Tortoise Iguanas and the Natural Context

So beautiful. Well, I thought we'd do something a little bit different and talk about Lola and Senor Guapo, my two Cuban rock iguanas. I have to tell you, these guys are my favorite lizards of all time. They've been with me for 10 years. Today, we're going to learn all about them. There you go. This is Camp Kenny. So, here they are, Lola and Guapo. And the reason these guys are my favorite is because between the rhino iguanas and in my experience the Cuban rock iguanas, these guys seem to tame up so quick for me. I had them both when they were tiny little hatchlings back in 2004. And now look at them.

They're really cool, really interactive. I love them. I always tell people that these guys are more like dogs than any other reptile I've ever had. Look at Guapo down here. Isn't he gorgeous? Guapo hangs out with me all the time. Um, as you can see, when you rub them like this, he really responds to it. Um, they enjoy that. Now, as far as keeping Cuban rock iguanas, these guys require space. Um, you know, if you live up north, you have to have a lot of space. You got to have that UVB lighting and the proper diet. Obviously, down here in Florida, one of the biggest things I

I've wanted to do is create a habitat that had a lot of space. So, these guys have been living in here in this habitat for 11 years. This is their territory. This is what they do. They get a lot of exercise. They're so buff looking. Uh Guapo, he's a character, man. He actually comes with me to all my education shows. He's very handable. Again, I didn't do anything special with them except come into this enclosure all the time. So, in the wild, these guys are from Cuba. And the males are going to have themselves they're going to have themselves a territory. And in that territory,

there'll be a few other females that overlap into it. But each female has her own territory. So, one dude gets to kind of date a lot of gals, and that's how they do it in the wild. But here, the Camp Cannon, I keep just a pair. I don't like to have so many different lizards. I really like to focus on a couple of lizards, and the Cuban rock iguanas are certainly one of them. Look at this. Lola's going to come down here and see what I'm up to. Like I said, very inquisitive. They're always hungry and never full. So, it's very important not to overfeed your reptiles in captivity or your

Cuban rockas. Now, these guys are going to eat a lot of the same foods as my tortoises. In fact, they actually eat the tortoise diet, and they love it. But I also supplement their food. You know, that's just a little treat. I actually feed these guys. You can feed them green leafy vegetables, different weeds, hibiscus, hibiscus flowers, cactus pad, all the things that I grow down here in South Florida for them. And they're so robust. They do such a good job. Look at this. This animal loves me. I mean, well, we don't really know, but I know she knows that I bring her food,

right? That's exactly right. I love her face. And the males get a beautiful, if you look, Senior Guapo's eyes, he gets an incredible red eye. Such a cool, sick lizard. Uh, really prehistoric looking and I just love these terrestrial iguanas. If I were a pirate in the Caribbean, I wouldn't have a parrot. I'd have a Cuban rock iguana on my shoulder. That'd be my first mate. What's funny about them also is even when they were very young, I'm talking only a few inches long, after the first few months of me being out here with them, they learned the comfort level of who I am. In other words, they knew I wasn't going to eat them,

and they really did interact with me. That's why I'm so amazed by them. Now, again, people with rhino iguanas will sometimes have them tame up faster than Cubans. I think I just got lucky. I really enjoy them, and they'll climb all up on me. They know me. They actually can tell the difference between different people. So, they behave differently if I have a large group of people in the enclosure. But right now, they're just doing awesome. But what do you say we bring Guapo out and I'll show you how you feed him? Some of the different foods.

All right. So, I love to pull Guapo out and give him a walk. He's such a well- behaved lizard. I'm feeding him a little of the Missouri tortoise diet. You know, this is the Galopagos uh tortoise pen, and this is their water dish. He just looks so cool on it. I can't wait to build something similar uh that he can climb on in his enclosure. I want to talk to you a little bit about their diet. Now, these guys are very similar to the tortoise, as I mentioned. They feed on exactly the same things. You don't want to give these guys a lot of fruit. They're hind

gut fermenters, and that means that they have an organ in their intestines called the hind gut, and that actually breaks down the cellulose by a process called fermentation. And there is actually bacteria in that gut living in there that are beneficial to helping break down the cellulose and the plant matter they eat. So if you add too much fruit, I'm talking a lot, then what'll happen is it changes the environment inside his gut, kills off a lot of those beneficial bacteria and he gets diarrhea. And if you do it all the time, he's just not going to be a very happy lizard and he can get bloat. Also, something I want

to mention about the cycllora. If you look at this tail right here, really cool tail. Now, these guys are named kind of for their tails, the roundness of the tail. Cycllora, circular. That's exactly what the scientists were thinking of when they named them. Another way to tell the difference between a cycllora rockana and another type of a rockana like a centinosaur is the breaks in the spikes. So, you'll have a break here in the spike. Okay, it stops. You get a row of spikes, it stops, no spike. Then you have their dorsal crest here in the main body and another break.

