If you are bringing in a new animal this month, set up the quarantine cage today. The animal arrives to a calibrated room, not a scramble.
Quarantine protocol for new arrivals.
A new arrival shares no air, no equipment, and no keeper-handling sequence with the existing collection for sixty days. No exceptions.
Quarantine is a separate room when possible, a separate cage at minimum, dedicated tools, and the new animal handled last in the daily rotation. A fecal screen at day fourteen and again at day forty-five clears the most common parasites before introduction to the collection.
The day-sixty mark is not a magic number. It is the practical floor for catching the slow-presenting issues — early respiratory infection, low-grade parasite load, behavioral signs of underlying disease — that a fast quarantine misses.
DSQUARED Reptiles — Living Art. Curated Genetics.
From the field notes archive.
Your first thirty days, without fuss.
An acclimation protocol for a new keeper. Less is more in the first month — let the animal find its routine.
The 24x24x48 screen cage is the right first enclosure.
Glass aquariums fail. Hybrid PVC builds need more skill than a beginner has. The middle path is the right first cage for almost every new keeper.
Reading hunger versus satiety in juveniles.
A juvenile that turns away from a feeder is not a juvenile in trouble. A juvenile that hits every feeder offered is not a juvenile thriving.