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Bearded Dragon eating crickets.

And now to explain why I posted that - I was telling Crawl that by the time we're completely moved into our new house and I have more stable employment, the cat I wanted to adopt at the shelter may be adopted already. If that's the case, I was considering getting a lizard instead, but I have several conditions on that:

1. It would have to be something that can live in a dry tank. I don't want to fill a tank with water or mud. Too difficult to regulate and keep clean.

2. It would have to be something that can live off of insects, worms, and plants. I will not feed mice (living or dead) to any animal because I had mice for pets when I was younger and it's against my ethics.

3. It would have to be something that's relatively small and won't get so big that it would outgrow the tank and/or be a threat to the kitties.

It sounds like Leopard Geckos and Bearded Dragons are good choices for first-time lizard owners and they meet the above criteria. (Some people do feed them baby mice, but it's not required since they would rarely (if ever) eat something like that in the wild.)

I had anoles years ago, but they never lived very long. I think now it's because we did not have UV lighting for them, but I don't remember hearing anything about that back then.

Some of the tank setups I've seen on YouTube for these lizards look really nice, with desert plants, rocks, and backdrops. Unfortunately, I don't want to post the nicest ones I've seen because those videos do depict the lizards eating small rodents.

I don't know if that's necessarily true. I had hamsters, rats, and parakeets even though we also had Bubba and Duke. We just kept them in my bedroom with the door closed so the cat and dog couldn't get to them.

But the thing about an aquarium is that unlike wire cages, the cats can't get their paws or claws inside it, especially if you put a cat-proof lid on it. And with three bedrooms, during times when the lizard would need to be out of the cage (for cleaning or whatever) you can just close the door.

My main concern would be the feeding costs. I can imagine crickets and live worms being expensive, especially on a weekly basis to purchase. Cat food is cheap. I don't think adding Hermes increased our food and litter costs much at all (unexpected vet bills, on the other hand...)

Aaaaaggghhh!!!

It doesn't want to be a second-class citizen?




(YouTube's recent lagging problems are pissing me off)