The big move! Long trip for the chams...

Sorry Lee, no more reptile shows together. :( We leave Saturday so it's official enough to change it now. But I did find someone who breeds Axolotls in Denver! Guess what my next pet will be, and soon. ;)

Laurie - don't worry we'll be taking regular potty breaks for the dogs, and staying the night in New Mexico so we're not driving too long. :)

Clark - are Suzi's females for sale?

O wow you have to post pics up of them when you get them :) I still want one I just can't find the one I want at the price I want lol.
 
Enjoy your trip and make sure its a safe one. Tiredness kills, take a break (thats what the electronic signs sometimes say in the UK just before a service station/rest area)!!.

I too am about to do almost the same thing moving from Germany to the UK. Im gonna be on the road for around 12 hours. My chams are gonna be in a cardboard box lined with polystyrene, possibly 2 boxes. Im leaving mid afternoon, arriving sometime early hours of the morning, setting up ALL of their cages, sleeping a couple of hours until 8am, then waking them up, putting them in their cages and finally waiting for the delivery men to arrive with my household furniture etc. Then its a fun filled day of unpacking. :(
 
So I was worried about what to put the pygmies in while we're staying over a day in San Antonio. I haven't introduced one pair yet, and the 3 wc are still fairly new so aren't acclimated terribly well. I don't really have anything to fit the 5 of them, and I think that might be a bit much for them anyway. But it occurred to me earlier today that if I put their nice exo terras on the truck like planned then all their plants I've been working to grow would bake and die! So in that case, I'll just have to fit their cages into the car for travel, wrap them up so they're dark during transport and then they don't ever have to be pulled out of their cages or anything. So that should work well! Fitting them plus everything else into the car is going to be tricky though...
 
Ah! The great state of Colorado. I'm moving their in the next 3-5 years. lol. School first, then move there. You'll be there for a long time.? I'll need a good vet. haha. :D

I hope the move goes swimmingly.
 
I hope this trip goes well for you! If it does, you will become the default expert on transporting chameleons for the board.

No pressure though....

Oh, and good to know that you are a fan of Allie Brosh (is that right?). I send good thoughts her way every day to get her back to good physical and mental health...the internet needs Hyberbole and a Half.
 
Moved from Washington state to rhode island with my male vieled. We did great and if you want to know it wasn't as complicate as you may think. It was a 5 day drive not counting me stopping for 5 days to visit family and setting up my whole set up lol. And then driving some more he was as happy as ever.
 
Hi Dayna, can you imagine explaining your menagerie to a highway patrol?? "umm, well you see officer...these are cats, turtles, dog, and oh yeah, uh chameleons". "

Have a wonderful adventure!! A brand new start, new home, new job, big 'ol new VETERINARIAN lives here shingle. beautiful country. awesome family, enjoy!!
anne
 
Oh, and good to know that you are a fan of Allie Brosh (is that right?). I send good thoughts her way every day to get her back to good physical and mental health...the internet needs Hyberbole and a Half.

Yeah her last post was a bit of a downer...I know she's working on a book so I'm just hoping that's what's taking up all her time. I'll be first in line to get her book!!

Cruxxy - man 5 days driving is a LONG time! I'm glad now for only 3 days of driving. :p

Anne - I was thinking about that too! We got pulled over last time we drove to Colorado, but we weren't doing anything wrong. He pulled us over 'just to check to see where we were going'. He was nice about it and let us get back on the road pretty quickly at least. It's going to be quite the sight if that happens again!
 
Yes! I'll be working in south Denver. It's an emergency clinic, so mostly dogs and cats. But they want to improve their care and experience with exotics, which is one of the reasons they were interested in me. Before I get too focused on exotics (the future goal) I want to make sure I am very proficient with good ol dogs and cats since everything in exotics is extrapolated from what is known best. And with emergency I will see anything and everything, from minor to catastrophic and everything in between. So it should be a great first year to solidify everything I was taught and get a ton of experience with a wide variety of things. It's scary, but exciting. ;)
 
That's awesome! I'm looking at moving into the Colorado Springs/Boulder area. So...like an hour and a half away. So if you get big into exotics in about 3-5 years, we will probably be seeing each other.
 
I think it's great how you and your husband decided you wanted a geographic change and actually made it happen. Colorado is a beautiful state. That drive through west Texas is hell, but it's only one day. Good luck with the drive and the chams :)
 
Well....first leg of the trip is done. Gotta love moving your entire house by yourselves when it's 96 degrees and 60% humidity. I had to pack up the chams kind of early to make their cages fit well on the truck (which was packed to the last inch) and like I thought, Oscar protested quite a bit at first.
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But after a a little while everyone curled up on their perches in their travel boxes and went to sleep like I wanted:
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The 3 hour drive (the shortest leg) was pretty uneventful luckily. While Simon was eating dinner I had to keep circling the parking lot because if I stopped for more than a few minutes the dogs got anxious, the cats started meowing, and the turtles started scratching around. Having to bring the pygmy cages made my car a little more packed than I thought it would be...
Front seat:
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Big pygmy cage under blanket with George and baby turtles in boxes on top. Tortoise was wedged under the passenger seat.

Back seat:
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3 rows - dog beds with dogs, pygmy cage under red blanket + Oscar and Buster on the cooler, crate with 2 cats

We got to my parents' house in San Antonio to spend the night...which was a nightmare. One of the cats is super chill about everything so we let him out of the kitty crate and he was just playing and rolling around. Well apparently around 5am (we went to bed around 1am) he decided his litterbox wasn't good enough and peed on the bed right over Simon's legs. So he wakes me up and at that moment my dog pukes in a projectile fashion on the bed. Awesome. So I gather up the gross comforter and try to salvage the mostly clean sheets (after Simon takes my spot, which is the cleanest and promptly passes out again). I tried to put the cat back in the crate, but he meows nonstop until I let him back out. Well about 6am the baby turtles start scratching at the box because they have impeccable internal clocks (it was pitch black). So I take them into another room and lay back down. At about 7am the dogs need to be fed, and the cats argue over food. Go back to bed. 9am...scratch...scratch....scratch....apparently George is awake in his box. So I get up and make all the temporary cages for the chams, which worked really well! I highly recommend these for travel cages if anyone needs them! They seem quite happy:
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Exhausted from no sleep and sore from moving but at least all the critters are content now! The big drive starts tomorrow when we go from San Antonio to Raton, NM to stay the night before actually getting to Denver. One step at a time!
 
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Ugh what a night! Try to take a nap before you hit the road again, you don't want to do a long drive now and get sleepy half way there. That, or chug coffee like there's no tomorrow! lol Hopefully the rest of your move is better.
 
hey if your taking the back road from the pan handle into colorado you will lose phone and gps reception nothing to see untill you hit i35 or i25 i get those to mixed up when i moved from texas into colorado!!! but when you hit colorado its just about a 2-3 hour drive to denver!!! bring soda cause i got altitude sickness as soon i as got into colorado. oh and the soda helps with the headache cause like me it made my sugar level drop an my buddy who lives there told me about it to get rid of it.
 
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