As far as feeding goes; its all about the greens. Endive, escarola, dandilion greens,bok choy etc. are all great foods to feed. Hibiscus is an excellent treat. DO NOT feed crixs or any animal protein. Very dangerous to their digestive tract. You also feed thawed mived veggies. Fruits should be fed sparingly. Mango, papaya, apple, grabes and cactus pads (with the thorns pulled out) can be fed. Lettuce has no nutional value. Brocolli is bad for them along with spinach and citrus fruits. You may trust this pet store but uros are relativly new to the pet trade and a pet store cannot know every animals care to the T even though they should.

You can soak a uro every now and then. I soak mine once a month. Make sure you thoughly dry the uro afterwards.

Uros when young have very blane colors and won’t really start developing their colors to around a year and a half to two years of age. Females will stay a grayish color their whole lives.

I highly recamend reading the care sheet on www.deerfernfarms.com

A few quick comments-

If the outdoors temperatures are not too low, natural sunlight can be very beneficial to your uromastyx. I am not certain what uvb levels you have there in Florida right now (we have little to zip here in Ohio) or what temps you have but I would see nothing wrong with a half of an hour of natural sunlight if the temps were in the 80s. I would not advise holding the uromastyx during this activity and would also caution you not to use a glass enclosure in direct sunlight or high temps. Using a well-ventilated or open top container of some sort works best. If using an open top- make sure that the walls are high enough that the animal cannot escape and never leave the enclosure unattended due to neighborhood cats, dogs, and overhead birds of prey. If the day is extremely warm, (probably not a problem now) you need to offer some shade. Another concern with your current situation is the need to limit stress during acclimation as taking the uro outside may very well create some additional stress.

Regarding the comments on humidity by rcb.... Humidity does exist in a uromastyx natural habitat. The burrow dwelling species have sleeping chambers as well as egg chambers that have a fair amount of humidity. This is one we reason we need to incubate uromastyx eggs at a rather high humidity level. :)

My views have changed somewhat over the years with the humidity issue and uromastyx.

In my opinion, as long as the uromastyx is healthy and not subjected to high humidity levels long-term or high humidity levels with lower than adequate temps, humidity does not pose that great of a problem. In fact, over the last year or so I have begun offering humidity hide boxes (along with a standard hide) to aid in shedding and to offer the ’choice’ of a humid area.

I also disagree with the water bowl comment by rcb. I have a water dish (lid) in with last year’s hatchlings and the humidity level has not risen to a dangerous level nor has it caused any respiratory illnesses. Keep in mind that living in a state with high humidity and offering a water dish will certainly be different (enclosure humidity) than living in a non humid state and offering a water dish. The humidity level would need to be monitored closely in a humid state. There are some fairly reliable humidity gauges on the market.

I personally do not soak my uromastyx unless I have a newly acclimating dehydrated animal, trying to remove scent for introductions or breeding purposes, have a severe shedding problem, (virtually non existent for me) or have an animal that decided to drag himself (always the males) through some crap- literally. (this is more of a problem on paper substrate than particulate substrate)

My biggest recommendation is to get the enclosure asap and play around with heat sources and temperatures before placing the uromastyx in his new home. You can buy a rather inexpensive digital thermometer at Kmart or Wal-Mart- I would recommend against a dial or stick on as they are not very reliable and are difficult to move around. Although uva is important, (uros love light) you want to make sure that you have a bulb producing enough heat. Some bulbs that promote uva just do not put off enough heat for most enclosures. Going to a reptile bulb specifically used for heating or a halogen may be beneficial but may also require a porcelain (ceramic) socket. It is my opinion that several heat sources must be used in most enclosures to get a correct basking spot temperature and the proper gradient (temp and zone).

Mike has done a nice job of putting together a thread with links to posts with common husbandry issues. I will bump this to the top of the list for those that might be new to the forum.