other day, or a great triumph.  But that’s difficult when the entire world is reading your words.  You have to be careful what you say or you could offend someone.  Espcially in the sue-happy country we call home.  I think that’s why days get missed on the blog.  The inability to really express one’s thoughts.  Some people would say fuck it, say the truth anyway.  But those of you who really know me know the great ability for my mouth to get me in trouble.

Anyway, i guess that’s the little bit of truthful insight for today.  It’s about time to get rolling for the day.  I have to hit Home Depot this morning.  Lots of odds and ends to tie up this week.  Until next time…

Over the past few months we have brought several new items into the store. Among these items are the legendary Waterland Tubs. For those of you who aren’t familiar with these, they are a revolutionary turtle and tortoise housing product. They are perfect in just about every way.

The water tubs provide a 75% water / 25% land setup. The land tubs do just the opposite. These tubs provide true land for aquatic turtles, not floating turtle docks. The docks definitely serve their purpose. But they only work for so long. Eventually a turtle will out grow the dock. When we used a dock with our larger turtles, they were constantly pulling it off the side of tank. It seemed like we spent a ton of time reattaching the dock. Giving the turtles the ability to climb out of the water onto true land, as they would in the wild, is a luxury most captive turtles will never know.

We have recently moved some of our aquatic turtles into the medium sized Waterland Tub. Our main focus with doing this was to allow our female red ear slider to lay eggs if need be. A few years back she had become gravid and had no place to lay in her tank. We would remove her and put her in an egg box, but the entire thing got to be a huge pain in the rear. So we decided that a Waterland Tub was the key.

As we set up the tub, we had to decided on a substrate for the land portion. Our first choice was ZooMed’s Eco Earth. This product is perfect for egg laying. It is absorbent, holds humidity well, easy to clean, inexpensive, soft, and easy for nesting. The best part was the inexpensive part. It took about 15-20 bricks of the Eco Earth to fill the land section on the medium tub. Using the Eco Earth kept the cost way down. HOWEVER, there is one MAJOR pitfall to the Eco Earth. It clogged our big Fluval filter within about two weeks and made draining the tub for cleaning very difficult. The Eco Earth clumps together pretty bad once it gets wet. However, if you can work with it getting in the water, it would be an A+ number one choice.

A second choice that doesn’t clog like the Eco Earth is sand. Now sand could get quite expensive, depending on how you purchase it. One could purchase the washed, fortified, reptile sand such as the Reptilite Calci-Sand. This is definitely the safest, cleanest option. This is also a rather expensive option given the amount of substrate required to fill these tubs.

We are getting ready to switch to sand and plan to use Paver’s Play Sand from Home Depot. If you purchase this sand, it is important that you purchase Paver’s Play Sand. Home Depot carries two types of play sand. One they keep near their concrete mix. It’s a “washed” play sand. The problem is that it most definitely isn’t washed. That sand is dusty as hell and filthy. The Paver’s Play Sand is actually kept in the outdoor garden center. This sand is fine and clean. No dust at all. The funny thing is that most employees there don’t even know they have the Paver’s Sand. If you ask for play sand, they almost always send you to the dusty crap. The big downer with sand is the extra weight.

On to the water portion of the tub. They can be fitted with a bulk head to drain the tub. It can also be drained using a more conventional siphon. We put rock in the bottom of the tub to keep waste down, but you can use the tub with a bare bottom. The medium tub holds enough water for the turtle to swim. And it’s plenty deep to run our Fluval FX5 filter.

The high density polyethylene used to make the tub is light weight and easy to clean. The price is right given the size of the enclosure. Best of all, we stock these in our store. So if you are local, you don’t have to ship these. And shipping is not cheap on the larger tubs. For those of you who don’t live near by, we do ship these tubs. You can check them out on our website here.

This has nothing to do with Syrup. But syrup certainly is delicious. I like it on all my breakfast food.

So you may have noticed no postings the last few days. Well, Schwag happened. We headed down there for half of last week. It was a much needed vacation after CRABS. Speaking of CRABS, we are working on a bigger space right now. The Ramada was great to us, but it was just a bit to small. I’m sure most of you will agree that it got quite hot and cramped in there. But we’ll fix that next year for sure.

So the agenda for the next few months… Well, the Chicago Reptile Show is coming up. We’ll have a few people up there running around. As for that it’s time to get rolling on some internal improvements. We are putting in another snake room i our breeding facility. Our current snake room has the ability to heat and cool for hibernation. But we need another room that is warm all year. It will be a simple conversion.

