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Joined: Jul 23, 2005 Posts: 385 Location: North Carolina
Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2005 6:45 am Post subject: Preventing Mosquitos
I will be building an outdoor retainer for some Tegus during the year and part of the setup will be a cemented pond in one of the corners. Mosquitos are quite a problem here and still water brings them to breed. Does anyone know of a treatment i can put in the water to kill off the mosquitos, or prevent them from hatching eggs, without harming the tegus? _________________ The Jay
Other than fastidious cleaning?
Not really, but you could try some of the Off thingies you find at the stores.. they're not using poisons.. but I believe it's an irritant of some sort to drive them off.. you could try it out for a while and keep it elevated, I don't believe your Tegus would come to any harm unless they suffered a reaction to it..
Hm
Definitely do NOT put any pesticides or chemicals in that pond as your tegus will more than likely be drinking it. The easiest, safest and most intelligent way to combat mosquitos in that sort of situation is simple - stock the pool with small fish, they will eat any mosquito larvae that develop. That being said, I'd further advise to avoid making the pool deep as most tegus do not make good swimmers and I've seen several drown.
Well the off stuff travels in the air, and though I wouldn't know, it wouldn't make much sense for it to dissolve in water.
It's more of a thing to prevent the adults than the larva/eggs... which would probably be eaten by the tegus anyway.
And a note.. in the area, the mosquitos might harbor pesticides internally and as such you should do your best to drive off any adults period rather than risk your tegus sickening from it... Do some research on home mosquito control
I man a WNV hotline in the summer to answer lots of questions about mosquitos...
The chemical in off works by inhibiting the biochemical cascade mosquitos need to actually feed. It's quite toxic and we recommend it not get put on small children, dogs, cats, birds, etc. DO NOT PUT IT IN WATER. Nothing besides DEET is actually effective for repelling them, even citronella is getting its approval yanked.
There are BT solutions you can buy in greenhouses for ponds & water barrels, but I don't know if they were ever designed for pets to drink from. The only toxicity shown in people with sprayed BT are with those who actually handle and apply it.
The best thing for a pond would likely be fish, a pump to make the water surface move and/or frequently changing of all water... preferably letting it dry out.
Beware - in some areas it's illegal to have standing bodies of water that could harbour mosquitos. It would actually be safest to get a shallow tub, fill it with water daily for the animals, then empty it at night and let it dry out. Less attractive, but safer.
Joined: Jul 23, 2005 Posts: 385 Location: North Carolina
Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2005 5:02 pm Post subject:
The fish would probably not work, since it will be shallow and i do want to clean it out, at least, every few days.. I want the pool to be wide though, so an adult tegu can get all of him/herself in, but not deep, cause i don't need dead tegus floating in it. But i guess the best thing will be just cleaning it out. Now as for the mosquito repellants... Would you recommend them for the yard surrounding the tegu retainer? I wouldn't put it in the water, but if it was in the yard elsewhere, do you see that as a problem? Reason this is such a big deal to me, is that i live near a lake.. and MAN, the mosquitos are mean and nasty as it is. _________________ The Jay
I can't really see what mosquito repellants would do around the enclosure... they don't actually stop mosquitos from landing, they just act to make it impossible to bite...
perhaps you could try planting a "fence" of geraniums around the outside of the pen? Geraniums do repel mosquitos (also, put out window boxes if you want They also look pretty, and the flowers are edible for both you and the tegu as long as they're not sprayed with something awful.
Another idea is completely covering the cage... I assume it's going to have some kind of screen covering on at least the top, if not the sides, so maybe make it a double thickness (have you ever seen a homemade hot snake cage? use something like that so their nails don't tear it up when they climb) and put mosquito mesh on the outer layer so they can't actually get INTO the tegu enclosure... it'd hardly cut down on UV...
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They also look pretty, and the flowers are edible for both you and the tegu as long as they're not sprayed with something awful.
