Buddy, the not so amazing escape artist.

Buddy has enjoyed his cage that Amanda made for him. And when I used to feed him grasshoppers, they enjoyed it also, but in another sense. You see grasshoppers like to eat, and don't like to be in cages. If that cage happens to be made out of plastic netting, they will eat their way out of it. So now there are a few holes in his cage (also, I've stopped feeding them to him cause there would be no more cage if they were still around). Most of them are pretty small, but one of them is rather large ( I think they started learning that if they all concentrated on one spot, they could get out faster). I had some tape on it, but that doesn't seem to stick very well on netting.

So on Saturday I spent most of the day on the computer and heard some weird noises at some point coming from Buddy's cage. I look over at it, and see Buddy halfway out the big hole! I freaked out, and tried getting him to go back in. But of course ever since his accident a few months ago, he hasn't liked any human contact. So my method of getting him back into the cage was basically putting my hand near him and scaring him back into the cage. This worked, but made him extremely upset. I had been planing to try to get him out this weekend to clean his cage (I haven't cleaned it since his accident), but gave up on that quickly.

Then, Sunday morning Amanda comes into the bedroom while I'm still sleeping and tells me that she's going to open Buddy's cage to try to get him out so we can clean it. I mumbled something, and about 1/2 an hour later she comes back in carrying Buddy on one of his sticks. I'm still asleep at this point, but soon wake up quickly when I see him. By the time I'm fully awake and head into the office to bring Buddy back into his heat/UV lamp, Amanda pretty much had his cage cleaned out. I sat with him for awhile, and took some good close-up pics of him. I then started working on fixing the whole in his cage, and letting him walk around Amanda's chair and desk. He didn't really like the desk, cause there was no grip for him, but it was funny to see him try and walk around. Amanda soon had his cage sparkling clean, and set up with his new BioVine he got for Christmas, and I had the netting fixed, so we put it all back together and Buddy went back home. I don't think he's too sure about the new thicker BioVine, cause he doesn't seem to go on it, but I'm sure after a few days he'll be fine. So now my goal is to try to clean his cage at least once every two weeks.

My next project for Buddy is getting his new lamps set up. Right now he has one lamp that does the heat and UV rays, but a lot of web pages suggest getting two fluorescent type bulbs so that he can go to different parts of the cage depending on what he needs (different types of UV rays). I have the bulbs, but I can't seem to find any fixtures for them. The places I've been to only seem to have 18" fixtures, and I got 15" bulbs. Does anybody know any good lighting places I can try?

*EDIT*
You can now check out pics of Buddy's cage cleaning adventures by clicking here.