We will be doing some work in the rat room to better serve everyone next year. We are pretty much out of space for live rodents and we keep selling out of the larger sizes. It’s been quite frustrating for a lot of people this summer. But we will grow with you guys. Rest assured, we’ll get something figured out.

We are also looking to hire for the upcoming holiday season. We need someone with open availability including mornings and weekends. Experience is a big A+. If you are interested, shoot us a resume. You can email it to admin@thetdi.com.

Anyway, time to get back to the grind…

I got this on myspace today. I wanted to pass it on. This can help a lot of us i’m sure.

September 15, 2009
Curative Attentiveness
Being Aware of Your Thoughts
© 2004-08 DailyOM – All Rights Reserved

Few people enjoy the company of individuals whose attitudes are persistently negative. Yet many of us tolerate the critical chatter that can originate within our own minds. Since we are so used to the stream of self-limiting, critical consciousness that winds its way through our thoughts, we are often unaware of the impact these musings have on our lives. It is only when we become aware of the power of such thoughts that we can divest ourselves of them and fill the emptiness they leave with loving, peaceful affirmations. Many people, upon paying careful attention to their thinking patterns, are surprised at the negativity they find there. But when we take notice of involuntary thoughts in a nonjudgmental way, we initiate a healing process that will eventually allow us to replace intimidating and upsetting self-talk with positive, empowering thoughts.

While the occasional downbeat or judgmental thought may have little impact on your contentment, the ongoing negativity that passes unnoticed can have a dampening effect on your mood and your outlook. When you are aware of the tone of your thoughts, however, you can challenge them. Try to be conscious of your feelings, opinions, and judgments for a single day. From sunup to sundown, scrutinize the messages you are feeding into your subconscious mind. Consider your thoughts from the perspective of a detached observer and try not to judge yourself based on the notions that come unbidden into your mind. Simply watch the flow of your consciousness and make a note of the number of times you find yourself focusing on gloomy notions or indulging in self-directed criticism.

As you become increasingly aware of your patterns of thought, whether positive and negative, you will gradually learn to control the character of your stream of consciousness. Endeavor always to remember that the images and ideas that pass through your mind are transient and not a true representation of who you are. In training yourself to be cognizant of your thoughts, you gain the ability to actively modulate your mood. The awareness you cultivate within yourself will eventually enable you to create a foundation of positivity from which you can build a more authentic existence.

Hello strangers. You’ve all probably been wondering what happened to the blog the last few months. Well, it got C.R.A.B.S. The show took every ounce of effort and concentration from me since July. But we survived and C.R.A.B.S. was a huge success. Those of you who made it know what i mean. Those of you who didn’t make it, well, we hope to see you next year for sure. We had an attendance a hair under 1200 people. It was quite a success for a first show in a new area. And mark my words, this show will grow and it will grow big. Those of you who know us and have watched the shop grow know we mean business. So mark your calendars. There will be more C.R.A.B.S. to come!

Now we move into Fall. We are getting breeding ready for next year. We have all sorts of project ready for winter. Need to build several racks. We also need to make an improvement in the cooling in the rodent room. We also have a Facebook account now. Stephanie maintains that and has been doing a nice job at keeping new pictures rolling in. Be sure to look it up.

Now that life has fallen back into place, i intend to revive the blog. We have some catching up to do…

So life has been crazy at the TDI over the past month. I know i haven’t posted anything in a while. The upcoming Reptile Show has been keeping us B-U-S-Y! The response we are getting is overwhelming. We have vendors from around the country wanting to be part of the show. Make sure you all mark your calendar. Here is a direct link to the show website:

http://thetyedyediguana.com/pages/Reptile-Show-%28C.R.A.B.S.%29.html

Anyway, we brought in a new line of Chameleon Cages. They are the Reptariums by Apogee. We don’t have them listed on the website just as of yet. They are awesome. The are by far the least expensive Chameleon cage on the market. You can get a 260 gallon cage for $99.99! Waterland tubs are the next big item to bring into the shop. Keep your eyes open for that.

We are expecting new animals this week. It’s to early in the week to say for sure what we are expecting. More on that in a few days.

So, here’s some long overdue entertainment:

James May Rides In U2 Spy Plane – Watch more Funny Videos

I could see myself doing this:

Operator Drops 2000 Beer Bottles – Watch more Funny Videos

And finally a real taste of what it means to be American…

Fat Lady Can’t Get On Horse – Watch more Funny Videos