PawPaw Germination

The pawpaw tree (Asimina triloba) has proven very easy to germinate. I collected seed from fruit that was less than fully ripe (for eating) but reasonably ripe. I cleaned the seed of pulp with spring water. Next, I placed the seeds in a ziplock bag with moist peat moss. This was placed in the fridge for around 90 days. After removing the fridge, I cleaned the mold off the seeds with spring water and (gloved) fingers. I then placed the seeds back in a ziplock bag with moist peat. The bag was kept in a warm location until germination occured, I think this tool 2-3 weeks.

Pothos Cuttings

I started several pothos cuttings today in a 50/50 mix of perlite and peat moss. I'm using bottom watering & plastic to keep them moist and humid. The house is a little on the cold side, but I am going to see how they do.

Keep Cats Indoors

Cats Are best Kept Indoors

Domestic cats are an unnatural predator that native animals and birds are unable to coexist with. Furthermore, not just birds are affected by cat predator. Sixty to seventy of a cat's prey is small mammals, 20 to 30% birds, and 10% other animals including reptiles, amphibians, and insects (Eberhard, 1954 and "Keep Cats", 1998). In a study printed in Biological Conservation it was discovered that On average a cat depredated between 0.7 and 1.4 birds per week (Lepczyk, et. al., 2003 and "Keep Cats", 1998). Given the percentages of bird prey, that means an even greater number of damage is being done to other animals. Cats and wildlife can only coexist where cats are kept indoors. Remember, a properly cared for cat is kept indoors and causing zero damage to wildlife populations.

The American Bird Conservancy offers the following tips for trapping cats, "Many animal control agencies or shelters have humane live traps to lend to homeowners who need to trap a nuisance animal. Use bait such as sardines or tuna spread on newspaper or a paper plate, and put it in the back of the trap such that the cat must enter the trap to get the bait. Regularly check the trap, preferably every hour. A word of caution: well-fed cats can be hard to trap. You may also end up with non-target animals such as raccoons, opossums, or skunks, so avoid trapping at night." Live traps can also be purchased from farm supply stores or online with shipping as inexpensive as five dollars.

Cats that are allowed to roam outside also pose a risk to pregnant women. From the Center for Disease Control's website "Women who are thinking about becoming pregnant should be especially careful about toxoplasmosis because this disease can infect the fetus and cause a malformation or abortion ("Toxoplasma Infection and Animals"). The CDC also tells us how one can contact the disease, "Toxoplasmosis is passed to people from contaminated cat feces (stool). People can get toxoplasmosis by cleaning kitty litter or touching dirt where cats might have been, including garden soil. Toxoplasmosis can also be passed to people when they eat meat that is not cooked completely, especially pork, lamb, or deer meat" ("Toxoplasma Infection and Animals"). The CDC recommends to following procedures to prevent the disease:

• "Wash your hands thoroughly with running water and soap after contact with cat feces (stool) and after gardening."
  
• "If you are pregnant or immunocompromised, try to have another person non-pregnant or immunocompromised clean out the litter box every day."
  
• "Clean out kitty litter boxes daily (not when pregnant)."
  
• "If you are pregnant or immunocompromised, keep your cats indoors."
  
• "Avoid eating undercooked meat." "Do not feed undercooked meat to your cat."
  
• All taken from "Toxoplasma Infection and Animals" (see bibliography at the end of this article)
  

References

Eberhard, T. 1954. Food habits of Pennsylvania house cats. Journal of Wildlife Management ,18, 284-286. 

Lepczyk, Christopher A., Angela G. Mertig, and Jianguo Liu. 2003. Landowners and cat predation across rural-to-urban landscapes. Biological Conservation, 115, 191-201. (1998). 

Keep Cats Indoors.Retrieved Jan 8 2008 from http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/rouge_river/cats.html.

Toxoplasma Infection and Animals. Retrieved August 27 2008 from http://www.cdc.gov/HEALTHYPETS/diseases/toxopasmosis.htm

(2004). WHAT TO DO ABOUT YOUR NEIGHBOR’S CATS IN YOUR YARD. Retrieved Aug 8 2008 from
http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/materials/cats_in_yard.pdf

Hanging Peanut Feeder

• Materials Needed
  Two 3" diameter (untreated) Wood Discs (may be cut from a 1"x6" with a jigsaw or purchased)
  One 3/4" Diameter drill bit (spade bit) and drill
  10" Square of Plastic Coated Hardware Cloth
  Coated Wire
  Staples and Staple Gun
  One Screw Eye
  One cork from a wine bottle

Directions

Cut the hardware cloth into a 10" Square and set aside. Drill a 3/4" (round) hole into one of the peices of wood. This hole will be used to add peanuts and will be closed with the wine cork. Make a pilot hole (1/8" bit should work) and inset the screw eye into this same wooden peice. The screw eye is used to hang the completed feeder.Staple the hardware cloth to the outsides of the wooden discs. Use the coated wire to weave the ends of the hardwarecloth together where they meet. I also cut off any sharp peices of hardware cloth. One could also put some aquarium sealer over particularly sharp edges for safety. Fill the feeder with peanuts, insert the wine cork, and hang the feeder!Peanuts should be unsalted and unflavored. A pound of shelled, non-salted peanuts cost between 2-3$ in grocery stores. It may be possible to find feed quality peanuts less expensively.

