Looking for something different?  Not a cat or dog person?  Don't have much space?  Maybe a reptile is what your looking for. Reptiles can be very rewarding pets and if you are not turned off by putting in a little extra effort setting up a home for them, you will have years of happy co-habitation!

Overview:

Pros:

• Fascinating pet that will amaze you for years to come
• Many reptiles only eat a small amount of food a couple of times a week
• Don't take up much room

Cons:

• All native reptiles are protected and you need a licence to keep any in captivity. (It is illegal to keep exotic (non-Australian) reptiles in captivity.)
• Need specialised habitats
• While you may be smitten with your new pet snake, others are horrified by them, so maybe keep that in mind when doing introductions!
• Specialised vets can be hard to find.

Common Pet Reptiles:

Reptiles kept as pets include animals such as snakes, lizards and turtles. They have dry skin covered with scales and, mostly, lay eggs.

Lizards, such as Blue Tongues and the Shingle Back Lizard, are gentle, lazy critters. They represent a direct link with the dinosaur era and in that fact alone they are fascinating animals.

Reptile Law:

Herpetology, the keeping of reptiles and amphibians, is covered by your state Nature Conservation Act or similar legislation. Local Authority By-Laws may also restrict the ownership of reptiles. If you are considering keeping reptiles you must ring the relevant state and local authorities to ensure you are able to keep the animals you are interested in. 

Housing:

Careful attention to housing and, in particular, temperature is one of the most important aspects in keeping a reptile as a pet. Reptiles are cold-blood animals. This means that they must draw their heat from their environment.

The easiest way of providing adequate heat is to put a 100-watt light bulb in or near their enclosure. The light is best hanging from their enclosure so that they cannot get too close to it, preventing the reptiles from burning themselves.

Some nocturnal species that do not tolerate light very well. Such reptiles are best placed in enclosures that are heated from within or below the floor so that the cage is dark.

Place the heat source at one end of their living quarters so that they have a gradient of temperature. In this way they can choose for themselves how hot or cold they need to be, which is what they do in the wild.

It is important that you know the temperature requirements of the individual species and, then, that the temperature characteristics of the enclosure are determined to see if they match. If you are establishing the cage in winter, be careful that overheating of the enclosure does not occur in summer.

Reptiles also need humidity kept above 50%.

Diet:

Feeding reptiles is somewhat different affair from feeding other pets. They also eat an entertaining array of fare.

First, lizards only need to be fed twice per week. They can become obese easily - especially Lace Monitors which are ‘piggy’ lizards.

Herpetologists usually feed large lizards on rats, mice, chickens, chopped lean meat and dog food whereas smaller lizards eat cockroaches, grasshoppers and the like. Some lizards also eat vegetable matter.

Don’t be too concerned if your lizards won’t each much or anything at all during winter - this is quite common and forcing them to eat can cause harm.