Forum

OUR FORUM IS UP BUT WE ARE STILL IN THE MIDDLE OF UPDATING AND FIXING THINGS.  SOME THINGS WILL LOOK WEIRD AND/OR NOT BE CORRECT. YOUR PATIENCE IS APPRECIATED.  We are not fully ready to answer questions in a timely manner as we are not officially open, but we will do our best. 

You may have received a 2-factor authentication (2FA) email from us on 4/21/2020. That was from us, but was premature as the login was not working at that time. 

BUNNY 911 – If your rabbit hasn’t eaten or pooped in 12-24 hours, call a vet immediately! Don’t have a vet? Check out VET RESOURCES

The subject of intentional breeding or meat rabbits is prohibited. The answers provided on this board are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. It is your responsibility to assess the information being given and seek professional advice/second opinion from your veterinarian and/or qualified behaviorist.

What are we about?  Please read about our Forum Culture and check out the Rules

BUNNY 911 – If your rabbit hasn’t eaten or pooped in 12-24 hours, call a vet immediately!  Don’t have a vet? Check out VET RESOURCES 

The subject of intentional breeding or meat rabbits is prohibited. The answers provided on this board are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet.  It is your responsibility to assess the information being given and seek professional advice/second opinion from your veterinarian and/or qualified behaviorist.

BINKYBUNNY FORUMS

Forum THE LOUNGE Critters in the Garden Center

Viewing 38 reply threads
  • Author
    Messages

    • Megabunny
      Participant
      2041 posts Send Private Message

        Hey everyone. It’s been a hot week in the Garden Center here in S. Carolina…Hovering around 90 all week. I love it!!! Still recovering from the lack of sunshine in NY the past decade or two ha ha

        Anyway, while it seems too hot for many dogs to visit the store, we have had some fun visitors. I missed the best one, when my supervisor was working with my co-worker and said he kept feeling like something was crawling on his leg. He gave his leg a shake and a gecko fell out from his shorts!!! I soooo wish I’d been there, now that Cottontail has explained how safe they are to pick up and what to do if they grab you with their toothless jaws.  They had been arranging big palm plants or something, which are in the shade.

        Today a frog dropped out of a plant.I had just started helping a customer, but dropped everything, I was so excited. I tried to grab it but it leaped further under the table. Then it leaped upward and clung to the underside of the table until it could crawl back up in the plants. They were in 1 qt. pots of marigolds or something. I don’t know how he fit up through the holes there. He was, perhaps, 4 inches long before his legs stretched. So maybe he’s a tree frog? He looked like spiderman on the bottom of the table.

        Of course, I worry about these creatures, though I figure they probably have a nice supply of food and it’s safe and has damp plants. But should I try harder to catch these things and take them home to relocate? We have a pond down the street and the gecko could live around our house, though everyone puts so many chemicals down to get rid of grubs, the geckos don’t get much food & move on looking for more. I know!…I could take him to Cottontail’s house!

        So I really really cannot decide. Does anyone have any strong opinion as to whether I should catch these things and keep some sort of little cage in the car (well, obviously I won’t put it back in the car until I’m ready to leave)…I could keep them in the shade. Or let them continue their possibly easy existence in the Garden Center. I just really don’t know what to think. The store is in a big city and there is lots of pavement and roads and some grass here and there, but it does not seem like a good place for these creatures, outside the gate. I’m figuring they are probably stowaways from the farm the plants are harvested from. Any opinions?


      • LBJ10
        Moderator
        16869 posts Send Private Message

          Geckos are not native so I’m sure someone would be happy if you took the little guy home and kept him inside as a pet. Tree frogs are likely fine. There are native tree frogs in the US and they often like to hang out on buildings and whatnot. If he has adequate moisture there, then I’m sure he will be fine. Do you know what kind they are? The tree frogs here can hibernate for up to 3 years, even frozen.


        • LBJ10
          Moderator
          16869 posts Send Private Message

            I just googled it. You have tons of frogs in the tree frog family there! We just have cricket frogs, chorus frogs, and Cope’s gray tree frogs.


