CARE TIPS

them an interesting breeding project and one which is often very successful for first-time breeders. Their viviparous (in the case of fastuosa and bernardezi) and ovoviviparous birthing habits make them an extremely rewarding animal to work with.

Indoor enclosures

Previously, the most popular way of keeping fire salamanders was in almost entirely sterile conditions, using paper towels as substrate and cork bark for hides. Interestingly, these animals did extremely well in captivity but the constant necessity of cleaning them out, as well as very little natural enrichment has shifted how most people keep these animals today.

Nowadays, a bioactive set up comprised of a natural soil-based substrate like Bio Life Forest, with a shallow water dish and various cork bark and slate hides is preferable. Substrate can vary from decomposing leaf litter, through to bark-based mixtures. However, this should never stick to the salamander. Dry coir or course bark and sand can stick to the salamander’s skin and cause dangerous levels of stress.

Creating a perfect fire salamander enclosure is quite straightforward. Aside from the obvious minimum enclosure size requirements which will vary between species, all fire salamanders are cared for in a similar way.

These salamanders will thrive in a very basic indoor RUB set up, an elaborate bioactive terrarium or even outdoor enclosures, semioutdoor enclosures, and greenhouses.

Of course, outdoor set ups will require a good understanding of species-specific requirements and biosecurity measures, but indoor set ups follow a similar structure.

will typically live at higher altitudes and thus cooler temperatures. Therefore, trying to adapt our husbandry to the country of origin of a species, is often ill-advised and a complete guess without scientific research to back up our decisions. That being said, those choosing to house their salamanders outdoors should choose a Northernly species that is typically more resilient to the harsher winters we experience in Western Europe.

Outdoor enclosures

Fire salamanders can be kept extremely successfully outdoors. In fact, it’s very possible to create the perfect enclosure for many of the Northernly species and can be a wonderful feature in the garden. However, there are some crucial considerations to make.

Firstly, the salamanders will rarely be seen. In fact, the only time you’re likely to see the animals is at night, after rain, with a torch. While this is the most natural way of observing the animals, it does mean that opportunities to watch the animals are limited. Furthermore, the keeper will lose a significant amount of control with outdoor vivaria. Meaning if a problem occurs with the animal, it is often too late to resolve by the time the keeper identifies it.

Secondly is security. Not only should the keeper be cautious about birds and predators getting into the enclosure, but with the rise of Bsal, the keeper should also make sure that biosecurity measures are taken to prevent animals or tadpoles from escaping. Fences should be dug deep into the soil or dedicated outdoor vivaria should have at least 5 inches of soil around the bottom and sides of the enclosures. Water must not contaminate nearby rivers and streams, as the pathogens that carry this disease are easily spread. Finally, wild-caught specimens are now banned from entering the UK. Although this means your animal will almost certainly be captive bred, make sure you are 100% sure of this and implement a quarantine procedure if it has come from a larger collection.

Aside from these two points, outdoor keeping is extremely straightforward. Keepers can get great enjoyment from planting ferns and mosses, creating rock walls and water features etc to create the ideal habitat. Species such as S. Salamandra S. Salamandra bernadazi and S. Salamandra fastuosa will thrive outdoors, providing they are given a frost-free area to shelter during the coolest months. This can be achieved by creating a polystyrene shelter and filling it with moss and cork bark then burying it into the ground. As long as the entrance point is small enough to avoid a frost, but large enough to allow the salamander to access the hide, the enclosure should be suitable all year round. In the unlikely event that frosts persist, with a long period of -5°C or below, the keeper should consider bringing the animals inside to shelter them from unnecessary extremes.

Diet and nutrition

Fire salamanders are insectivorous, eating mostly soft bodied inverts such as worms, snails and slugs. However, they will also eat crickets which can be quite surprising given their slow-paced characteristics. Providing a wide variety of live foods will give them the best diet but more crucially, ensuring that every feeder insect is gut loaded and dusted to reach a good nutritional profile is absolutely paramount.

Fire salamanders are particularly susceptible to metabolic bone disease. The first instances are often seen when the salamanders back legs become weak or spinal kinks become apparent. At this point, it has been noted that with the correct medical intervention (providing high quality nutrients etc) people have managed to save their salamander. However, it is much more common that identifying the first symptoms of MBD is a precursor to a premature death.

Because fire salamanders are such stocky animals, they are required to build big skeletons and thus have huge calcium requirements. Using a balanced vitamin and mineral supplement such as Nutrobal, whilst gut-loading feeders on a high-quality formula, will prevent medical issues.

Protect Your Neck

Rough-necked monitors bred in captivity in suspected UK first.

Rough-necked monitors (Varanus rudicollis) are an extremely secretive and cryptic species from Southeast Asia. Although they are frequently kept in the USA and some individuals have been kept in the UK, captive-bred individuals are almost unheard of. As with all species, a healthy captive-bred population is considered the main goal for enthusiasts who aim to meet the demands of hobbyists, without further impacting wild populations. Therefore, the recent success of Branden Darlison-Hoskin and Anthony Walker-Manning in producing what is thought to be the UK’s first captive-bred rough necked monitors is cause for celebration and proves the dedication of private keepers in reaching significant milestones.

Branden told Exotics Keeper Magazine: “We’ve been wanting to tell the world about our project and great news, we have successfully bred what we think is the first captive bred roughneck monitor (Varanus rudicollis) in the UK.”

“Since a child I idolised Steve Irwin, much like many other herpers. I got my first reptile, which was a bearded dragon at age 10 and my passion for reptiles grew and grew. It was my dream to work with reptiles, so I went to college and studied animal care, then managed to get a job in a pet shop in Norfolk called Swallow Aquatics. When I was there, I had a customer bring in a young rough neck monitor and I fell in love with it. My good friend Ant, who’s also a fellow herper, fell in love with her too and we made it our dream to find another one and try to be the first to captive breed this species in the UK.”

