Care Sheet For The Southern Fence Lizard

By Zuriah Shara

Housing:

You should keep your lizard in a 10-20 gallon aquarium, a 10 gallon should do fine for two or three lizards. These lizards don't get very big (about five or six inches including tail) so they don't need huge and costly setups. You should have your lizards in SANDY MATERIAL ONLY!!! One: Because they bury themselves when they sleep and it can be extremely stressful for them trying to bury themselves in something bigger than a sand grain. And two: they're natural environments are very sandy and warm places.

You should NEVER house more than one male together because they will fight. You should have a basking rock with an overhead UV lamp (not an electric hot rock-these can scorch your lizard's belly). If you don't have a UV lamp your lizard can develop MBD (Metabolic Bone Disease) very quickly.

You should offer several hiding places:

  1. A moist hiding place
  2. A cool-off hiding area (cooler than the rest of the cage, you can do this by placing it in the opposite corner of the heat lamp).
  3. A sleep hide spot (make sure there is sand underneath this hiding spot for which your lizard can bury itself, like maybe a half log).

You should offer a water dish and several sticks to climb on. These lizards are expert climbers and if you have a screen covering you might often find your lizard hanging upside down exposing the beautiful blue stripes on its belly.

Feeding:

These lizards are of the insect-eating species and LOVE crickets but I've also had some luck with grasshoppers and different various bugs. These lizards can eat very large prey but never feed your lizard prey that is higher, longer or wider than your lizard's head because it can get stuck in your lizard's throat or not get properly digested. Be sure to dust your lizard's food with vitamin supplements (calcium and D3) which you can find at a pet store.

Climate:

These lizards like moisture. I would recommend misting the cage once a day and a water dish helps keep the right humidity.

Handling:

The female can be a GREAT lizard to handle if tame, and is not at all aggressive, for example mine loved to sit on my shoulder and if I left her somewhere in the house she would wait patiently for me to come and retrieve her but NEVER SET YOUR LIZARD DOWN OUTSIDE because it will run away. The male seldom adapts to being handled and will run away from you and will sometimes try to bite, but calms down if you stroke him on the belly, head or back. These lizards love to be stroked and held.

Taming Tips:

The greatest taming tip is stroking its belly (my female was tame within three days). When you do this for a while your lizard will become stiff and appear dead but don't worry, it is just sleeping. Please note though, that holding your lizard on his back for a long time can be harmful to the lizard. I can't think of any other tips except a lot of handling and make sure it has the right kind of set up.

Sexing:

It is pretty tough to tell the sexes apart but the male will have darker blue stripes on the belly and larger femoral pores.

Breeding:

First you will need to have a male and a female pair for fertile eggs. Mating season occurs during spring and you can tell if your female is gravid when you see the corners of your cage dug out (for laying her eggs), increased appetite, and bulging near the back legs.

When the female lays the eggs she will cover them up (you can tell where they are-- one of the corners will have dirt piled up on it). When she is done laying you will want to give her lots of supplemented food due to vitamin depletion during egg producing.

When you find the eggs you will want to pick them up and put them in a container with some moist vermiculite or paper towel. Be sure not to move them from their original orientation. It is best to move them out before your lizard covers them up, because it is very hard not to turn them when you are rooting through sand trying to find them.

Keep in mind that they dry out quickly. Make sure to keep it moist in their incubator. If you incubate them at about 83 degrees the majority of the offspring will be females, and if the temp is in the 90's the majority of the offspring will be males. The eggs will hatch within 50-70 days. Good luck!