          • Megabunny
            Participant
            2041 posts Send Private Message

              Oops. I just call them geckos like everyone else here, but if it’s a stowaway, I think it’s just from Florida, so maybe an anole? Cottontail said people call them different things. I’m glad you got on, LBJ. I guess what I’m wondering is, even if they’re something native, would you take them home and release them or leave them there? I’m really not sure if they could make it far from the garden center w/o getting squished. I probably don’t give them enough credit., and there are some fields behind a parking area and down a busy road. I’m probably just worrying for nothing.
              I didn’t know we had so many tree frogs. Maybe one of them is the noise I’ve heard, but cannot locate the source of, that sounds like a quacking duck at home and at work. It comes from the bushes and really sounds like a duck has taken up residence. But then it stops quacking and I can’t find a thing. There are tons of loud, crazy sounding noises that come from the pond down our street, too. It is just so odd compared to the calm sound we heard at night in NY. Then there’s the bullfrog who sounds like a freaking mammoth. You should visit SC. You’d love all the nature.
              Thanks for doing my research for me. I didn’t even know there was more than one kind of tree frog. I literally fell asleep just getting that posting written last night. This job is great exercise but at over 50 years of age, I’m tired!!


            • Sarita
              Participant
              18851 posts Send Private Message

                We have little bitty lizards here in Texas too and they are great because they eat the bugs. I have no idea what they actually are called though.


              • RabbitPam
                Moderator
                11002 posts Send Private Message

                  Here in FL we call them geckos, and there are tiny ones I rescue from inside the house and put outside. Medium ones are around4″ and are all over outside, and large ones with curly tails. They can live well in the garden center where it,s warmer, or go out. I would expect some to be native to S. Carolina.
                  Tree frogs here are about 1/2″, so that sounds like a pond frog or lawn toad. Not official names, btw.


                • Megabunny
                  Participant
                  2041 posts Send Private Message

                    Hmmm. Well the Harden Center is outside and they’re probably living the life so I’ll stop worrying. I’m sure it’s a frog of some sort. This is such a different world down here!


                  • MoxieMeadows
                    Participant
                    5375 posts Send Private Message

                      MB— is the company you work for good about these things like when they find animals there? I know one of our local stores (won’t name it here because I don’t want to stir up trouble with them) (is a large company like a walmart) is horrible. Just recently there was a hummingbird trapped in the store. Well the managers didn’t want to try and catch it until the store closed because they thought customers would start freaking out about animal cruelty. Well the poor little bird DIED because it had no food.


                    • Megabunny
                      Participant
                      2041 posts Send Private Message

                        Well it’s a big box store and they just care about the almighty dollar far as I can tell. However I’m pretty fed up with the grouchy managers and wouldn’t really care what they said. Not thinking I want this a long time career so I’d likely tell them my break just started and I was getting whatever critter needed catching…well…you know…within reason. They did actually get a opossum that made my coworker scream. But it was in the back and it was very early and they left it alone and it went away. I’m thinking he’s probably a frequent visitor. But I told him he better scoot and he did


                      • Cottontail
                        Participant
                        1070 posts Send Private Message

                          I’m just getting on this thread now that I’m home; but my guess this is the little “gecko” you saw:

                          They are called Carolina Anoles, and they are everywhere! Babies can be an inch or so long, while adults can run a bit more than the length of your palm.

                          As for the duck-like sound; it’s probably a barking tree frog. Guess how they got their name? There are so many different tree frogs and toads down here that chances are if you hear an odd little bird or bug sound in the morning or evening (or after heavy rain) it’s probably some kind of frog.


                        • JackRabbit
                          Participant
                          5451 posts Send Private Message

                            Picturing Megabunny chasing frogs and lizards around the garden center while the customers run screaming!

                            We don’t have those lizards here, but we get some kind of lizard-things. I think they’re called blue tailed skinks. They’re pretty cute but really fast. We get toads on our patio every summer, and hubby catches bugs and feeds them to the toads because I get a kick out of watching their tongues. We had a light bug year few years ago so only had one toad — it was persistent though so we bought crickets for it. The little guy would come on the patio and wait like he was waiting to be fed! We actually got a video of hubby “tickling” him — he would lean into it hubby’s finger! Yeah, I know, we need to getva life (!), but we had fun with the little guy!


