Telos Exotics

We hope to see you tomorrow at the Nebraska Reptile Breeders Expo! We're busy finishing up packing.

Along with an assortment of h**p supplies, we'll have frozen feeders (mice and rats), Kenyan sand boas, fire-bellied toads, lots of isopods and springtails, and some fancy domino roaches. As always we'll have some of our adult snakes as ambassadors as well. 💕 Stop by our booth and say hi!

Among our usual day-to-day family/zoo chaos, the last three months we've been carefully working with a special rescue hedgie on an unexpected hind foot amputation recovery. I'm so proud of how he's healing and handling the whole ordeal, and wanted to share how he looks! I'm including a photo collage showing his progress in the comments: please note it does show a dead, necrotic foot. It's not horrifying, just black - but view at your discretion.

Spike was surrendered as a young and healthy rescue to us and we found after a foot bath, to our surprise and horror, that what appeared to be a weird solid "p**p boot" was in fact his dead foot: with nails, foot pads, and all still attached. A hair or string of some kind got wrapped around it, and while the tourniquet had come off at some point, his foot tissue had already died.

As a digit amputee myself and with experience in veterinary rehabilitation, Spike landed in the perfect place! With our amazing exotics veterinarian Dr. Merkwan, we've assessed and monitored his foot for conservative treatment rather than a more invasive surgical procedure. We wanted to retain as much of the limb as possible so Spike could still realistically bear weight after the stump healed. It took about a month and a half before the last of the dead bone could be removed. Then was the long progress of not only growing brand new skin over the stump, but new skin that needs to become durable enough to function as a foot pad for bearing weight.

Healing was slow going for the new pad of his "foot" until our vet suggested we try a wound care product (RediHeal) which has been astonishingly effective. In two weeks, Spike has been able to grow new skin over almost the whole open area on his stump. Ordinarily a wound like this would be bandaged for protection, but there isn't a realistic way of safely keeping a bandage or cover on his stump.

Spike has been an incredibly tolerant, brave hedgie patient through this process and my hope is he'll be able to live a relatively normal life from here on out. His foot still has a teeny bit of healing to go, but at this point I think we can call this a success! 🎉

Happy World Snake Day!
We love sharing about how cool snakes are any day of the year - but today I'll give an extra shout-out to our daughter Kate, who is shaping up to be a wonderful ambassador for snakes. She's never met a snake she didn't like! Pictured are Elliot the ball python, Jester the cape house snake, and Crowley the rosy boa. 🥰

The hedgies have kept us busy lately! We have a sweet recent rescue needing medical attention 2-3x/day, and a whole lapful of darling babies to socialize. We actually have babies available to reserve right now, if you are local and interested in bringing one home! It's the first time in a while that new applicants won't have to wait for future litters.

Happy Friday!

Yesterday we had two very sad goodbyes for our little zoo.

Our panther chameleon Skittles came to us a year ago as an older boy with one working eye, and had a wonderful final year of basking in the sun in our yard with us. He had a steep decline over the past week, and we helped him pass yesterday. My heart hurts thinking of how long our daughter will point at “his” plant in the yard and shout “Skittles!” hoping that she’ll still spot him there.

Particularly difficult was the decision to help our single remaining (and shameless favorite) long-eared hedgehog pass. Cap had a mass on his foot that we and our vet had been monitoring anxiously, because Cap also had a heart condition that meant surgery would be especially risky. Despite the mass growing and becoming increasingly inconvenient for him, Cap kept his active, curious disposition. It isn’t easy to choose to help an animal pass when you can still envision good days ahead, but we knew his foot bothered him, and would only continue to get worse. Our vet helped ease our uncertainty when Cap didn’t do well under sedation before euthanasia - despite wishing we could attempt surgical removal, he likely would not have survived the procedure. I’m glad that we were able to make the tough call to say goodbye while he was still happy, rather than putting it off until his suffering was impossible to ignore.

This seems like a fair place to remind everyone that many small exotic pets hide their illnesses and pain very well, and it can be easy to miss (or dismiss) health concerns when they are otherwise acting normal. I wish every pet could pass peacefully at home, but realistically the kindest thing is often to bring them to your vet for a peaceful, painless passing. If in doubt, please don’t leave them waiting for their body to completely fail. Often the kindest decision we can make is to gently let them go. ❤️‍🩹

We planned our Saturday around a hedgehog meet & greet appointment which unfortunately no-showed on us. At least it meant that several of our adoptable rescue hedgies could have an impromptu photo shoot! This girl Clio is looking so much better than when she arrived here. ❤️

All of our current hedgie babies have been reserved for their new families! We're expecting our next babies in about 2 weeks - including a repeat of the pairing that produced our gorgeous girl Raven (pictured) at the beginning of the year. 🥰

Friendly reminder that applicants who have placed a deposit with us have priority for choosing who to reserve before babies are posted publicly.

Tomorrow is one of our biggest expos of the year! Come see us at the Nebraska Reptile Breeder's Expo. We'll have lots of baby snakes (rosy boas and Kenyan sand boas), plus fire-bellied toads, emerald tree skinks, cat geckos, a rescue ball python, lots of isopod species, bioactive-ready plants, and more!

Preorders: If you'd like to pick up any dubia feeders from us, let me know by 6pm tonight so I can be sure to get them packed for you! Our stock is low enough that we're not bringing any extras for sale.

Hedgehogs: There are no live mammals at this show, so we won't have any ambassador hedgehogs to meet - but we'll have some of our Hedgehog Precision staple diets available for our local customers who attend the show!

Happy Saturday! 🦔 It has been a hot, busy summer around here in Omaha. Here are two of our current hedgie babies - we'll get them and their siblings listed on the site in a week or two! Plus some new baby toads, skinks, and snakes. 💕