ITS CHRISTMAS!!!

thereptileroomie
Dec 20, 2025
4 min read

Updated: Jan 2

Christmas has come early in The Reptile Room with the arrival of six baby geckos!

Ruby and Severus have done it again - another two beautiful Lilywhite babies hatched out this morning!

Welcome to the world Lily and Hermione❤️

Their arrival now brings the total number of baby cresties in our nursery to TEN!

The biggest of the babies - Nova and Sam - are ready and waiting for their new homes, whilst Frodo, Bilbo and Merry have already booked theirs.

Speaking of new homes; Stella and Amber have both been adopted which leaves Whisky as the last of the rescues to secure a forever home.

As well as our new baby cresties we have also had four baby mourning geckos hatch out and moved into nursery jars where they will stay until they are rehomed. Which I don’t expect to be too long as they have been very popular lately 🎁

New Arrivals at The Reptile Room shop.

In other news we have two new arrivals! Briar; a spiny flower mantis, and Rose; an orchid mantis.

They are insanely tiny and it’s near impossible to get a decent pic even with the macro lens but I tried my best.

I love mantids, The Reptile Room just isn’t the same without at least two in residence at all times.

New arrivals in The Reptile room rescue

Unfortunately the heater in our rescue room has died a death and so we have made the decision to shut down our rescue room and move Whisky into the warmth or The Reptile Room, she seems very impressed with the change in location as she has gained 2g in the last week! Unfortunately she’s still as spicy as ever 🤦🏼‍♀️ Come on girl, it’s up to you now; we can’t rehome a spicy lady, it’s time to calm yourself down and cop yourself on 🤣

Of course that doesn't stop us from taking in beasties in need - we actually have two new arrivals on the way from across Ireland to join us in the reptile room... watch this space for their introductions!

Krinkle - A Reptile Room rescue success story

For those of you who are following Missy Krinkle's story we have an update; a wonderful update.

Our little fighter has reached 40g - and she did it before Christmas which just makes it extra special.

If you’d have asked me (which many of you did) if I honestly expected Krinkle to make it, to pull through - let alone go on to THRIVE - I have told you that I am a realist; I hoped for a positive outcome, I wanted to give her a chance but would not go to extraordinary measures to keep her alive. She was in really bad shape and the body can only take so much pain and suffering before it starts to shut down. I told her veterinary team that I’m not interested in per-longing her suffering; I didn’t want to torture her if she had no fight left in her.

I asked the team “if she were yours, would you do this to your pet? Does she realistically stand a chance of not only survival but also will she have any kind of a quality of life at the end?”

We had no idea how badly her muscles and bones had wasted away before we rescued her, and there were very real concerns that IF she survived the surgery that she would never be able to climb again, that she would have to be kept in a short and long enclosure. Would it be fair to keep an arboreal reptile in a terrestrial set up? We talked through all these things and made plans; milestones and what would happen if she didn't meet them.

Krinkle was extremely thin after surgery

Well as you know, she flew through surgery, recovered much quicker than we had

anticipated and after two months in recovery she was transferred into her first ever fully bioactive vivarium. It was a bare back (as in no custom background) 45x45x60.

I monitored her for one month to see how she would

use the space - to see if she could climb (yes), would she use the height (yes), could she use a rope (no), could she navigate branches (yes), is she hard on plants (no), can she jump (no), would she hunt the clean up crew (yes), does she bask (yes), where does she like to sleep (tunnels) and so on.

With this in mind we built her a 60x45x60 fully custom vivarium, one that incorporates all of her needs.

There is a ramp up to the top to help her up and down, a cork bark to sleep inside or bask on top of, I’ve also been able to use lots of plants that I can’t often use with the cresties as they are so derpy they jump all over them and break them, whereas Krinkle likes to sneak behind them and under them and then pounce out on her bugs. Speaking of bugs - as she is so fond of them - I wanted something brightly coloured so she will be able to spot them easily but also something that breeds super quickly so she wouldn’t decimate the population in one night! So orange powders and dairy cows fit the bill.

In the daytime you can only see her nose sticking out of her cork tunnel bed, at night when I check on her she’s all over the place - she’s never in the same place. She uses it all. It’s safe to say she likes it.

Today Krinkle is healthy, happy and thriving. Her skin is no longer dry and wrinkled; it’s

soft like velvet. Her eyes are bright, her tail has filled out which was a surprise. When you stroke her you can’t feel her ribs, her hips no longer dig into your palm; dare I say it - she’s chunky!

I love her to bits. It was all 100% worth it.

Thankyou again to everyone who donated to Krinkle's surgery. I’m thankful every day, every time I see her, hold her, think of her.

Thankyou

Merry Christmas

Sarah

The Reptile Room