                          • LBJ10
                            Moderator
                            16869 posts Send Private Message

                              So you guys call something besides geckos “geckos”? Sort of like how “daddy longlegs” and “June bugs” are different things in different parts of the country maybe?

                              I did read that there are two introduced species of geckos in Georgia and Florida though: Indo-Pacific gecko and Mediterranean house gecko. I suppose South Carolina isn’t too far away. So if you see any lizards with sticky pads on their feet (they can walk on the ceiling) and lick their eyeballs, let me know! I would love to see!

                              Cottontail – Those anoles are cute! We just have six-lined racerunners and prairie skinks here. You having barking frogs there? That sounds so adorable!


                            • LBJ10
                              Moderator
                              16869 posts Send Private Message

                                Megabunny – You might want to check your local laws there before moving any native species. Here it’s illegal to move or release any amphibian or reptile more than 100 yards from the point of capture.


                              • JackRabbit
                                Participant
                                5451 posts Send Private Message

                                  LBJ — even if the amphibian or reptile came unexpectedly in a shipment of plants to a hardware/home store? I would think that it would be better to move it to an area more like its natural environment than to have to leave it in a store where it wasn’t meant to be anyway. Leftvin the store, its likely to be “disposed of” as a pest.


                                • LBJ10
                                  Moderator
                                  16869 posts Send Private Message

                                    I hate to say it, but if it’s an invasive species that hitched a ride then… well… you know. Sorry, biologist talking. We have a huge problem here with invasive frogs.

                                    If it’s a native species, then taking it to a wooded area across the road is probably acceptable.


                                  • LBJ10
                                    Moderator
                                    16869 posts Send Private Message

                                      The reason for the law here is that many populations are isolated. If you move them even 100 yards, you could be facilitating the spread of disease.


                                    • JackRabbit
                                      Participant
                                      5451 posts Send Private Message

                                        Never thought of it like that. Learned something new.


                                      • LBJ10
                                        Moderator
                                        16869 posts Send Private Message

                                          Yes, there is a real concern here for frogs because there is a fungal infection that they can get. It makes them pretty sick and many die.


                                        • Megabunny
                                          Participant
                                          2041 posts Send Private Message

                                            Oooh I didn’t think about spreading disease and such. Guess I’ll leave them alone. Sadly, I missed the fun of the boss with a lizard up his shorts and just heard about it later. So I don’t know what it looked like. We do get those blue tailed skinks and those are gorgeous! I love the idea of feeding a toad and watching his tongue…but does it have to be a live bug? Serious question here, though maybe it’s a stupid one.

                                            CT a barking tree frog??? That is weird!! But explains a lot.


                                          • LBJ10
                                            Moderator
                                            16869 posts Send Private Message

                                              You know, my experience with toads is that they aren’t fussy eaters. The one we had at my job would eat flies we swatted. So, no, I don’t think they necessarily need to be alive.


                                            • Megabunny
                                              Participant
                                              2041 posts Send Private Message

                                                That could be fun then!! I used to love dropping ants into spider webs when I was a kid but now i can’t do that to a live ant. Pathetic


                                              • JackRabbit
                                                Participant
                                                5451 posts Send Private Message

                                                  The toads that come on our patio won’t go for anything that doesn’t move.

                                                  Maybe I’m bad, but spiders (except daddy long legs), crickets, flies, gnats, hornets, wasps, and stink bugs, are on my hit list. All of these either scare me or come in my house where they don’t belong. I don’t randomly kill the brown beetles we get at night in the summer but the toads love them so they will get fed to the toads.


                                                • Megabunny
                                                  Participant
                                                  2041 posts Send Private Message

                                                    Well….yeah…..but how do you handle these things being alive? Am I totally ignorant??
                                                    And what is it about Daddy Long Legs? My dad told me when I was a kid that it was bad luck to kill them and taught me to pick them up by a leg and take them out. Do they just somehow capture people’s hearts in an odd way?