Monitoring the method

Of course, large lizards can be extremely challenging animals to care for and prospective keepers should seriously consider whether they have the right facilities to embark on such a project. Luckily, Anthony had been keeping reptiles for 30+ years, initially starting with a green iguana in the 90s. As a cabinet maker by trade, Anthony was skilled enough to build large zoological-standard enclosures to house the lizards. This experience allowed him to create a 10 X 8 X 4 feet enclosure for the rough-necked monitors, giving them ideal conditions to breed. Anthony’s partner, Emma Newman also supported the project by ensuring regimented feeding and general upkeep was met 24 hours a day.

Branden continued: “Luckily, we found a male specimen. They were both fairly young when we first purchased them, so we needed a couple of years of getting them to good size and breeding weight, with a correct varied diet. As for acclimatising them for copulation, the only thing that we changed was the light cycle. It was adjusted to mimic our outside light. For example, in winter as it got darker, we set their lights to go off earlier. Looking at the light cycles in South East Asia they tend to get around 11.30 hrs of daylight during the our cooler months and 12.45 hrs during our summers, We also have microclimates that set day and night temperatures. So, at 07.30 am its set to 45°C and at 19.30pm its set to 25°C.”

After mimicking wild conditions for many years, to provide the most natural husbandry, it was time for Branden and Anthony to introduce the pair of monitors.

“We first had the adults in separate enclosures and used to open the cabinet door and let the female come out and make her way round the room. The first day the female was more interested in just looking round the room, however the second day we let her out, she walked straight up to the males tank and they sat looking at each other through the glass. The next day we let him out with her and after a short while they copulated and were in copulation for around 48 hours.”

We’ve always provided a varied diet and we did give more calcified foods to help with the development of the eggs. We provide them whole prey mince with insects, which is a blended prey such as rabbit or pheasant or chicken with the all the bones and insides and added insects, which is full of protein and calcium. They also had whole eggs including the shells, freshwater prawns and fish. The majority of this was dusted in a calcium powder to create good shells for the eggs without pulling too much calcium from the female when she was creating them.”

Breeding challenges

Captive breeding projects are generally the culmination of years of hard work and significant study. Not only does the private keeper gain a brilliant insight into the species, but the captivebred offspring can continue to allow students, zoos, conservationists, and other private keepers to gain similar offspring in the coming years. Of course, perfecting the formula has its challenges.

Branden continued: “One thing we learned is it was supposed to be very difficult to sex this species without ultrasound or x rays, however when mature you can quite clearly see the differences between the sexes. With males the base of his tail near his cloaca has a much larger bump or hemipenil bulge. Females on the other hand, are flat. I think the key is to just give them a large enclosure with plenty of branches to climb, deep soil to burrow, good UVB, a hot spot of 45.C and a nice, varied diet.”

“The biggest challenge we faced was the incubation of the eggs. We first tried to incubate in vermiculite and after 6 months the eggs died. When we cut them

December and obviously the house temperature with the heating coming on may have caused something to change, maybe there wasn’t enough humidity? We don’t actually know the exact reason! However, when we incubated the second clutch we changed the way we incubated them. We used perlite instead of vermiculite and we completely covered the eggs. We then sat the tub in another tub of water. We did not check the eggs until 10 days before hatch date (which was 200 days of not knowing if they were even fertile!). We then uncovered the eggs and put the lid back on. 24 hours before hatch date we took the lid off to allow the humidity to come in. Then they successfully hatched. I can only imagine that they hatch during the wet season in the wild.”

The journey

Both Branden and Anthony have lots of experience with a wealth of different exotic species. A selfconfessed green tree python lover, Branden also breeds electric blue day geckos (Lygodactylus williamsi) The duo has shares in other breeding projects for peach throat monitors (Varanus jobiensis), mossy geckos (Mnairogekko chahoua) and snakenecked turtles (Chelodina rugosa) to name a few.

“It’s been an emotional journey. Over a year ago, the first clutch of eggs were laid, the heartbreaking part was these were unfortunately lost. They were fully developed and yet did not hatch we were so close yet so far. 30 days after losing those, we put another

7 eggs into the incubator, they looked absolutely perfect. We were clinging onto every bit of hope and 200 long days later our dream came true, and our first egg pipped.”

“Three baby roughnecks emerged very healthy and lively. When they first hatched, like many reptiles, they came out with egg sacs. These took around 4-5 days to fully absorb. Surprisingly, it wasn’t until around the 18th day after hatching that the rough necks finally would feed on their own (a very scary time). However, we pursued with different food sources I.e boiled egg, locusts, roaches, crickets, mealworms, chopped up pinkies, snails etc, and just like that, after turning their noses up on everything and being more interested in exploring the enclosure, the baby roughlins started smashing food. Locusts seem to be their preferred food choice. They first hatched on 24th June. I’ve just weighed one today and it is 18.57 grams and 23cm long from snout to end of the tail. Big monitors can be very shy creatures and powerful animals. It can take time for them to build trust with you. But, with the babies we can build that bond right from the egg.”

Successful captive breeding projects are a beneficial way to understand more about reptiles, particularly cryptic species. Whilst readers are always encouraged to keep captive-bred animals where possible, experts in both zoos and the private sector can contribute significantly to herpetology by keeping lesser-known species. Understanding our own limitations, potential challenges and desired outcomes from our animals is the first step towards being a responsible exotics keeper. With Branden and Anthony sharing their knowledge and maintaining genetic records, further successful captive breeding can reduce the number of wildcaught rough neck monitors in captivity.

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