So that's another telltale sign for the cycllor rock iguanas when distinguishing them. So I want to also talk a little bit about the tail. Now these guys are rock iguanas. They dig burrows. They live on the ground. Um only the young will go up into trees most of the time. So they don't climb too much in the trees. They're not a boreal. They're actually terrestrial and they clamor over rocks and they dig these burrows and they use this awesome tail they have that will drop if they are, you know, handled uh really hard. But they'll take this tail. And if you come in here, folks, check

this out. You can see that he's got these really cool scales right here. Now, these scales are facing backwards. It's kind of like trying to get out of a parking garage without paying for it. The backwards facing spikes that rip your tires off. Same exact principle here in nature. He can dig in that burrow, wedge his tail in, and there's no way you're pulling this lizard out of that burrow. You got to dig him out. So guys, girls, reptile lovers of all ages, that is the Cuban rockabana. Senor Guapo, an extremely handsome lizard, my favorite guy ever. They got personality. They're

easy to feed. They need some space and need some attention. They're one of the greatest animals out there. I can't say enough good things about Mr. Senora. Leds, have a good exercise, buddy. All right. What's happening everybody? Hanging out here today with the red foot tortoise. So many of you have asked questions about this amazing species. Very popular in the pet trade and I've got my shepherd stick. Or rather, I'm not a shepherd of the tortoises. I guess I'm a torper. New term on the coin. They're all coming out with something to eat. But today,

we're going to find some redoot tortoise eggs. And I'm going to go ahead and bring them into the incubator room and show you what can hatch out if you do the right thing with this amazingly colorful, interesting species from South America. So stick around. So, these have to be some of my favorite tortoises, the red foot tortoise, and they're from South America. But they are also an extremely variable and wide range species. That means they have a very large geographic area where they can be found. And sometimes they can be found in forests, other times in drier grassland. So, they're a very adaptable species. But here in

Florida, they do amazing because they like our high humidity and uh right now we are in the middle of October and that is actually their egg laying season. They go from September all the way to about the beginning of February. So what I'm going to do with this high-tech specialized rod, uh it's simply that. It's just a little rod. What I do is I gently tap the ground. And these guys like to lay around perimeters. So, I'll tap the ground and if it sinks in, then I know I may have found a nest chamber. Now, I've done this area already, but I just want to show you guys

if you look down here what happens when you sink in. This is an old nest. It sinks down really deep. See that? Now, some people will ask, "Hey, why are you doing that? Aren't you afraid of cracking some of the eggs?" And the reality is, guys, finding tortoise eggs is kind of difficult. All right? It's not like a snake. They don't lay their eggs and wrap around them like some of you ball python breeders. These guys, you really have to know what you're doing to find the eggs. So, it's better for me to at least crack one to get four out of the ground. However, sometimes,

as you'll find out later, I get even luckier and I actually get babies hatch right out and I just stumble upon them. But over here, I happen to know where there is a nest because I saw the female laying yesterday. So, what I'm going to do is not use this because we already know there's a nest. We don't need it. It's over here. Come on over here. Here's a little female right now. Now, this isn't the female that laid the eggs, but in this area, there is going to be some eggs because a young lady was doing her hard work and it's right around here. So, I'll gently just gently push

to see if I can find a soft area of dirt. That's where I know she's been digging. So, it's in this area. Oh, and I think I found an area right here. It's nice and soft here. I'm going to keep gently pushing down. And sometimes you can actually feel the eggs. So what we got to do is sometimes, man, sometimes they're good at hiding their eggs. Even if you think you've seen where they laid, it's very easy to make a mistake. Not there. But you want to be careful as you dig. Ah, and here we go. Look at this, guys. Here we go. Look at this. She was able to get them right in here.

