Our private
rescue facility is located in Little Rock, Arkansas. Our main building,
or the "Reptile House", is home to our Animal Ambassadors, Permanent
Residents, and animals awaiting adoption. Outside, we have secure
enclosures for turtles, tortoises, and some of the lizards to live in
during the warmer months. New additions are always
quarantined in our Quarantine Facility - which is a fully-detached,
separate building - for a minimum of three to
six
months depending on their condition and other factors. Since tanks take
up a lot of space, we primarily use custom-built stacking cages to
house most
of the animals. These specially designed, reptile-specific cages ensure
that our residents have privacy to feel secure,
maintain a proper temperature gradient, and can be cleaned easily.
With the exception of some of our turtles and tortoises, animals are
always housed singly as we have found that most reptiles thrive in
solitary
conditions and it is easier to monitor health this way. Each animal is
given
an appropriately-sized enclosure, proper heating and lighting as
needed, digital thermometers and thermostats for temperature control,
safe substrate, and one or more hiding places to feel secure. All of
the reptiles are fed a proper diet on a regular feeding schedule
depending on age and species, and supplemented with calcium and
vitamins if necessary. Our snakes are all fed frozen/thawed prey - we've
had a 100% success rate with switching them over from live feeding.
When our animals need professional medical attention, we have a couple wonderful veterinarians
to work with.
Dr. Marilyn Baeyens and Dr. Amy Hawley at the North Hills Animal
Hospital in
Sherwood are both highly skilled in reptile medicine and have been
invaluable to work with, especially for some of our more extreme rehab cases. Dr.
Baeyens, our primary veterinarian, is one of only two vets in the state
of Arkansas certified by the Association of Reptile and Amphibian Veterinarians.