Results
After having built the feeder and used it, I am not sure I can any longer recommend it. The plastic is easily chewed through by squirrels. Therefore, the feeder must be designed with metal not plastic mesh if squirrels visit a property. Perhaps, a strip of plastic could be fixed over the metal edges with aquarium sealer to make sure no birds get injured. The peanuts also swell and such in response to moisture, so the idea of putting out a large quantity of peanuts in a feeder with no rain protection seems questionable to begin with. In retrospect, I have decided to abandon this feeder design but I'm leaving the article up as a critique of the design.

Keeping & Breeding House Geckos

The Tropical House Gecko is in an interesting species to observe. They are quite abundant in many areas and have traveled outside of there native habitat to completely different continents. These creatures have the ability to multiply rapidily so anyone keeping them in a year round warm enviroment should take caution to prevent escape of these lizards into non-native habitats. They are mainly active by night but many specimans will also come out into the open provided they do not detect anyone nearby(and there pretty at knowing when your near)! These lizards are very quick and are capable of running across smooth surfaces such as glass or even running upside down, if one of these lizards were to escape, a tropical fish net sold at pet supply stores will be required to capture the lizard without injuring it(there skin tears VERY easily).

Housing for the geckos can be provided by means of a 20 gallon on larger all glass aquarium. Groups of juvinilles may be housed in small 10 gallon tanks, however when groups of adults are crammed into such small quarters fights will ensue and the injures can be directly fatal or secondary infections may occur. These fights ussually will be noticed as torn skin on one or more of the geckos, if you see this happening remove the injured gecko for treatment and rest immediatly or it will continue to be attacked. Screened lids are available through mail order dealers and these are ideal for the gecko habitat as they allow ventilation which is especially critical in times when the humidity is already very high. The best housing I have found for newborns consists of a tall(6") circular plastic container with a few small holes drilled in the top with an ice pick(be very careful or you'll make too big a whole or crack the lid), the bottom is covered with a neatly cut piece of newspaper and one side of the container can be misted dialy to ensure adequte water is available.

Decorations can be eloborate or kept to a minimun. For permanent sub adult and adult cages I prefer a well dressed soil layer with one side heavily planted and the other covered with brick slabs to ensure the lizards have egg laying sites and can keep there bodies off the moist earth. I use a mixture of humus, organic top soil, and sand to form a 2" layer or so with another inch layer of pure humus on top. Underneath of this layer is a peice of fine mosquito mesh which keeps the soil from sinking down into the pea gravel layer(pea gravel is well rinsed in a strainer before being used), this pea gravel layer keeps the soil from ever standing in water an souring. Plants such as philodenrions are easy to grow in this enviroment and may be started from cuttings off of a mother plant, however it is important to plant only about one half of the tank and leave the other end as a "dry" end with pilled brick tiles ensuring the lizards can stay dry enough to not develop skin problems -- I have also noticed that the lizards will often successfully use the crevises inbetween piles of brick tiles for egg laying sites. For juvinille setups I use a more sterile approach so that I can monitor there food consumption more closly. A flourescent light will allow for plant growth and easy viewing of the terrarium by day however such lights should be set on a timer to reflect the lizard's natural life cycle and keeping the lights on continuesly would likely stress these lizards.

Feeding these lizards, especailly a breeding colony, can be considered a full time job -- possibly with overtime involved. For newborns the best food items are probably flightless fruit flies (D. Melanogastor), this is one of the reasons I use the tall plastic food container for the young is that it is more difficult for the flies to escape in this manner and even if they do by setting this plastic food container inside the adult breeders cage any "loose" newborns can devour them off. For 3 weeks old to sub-adult geckos D. Hydei is the most practical food source, although a good supply of very small crickets and Red Flour Beetle larva will also be needed.. The adults may or may not take mealworms from an old peanut butter container lid(such as the deeper ones like Jiff) but they will not hesitate to take small crickets. All in all to raise these creatures you will probably need to breed either large numbers or crickets, fruit flies, and flour beetle larva or be prepared to at least raise the fruit flies and purchase bi-weekly shipments of 500 1/8" crickets. The fruit flies are most easily raised by purchasing a "growers kit" that comes with the flies, medium, and foam plugged glass jars.

Egg laying will often not be noticed until one day a baby gecko is found hanging underneath the rim of the aquarium's lid(this seems to be a favorite hiding spot of mine), although for some reason they may at times lay a series of eggs out in the open along the warmest end of the terrarium. In my experience egg laying often occurs in difficult to access locations such as underneath brick piles. The eggs are small but noticable, white, and do not seem to desicate easily. If you have a group of four to five lizards and are patiant enough and feed the lizards well you should have baby geckos within 6 months. I am unsure if the eggs require any given temperature ranges to hatch as my terrariums have an ultratherm heater attached to the back wall with Tommy Tape to allow themoregulation and selection of temperature ranges for egg laying sites.

Opuntia compressa

One week ago I surface sowed some Opuntia compressa in a small container of soil. The temperature is mid-80s and is constant. I am waiting to see if they germinate in time or require stratification. I've read a number of conflicting reports on this, so I am curious to see how my experiment will turn out.

More Life Under Logs

Shown here are two species I found under logs in the past week. Both might never be observed by the average person, yet both are locally common in my area.