Picture Blog Post

Annnnnnnnd, as I promised, an entire blog post dedicated to pictures of Rocco and Savannah!
Wow, you guys have missed out on a lot...
I hope you enjoy these!

 A picture I snapped of them sleeping side-by-side a while ago... Rocco often sleeps upside-down like this! So funny.

 Just showing you their tails!

 This has to be my all-time favourite picture. Ever. It was my screensaver for weeks.

One day I caught some pictures of Savannah licking her lips and her eyes, and I got this one of her 'smiling'.

 Just a picture of  her licking her chops!

 Showing you how she wraps her little feet around my thumb. I love how small she is... Or was! She's grown so much :-(

 Rocco almost always sleeps on the big leaf at the front of the vivarium. He curls up his body and just chills out in the open.

 Here's a picture of him climbing the vivarium wall. He does this every night, and then climbs the wire mesh. His sticky paws against the mesh causes a ripping sound, and it keeps me awake most nights. Anyone else relate to this?

 A very cute little girl curled up on one of the poppers.

 And again! Bless her.

 Rocco was also very cute, and was holding his tail as if it were a branch.

Look at those male parts, too!

 We were cleaning out the vivarium and put Rocco and Savannah in the baby/egg box. They were not happy.

 They stared me out and made me feel guilty.

 I was rather amused to find Savannah perching on the thermometer one day.

The thermometer is right at the top of the glass with no climbing apparatus near it, and the wall was wet at the time... I'm not really sure how she got there! Must have jumped!

 Rocco and Savannah are finally starting to discover the 'pond' in the vivarium! Here's a picture of Rocco drinking from the bowl (and Savannah looking very pretty!).

 And another! Proud of my boo.

 Here's just a picture of them in the newly-arranged vivarium.

It looks so pretty.

 Rocco on his leaf

 Savannah copying him!

 Savannah very cutely clung on to the end of the jungle vine. She looks terrified for her life.

 And here's my handsome boy on the prowl!

 Here's Rocco all fired up the day after shedding.

He looks SO bright and orange on his back! He's absolutely beautiful.

 And again!

You can kind of see his bulge here, too. I meant to take a picture of it... It's gotten huge recently! I'm proud of my big boy!

 And again.

 And again, prowling towards Mama.

He seems to have this permanent little shiny spot on his head. It's kind of cute and makes him look messy - I've tried many times to wash it off but it seems to just stay.

 The handsome chappy licking his eyeball! Cute or gross, whatever tickles your fancy.

 A nice close-up of his handsome face. He's such a gorgeous boy.

 And again with the eye-licking!

 Savannah all fired-up! You can see that she still stays a lovely golden colour down her back, with fewer dalmation spots than Rocco.

 Her sides go a grey/brown colour, but in some lights they can look almost blue. She's not the golden girly she used to be!

 Here's my little trooper climbing the glass. She looks like a starfish!

 And again. You can see how much she's grown here.

 From the side.

 One of my favourite things about Savannah is her 'leopard belly'. It's really distinctive and different to Rocco's, and I love how the grey-blue spots contrast the bright yellow belly.

 Another one of her beautiful belly.

 A close-up of Rocco licking his eye! I love how it cups around the eyeball. So clever!

 These were taken just yesterday, when I found Rocco sleeping on his leaf.

 He's so big and heavy that his body actually weighed down the leaf - he's almost falling off! Half his body isn't even on! He can't be comfortable, surely!?

 A closer up picture showing his body half off the leaf. Haha, so funny!

I'm afraid that's about it for the pictures at the moment (the good ones, anyway!). I know you all enjoy seeing the pictures of them.

Rocco has become extremely sexually mature recently, and Savannah is almost there. They're coming up a year old now, and we all know that Rocco grows at a very fast rate, but Savannah has had a large growth spurt or two recently! She's almost the same size as Rocco now. I don't know where my little baby has gone!

We're about 90% sure she is female, and I am slightly wary about the small chance of her being male. Now that they're becoming sexually mature, I don't want them to fight if she is.

However, we're pretty sure of her gender, and we are expecting babies soon if she's female. Soon being months most likely, but that's soon enough for me!
I'd love to have another female at some point, maybe for Christmas or my birthday, but my parents don't seem too keen. Hey ho. I have these 2 and I love them endlessly.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Elly. x

An Update in Bulk!

