Time saving advice???....

[-ryan-]

Since classes have started up again, and I'm currently enrolled in 11 for my music education major! Time is already pretty tight, but I also work every evening as a teacher of drums and percussion. I was wondering if anyone has any time saving advice for caring for tortoises and other reptiles, because right now I only have extra time on the weekend.

The current flock:
1.3 Russian tortoises
1.0 Red-footed tortoise
0.2 Mali Uromastyx
1.0 Bearded Dragon
1.0 Leopard Gecko
1.0 Ball Python
1.0 White's Tree Frog

Most of them don't take too much time, but I find myself waking up 45 minutes early just to get the morning food prepped for the veggie eaters. The night-time care (when I get home from work, rehearsals, or gigs) is pretty straight forward and only takes about 30 minutes. That usually consists of removing uneaten veggies, light cleanup (big cleanup takes place during the weekends), and feeding the insect eaters and the snake (once a week).

Any tips?

[Jenn]

Sounds like you got your hand full.
I wish I could give you some advise but my hands are full to.
I try and make things go faster,but it never works.

[CodeBlue]

I'm amazed you've got it down to only 75 minutes a day as is!

The only thing I can think of that you could possibly do is prep for your veggie eaters on the weekends as well.  Not sure what all you are doing in the morning to get them ready, but you could probably have the veggies chopped and mixed on the weekends.  Then you would only have to distribute food/supplements in the mornings.

[-ryan-]

Thanks!

Yeah, it is quite the time commitment, but you sometimes you have to make sacrifices I guess it's better to be busy than to be bored out of my mind.

I will try prepping some veggies on the weekends and see how that works out, but actually I think the really tricky thing is doing the dishes every morning, so maybe I should look into some durable paper plates?

[Sikedaman]

With regards to the greens that we feed her as the staple of her diet..we just shred it with our hands every morning. The extra goodies..we always chop up on the weekends...lettuce and greens seem to wither and darken if cut up and let in the fridge, but the other veggies seem to do fine...whether it be cauliflower, broccoli, green pepper, carrots, etc....we grind up cuttle bone and keep it in seasoning shaker with bigger wholes on the top....regarding the dishes....I always take the food dish out at night and wash it then so its ready to go in the morning....when we get home from work...that's when we clean the food dish, water dish and do the poop and pee scooping. I don't think we spend any more than 10 minutes a day tending to our rt.  We have a leopard gecko as well...but that takes less than 2 minutes to care for a day because all we do is clean her water dish and poop along with the tort's and throw some crickets in a calcium dust bag and shake it up and dump it in her terrarium.  Its the other pets that we have that take alot of time.... 2 cats and a dog....But its all worth it...pets fulfill our lives!