                                                  • LBJ10
                                                    Moderator
                                                    16869 posts Send Private Message

                                                      Why do you have to pick it up by one leg? Does that have something to do with superstition? I would be afraid of the leg coming off. They can lose a leg to escape a predator, but the legs don’t grow back. I’ll just scoop them up in my hand and carry them outside.


                                                    • Megabunny
                                                      Participant
                                                      2041 posts Send Private Message

                                                        Well I’ve been known to scoop things into a container but I really don’t want to carry a daddy longlegs in my hands.


                                                      • JackRabbit
                                                        Participant
                                                        5451 posts Send Private Message

                                                          I don’t pick them up at all. They are one spider that doesn’t seem to come at me, but I still don’t want them around the area where I sit on my patio. I just kind of “shoo” them to another area and they seem to slowly but obediently go!


                                                        • LBJ10
                                                          Moderator
                                                          16869 posts Send Private Message

                                                            I always just pick them up. They won’t bite you because they can’t. They don’t have fangs or venom, so no reason to fear them. They are actually quite beneficial for your garden because they eat dead plant matter and other dead things.


                                                          • JackRabbit
                                                            Participant
                                                            5451 posts Send Private Message

                                                              LBJ — they may not bite, but they feel creepy when they move! I don’t mess with them because they don’t try to mess with me, but the weirdest thing is a praying mantis. They will turn their little heads and stare at you! They’re like little aliens!


                                                            • LBJ10
                                                              Moderator
                                                              16869 posts Send Private Message

                                                                LOL, OMG yes, preying mantises are crazy! They stare you down like nothing else. o_O


                                                              • Cottontail
                                                                Participant
                                                                1070 posts Send Private Message

                                                                  I’m always under the impression when people talk about daddy-long-legs that they are actually referring to harvestmen; in which case LBJ is right that they can’t hurt you. It’s not that they don’t have fangs/jaws.. but they can’t lock on to you and don’t want to. (I always kind of figured, as a kid, that they realized anything bigger than them wouldn’t fit in their mouth so they new better than to try.) They are also great for your local ecosystem… so if you go about squishing them you can expect to see more aggressive spiders and aphids and random plant rot/fungus that you otherwise would not have gotten. In that sense, it is bad luck to squish them.

                                                                  Here’s a non-professional, but informative page on harvestmen and daddy long-leg spiders..
                                                                  http://www.gardenoffriendship.org/gardening/articles/vol0808ka.html

                                                                  I hope I’m not coming off as trying to be a know-it-all with my responses on this page… I just really enjoy the local flora and fauna, and I like to share what I know about them. I know that there is always more to learn about things living around you, no matter how familiar you are with them!

                                                                  I used to like to play with dragon flies; You find one perched on a limb and slowly approach making a large circular motion with your hand/finger. You decrease the size of the circle as you approach, and once you’re just about on top of the little bug they get so dizzy and disoriented, turning their heads to watch your finger, that you can pick them up on the end of your finger! Normally they’ll sit there for a minute or two until they are no longer dizzy, and may either stay a bit longer or fly off afterwards.


                                                                • LBJ10
                                                                  Moderator
                                                                  16869 posts Send Private Message

                                                                    Yes, I’m referring to harvestmen. They do have pincher-like jaws, but they don’t possess venom at all. I have never heard of a “daddy longlegs spider”, since everyone around here simply refers to harvestmen as daddy longlegs. So I googled this spider they are talking about in the article and it turns out they are talking about cellar spiders. Google also says some people call crane flies daddy longlegs, which is what I was referring to earlier about different parts of the country use the same word to refer to different things.

                                                                    Have you ever pet a bumblebee?


