Part VI: Giving an Exotic a Second Chance in .NET

Make Code 128C in .NET Part VI: Giving an Exotic a Second Chance

To discover more about turtles, check out Turtles & Tortoises For Dummies by Liz Palika (Wiley)

Washing your hands before you pick up any amphibian is particularly important because their porous skin is so susceptible to contamination Use cold water and leave your hands wet amphibians like cool temperatures and hot hands can be very uncomfortable for them Dry hands can scratch their delicate skin resulting in an infection Frogs can be jumpy and hard to hold onto, so scoop them up carefully around the waist, if you must But take a hint: If a frog is jumping away from you, that means he is not eager for any cuddling In general, frogs don t want to be and shouldn t be handled Try especially hard never to touch small delicate frogs like dart frogs, only because you can injure them Poison dart frogs are poisonous in the wild but in captivity, they lose their poisonous coating after a few weeks, so you don t have to worry that your frog will slay you Still, their delicacy makes them unsuitable for any kind of handling Instead, guide them into a small container and move them that way Remember to keep them in a moist environment when you re cleaning their cages You can grasp salamanders and newts around the waist to move them In general, amphibians aren t aggressive and don t bite, but you don t want to hurt them or scare them, so remember to move slowly and be gentle Don t handle them more than you have to

What can be more startling than having a giant spider creeping up your arm Some people really groove on these guys and think a tame tarantula is an incredibly interesting pet The mellower and more popular pet spiders most notably the Chilean Rose Hair usually are easy to handle if you move very slowly and handle them gently To pick up your tarantula, follow these steps: 1 Coax a spider onto your hand by tapping it gently from behind Use a pen (see Figure 23-3) or a soft spidery paintbrush to urge your tarantula forward the feel of the brush is similar to the feel of another spider and less startling to a tarantula 2 Lift your hand gently Or, if your spider is very tame, you can pick him up gently by the body, behind the front legs, as shown in the second part of Figure 23-3 3 Hold him loosely in an open palm

Figure 23-3: Carefully coax a tarantula into your hand to pick him up (left) Or pick him up gently by the carapace, the spider s body (right)

Tarantulas look large, but they re fragile, so stay close to the floor or a tabletop A drop to the floor can injure or kill a tarantula Move slowly and keep your other hand handy if your spider wants to play musical palms, or you want to encourage him not to explore the nice dark space down the front of your shirt 4 To set him down, place him gently into his enclosure with all eight legs on the ground You can easily tell when your tarantula doesn t want to be held or bothered Tarantulas rear up with their front legs as if getting ready to strike Don t pick up your new tarantula until you re sure that he is docile As for other nonherp exotics, unless you re an experienced hobbyist, don t try to pick up any scorpion or centipede because they are venomous Scorpions brandish their stingers in a menacing fashion They mean business Centipedes may not reveal their displeasure until it is too late You can pick up your hissing cockroach gently if you must, and he may not care, or he may hiss at you, but he won t bite