And I'm going to gently brush them off so you guys can sneak in and look. Cuz this is what you got to do very carefully. You want to just excavate the area around the eggs. See how many we have. Looks like two. Hopefully there's more. Oh, there's a third. So, I'm going to let you guys sneak in here so you can see these eggs. Look at this. There's one, then two, and then over here there's a third one. So, we have to be careful when we pull them out. Now, here is something that maybe most of you don't know yet. A tortoise will lay her eggs, okay? And I know that this one was here yesterday.

It takes about 24 to 48 hours before the embryos start to develop. So, basically, if I were to just pull them out, they'd probably be fine. I'd put them in the incubator and then they would develop. The embryos would develop. But what I want most of you to do, and you should always follow the old rule with reptile eggs, is to never rotate them. Okay? So sometimes in some of my videos you'll see me just grab the eggs and that's because I know that they were laid very uh recently and so I know there's no danger in really harming the eggs. But here we're going to do it the proper way. And I'm

just going to make a little mark in the dirt on the egg so I know that's the top. And I'm going to pull it out and keep it in the same orientation and place it just over to the side. And then I'm going to do the same thing with the next egg. Just make a little mark cuz I don't have a felt tip marker with me all the time. So I'm just going to pull this out gently. Pick it up. Place it right down next to this guy. And now I'm going to look for that third egg, which I can feel. Make a little mark. Just Oh, this one's in there tight. She's really good at packing them in here,

kids. Oh, see that third egg. And I'm going to again make a little mark. Let's see. Is there are there any other eggs? Nope. Just three eggs, which is actually quite common for smaller redfoots. Uh the most I've ever gotten out of a large red foot for me personally was about six eggs. And I like to pat this back down because they like this area to lay. So I'm just going to pat it back down so that they can then reuse this area. and it'll form up nice for him. But here we have three eggs. We're going to take them gently. Usually, you might have a little bucket with some soil

in the bottom so you can put them in, but I don't have that. So, I'm just going to take them gently, keep them in the right orientation. Just hold them like this. And now, we're going to walk all the way over to my nursery, the reptile nursery where we have my incubator. I'm going to go ahead and put them in the incubator, but we're also going to see a little surprise. So, follow me. Okay. So, now we've got the eggs. They're in the same orientation. We haven't rotated them. And what I'm going to do is quite simply date them. I like to put RF for red foot. And then I put 10 21

cuz that's today's date. And uh we're going to do that with all of them. And now since we're marking them, we for sure know the proper orientation of the egg. So there you go. Red foot 1021. Put it back down and do the final egg. RF 1021. Now I have the container with the eggs that are already incubating right here. I'm going to gently move these and we're going to place them in the container. And look at this guys. We have quite a few red foots already. This is only one container. I have a few of them in the incubator already. So I've already mixed the vermiculite. There's

already enough humidity in that vermiculite. You want about 70% humidity for these eggs. You kind of put them on in. You just nestle them on in there. And I'm going to put the lid back on and bring it over to the incubator. And that is how I get these guys situated. Got to watch out here. So, we're just going to put them in and let nature do it take its course. So, we got red foots, cherry heads, leopards, radiated tortoise, all sorts. There's another red foot down there. So, we got a lot going on this season. I'm pretty excited. And we're just very early in redoot

season. Anyhow, but let me show you guys something really cool. So, a couple weeks ago, if you follow me on my Camp Kennon Facebook page, you may have seen a live Facebook mentions video. And in that mentions video, I found these little guys, baby red foots, right out of the ground in the red foot enclosure. Isn't that amazing? So, I was walking around out in the enclosure looking for eggs. And instead of finding eggs, I actually started digging up baby tortois. Man, they were fully formed in the nest just waiting to come on out. So, it's fantastic that I got them

before they hatched because who knows, a predator could have got them, a crow or could have got squashed by some of the adults, but I got them. Turned out that there were five. We got them all here. And so, I'm very happy about this. Anyhow, guys, I hope you enjoyed this little episode about the redfoot tortoise. It's a fantastic species. You should definitely look into getting one because they don't get huge. They eat very well, a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, and they do fantastic in captivity. So, okay guys, we're going to leave the nursery kids

here to doing their thing, get them hit again, and uh we'll see you on another episode. So long.