                                                                  • Megabunny
                                                                    Participant
                                                                    2041 posts Send Private Message

                                                                      My dad pet a bumble bee one time. Can you guess where I got my love of animals from??
                                                                      CT I now have a much greater appreciation for Daddy Long Legs. I love hearing your stories about the creatures here in the south. I had it in my head so long that dragonflies sting that I can’t seem to get past that fear. I won’t go into details, but I was somewhat traumatized last night when a neighbor freaked out about a snake and attacked it because it was on her porch. She has more flowers than normal people do so it was no doubt looking for a meal and I really think it was a garter snake. But she was so upset she almost passed out, so I couldn’t argue and i didn’t even see the snake until after the attack, which I’d watched from a distance. I’d better stop there. It was traumatic to me. You guys don’t need to hear details.
                                                                      Oh, and I swear I saw a white dove the other day, but they don’t seem to be native so maybe it was just a pigeon. Something about it told me it wasn’t, though


                                                                    • LBJ10
                                                                      Moderator
                                                                      16869 posts Send Private Message

                                                                        Oh Megabunny, I hate it when people senselessly kill snakes. I know you have more venomous snakes there, but it seems some people fear all snakes so strongly and irrationally. =(

                                                                        Hmm, unless you saw a Eurasian collared dove, then it was probably just a white pigeon. Eurasian collared doves are an introduced species that has been spreading across the country. Some individuals can be pretty pale (they are a light buff color normally), but they all have a black ring around the back of their neck. They are the same size as pigeons and I have seen all white or mostly white pigeons. They are called piebald, even though some have very little black on them. You can usually identify a pigeon because they have a white cere. Eurasian collared doves do not. Hopefully that helps.


                                                                      • LBJ10
                                                                        Moderator
                                                                        16869 posts Send Private Message

                                                                          Oh yes, we used to freak kids out on hikes. On cool fall mornings you can usually find bumblebees sitting around on plants and you can gently pet them. The kids would always think I was nuts. LOL What most people probably don’t realize is that it takes a lot to piss off a bumblebee.


                                                                        • Megabunny
                                                                          Participant
                                                                          2041 posts Send Private Message

                                                                            Oh bummer Well it was a pretty pigeon!
                                                                            I moved a tray of plants this morning and 3 bumblebees flew up and toward me. Yikes!! I told them I was just moving things down a little. Of course, I waited until they calmed down/left. Until then I was trying to yell to my coworker to stand back. She ignored me. Not sure why
                                                                            I think I heard that barking frog today


                                                                          • LBJ10
                                                                            Moderator
                                                                            16869 posts Send Private Message

                                                                              They might have been disoriented if they were flying around in circles.


                                                                            • Megabunny
                                                                              Participant
                                                                              2041 posts Send Private Message

                                                                                Oh I just assumed they wanted to attack me. Seriously

                                                                                I had a friend tell me tonight to let the moles stay in our yard because they are good for eating the bugs that eat our grass and they will aerate the lawn. I’m very excited because this does not get
                                                                                better with the mole repellent we tried (but didn’t tell our neighbors about ha ha) and we thought we would have to resort to killing them and I was not happy


                                                                              • LBJ10
                                                                                Moderator
                                                                                16869 posts Send Private Message

                                                                                  That’s how people get stung. Bumblebee is flying around in circles, disoriented. Person freaks out and swats them. Bumblebee becomes even more disoriented, flying even more erratic. Person freaks out even more and swats them again. Bumblebee is like WTH man? Then the person gets stung. Like I said, it takes a lot to piss them off. I can’t tell you how many bumblebee encounters I had with a group of kids at my old job. Never once as one of them stung by a bumblebee flying around their head. All of the stings that occurred involved yellow jackets.

                                                                                  OMG, I love moles! And shrews too! I guess if you don’t mind a hole or two in your yard and a mole mound (runway) here and there, they don’t do much harm. You can just push the soil back down with your foot if there is a raised spot in your lawn. Other critters might use their tunnels to get to yummy plant roots though, so that is something to keep in mind.


                                                                                • Megabunny
                                                                                  Participant
                                                                                  2041 posts Send Private Message

                                                                                    Bees are really coming out now. It’s 90 degrees, but most days now I wear two layers because someone told me she had a bee get down her shirt and she finally had to rip off her shirt and she (fortunately) just randomly had an undershirt on that day…so now she always wears one.
                                                                                    I heard the barking frog (?) today and made mention of it to the plant waterer and she said he always starts up when she goes and waters in that area. Too cute

                                                                                Viewing 38 reply threads
                                                                                • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.

                                                                                Forum THE LOUNGE Critters in the Garden Center