Good day everybody, and welcome back!

I'm going to be posting a lot at the moment, as I've unfortunately come down with the chicken pox (we think!). We're not sure yet, but we're heading to the doctors tonight. If I have it, I will be off from college for the next 2 weeks with not a lot to do. So, you lucky fans will be getting triple the number of posts! Hooray!

Before I start, I'd like to apologise for not posting a lot about Rocco and Savannah recently. I'm going to try to do this at least once a fortnight so you can know how they're coming along. The reason behind it is that I've been getting a whole lot more views from the advisory posts. People seem to like these, and it helps my blog to seem professional rather than personal.

I do, however, have a lot to tell you! So in stead of getting little snippets throughout the week, you're going to get news in BULK.

My first piece of news is that I believe Rocco and Savannah may have mated last night.

I've had suspicions about them mating for a few weeks now, due to a lack of crests down Savannah's back. We thought maybe this was just the way her crests had formed, as she's still growing and they may not have fully developed yet.

However, last night I swear they got down and jiggy with it! I heard a little squeaking, shuffling around and bumping during the night, and woke up this morning to find them sleeping together.

I know I said that Rocco and Savannah usually sleep together, but this is not so much the case anymore. Now they're in the bigger vivarium and they've got all that space, they tend to spend less time together and more time exploring. When they had a smaller enclosure, they were basically forced into cuddling!

Here's a quick picture I took of the happy couple (Rocco left, Savannah right) sharing a branch a moment ago. I usually wouldn't allow Rocco to sleep upside-down, but I don't want to disturb them. They look so cozy and cute snuggled up together...

I really hope she becomes gravid! I'm eager for eggs!

Some other news is that the pair of them have been eating impeccably well.

Those of you who followed my previous posts that mainly updated on Rocco and Savannah will know that the pair of them are fussy eaters. Rocco won't eat a lot of foods and won't hunt, and Savannah only eats the wriggliest of live-foods or CGD!

I've been encouraging them to consume mealworms for the past few weeks and it is all they've been eating. I've got Savannah to do a lot of hunting, and Rocco a little bit, and they've munched down at least 3 worms every 2 days. I'm very proud of them, particularly Rocco.

Savannah has also gotten so big!

She's becoming a lot darker with age and she's still not the most sociable of crested geckos, but boy is she growing. I've not caught her shedding yet, although I've had suspicions of her shedding multiple times now.

I'm impressed how such a little thing could have grown so much in such a short time!

Here's a picture of the 'golden girl', clinging onto Mama!

(Sorry for the messy room in the background, haha! I was having a sick day!)

I mentioned in a previous post that we had a little trouble with Rocco and calcium.

I noticed that his tail was slightly crooked and I couldn't get him to open his mouth, so I couldn't check his calcium sacs. I was immediately worried he might be suffering from calcium deficiency, because at the time I was basically starving him until he would eat the live food I offered them.

So, to resolve the issue, I mixed a load of calcium with the water on his favourite 'drinking leaf'. He lapped it all up, and so did Savannah, and in a few days of doing so his beautiful tail was repaired! I don't know if this was coincidental or it was purely down to the extra calcium, but at least I know he was getting what he needed.

I would recommend this method for anybody who has doubts.

Last but not least, I am planning some time soon to have a massive photo shoot!

I've advertised a little bit through the people I know to find a photographer who can help me take some natural pictures of Rocco and Savannah to use in the blog. I'm hoping to catch them eating, drinking, licking their eyes, jumping, climbing - all the natural things they do on a daily basis to use as images on my blog.

When I write posts, it's annoying to have to link the images to their original source, and I feel like I'm cheating to use other people's pictures! It would be good to have a set of my own to use in my advice posts. So this will be occurring soon!

That's pretty much the last of my news at the moment. Other than that, you should know that Rocco and Savannah are doing very well.

I miss them a lot when I'm at college (sad, I know!) so it will be good to spend time with them now I'm home for a while.

I hope you enjoyed the quick update.

I will be posting tomorrow, or perhaps even later today, with an advice post if you're interested.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

Elly. x