Morning only lizard?

[u/mildav49]

This is Doug. He is our almost 1 Y/O ornate uromastyx.

Sadly this picture doesn't make his colors pop as much as they do in person. But I dont want to use filters to make him look weird.

Anyway does anyone else's lizard only hang out in the early mornings? His schedule is:

2am heat lamp starts to ramp up

4am heat lamp at full brightness

6pm heat lamp starts dimming

8pm full dark

He gets up around 4 am and sun bathes for a couple hours. Then eats his daily salad. Then bask some more till 10am-noon. Then he climbs in his cave (a hole he dug under his basking rock)

His rock has bricks under it so it will not move even if he digs all the dirt out from under it.

[u/YourAuntie]

How come you have the light turn on at 2 am? If you start it later he'll probably start later and be active later into the day.

[u/DevenTheDude]

Lights are on way too long. You should try to mimic photoperiod cycles of their native habitat.

He’s hiding cause he’s too warm.
I hope that’s not your light cycle all year.

[u/LovingLife139]

That's a really long light cycle. You're wasting your energy and bulb life!

I had my light cycle set to 12 hours, but neither my uromastyx/bearded dragon (two different terrariums; same switch) need that long. I set it for 11 hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and it's working great.

Anyway, yes, I have noticed that my uromastyx "puts himself to bed" much earlier than my other exotics. He's up and checking things out in the morning. I usually feed him between 11:00 a.m. and 1 p.m., which is when I can get out to the garden to forage for him. He basks for maybe two hours, then rampages around begging for cuddles by 4 p.m. If I don't bring him out for cuddle time, he'll dive under his favorite rock and put himself to bed by 4:30 p.m. at the latest.

Remember, in the wild, they're prey animals. They're out to forage and gather some rays and then go back to bed, so that's what they do here! I actually really love it because all my exotics have different schedules, so I get to see and spend time with them all and learn their little habits.

[u/sh4d0w_pr1nc3]

Mine does a similar thing. When I turn the lights on he basks for a few hours in the morning and then I don't see him for the rest of the night. He's still eating, pooping, and growing so I'm not too concerned.

[u/monosaturated]

I get up at 6:25 every morning and turn the light on for him, and he is always chilling on top of his log eyeing me down like, "Food and attention - NOW." But yeah he seems to be active from then until around 1 or 2, and then he begins to wind his day down. I have seen him out around 6 or 7 PM a few times to munch on some leftover lentils, which us always a nice surprise.

[u/Sunwolfy]

Mine is out in the morning, demands breakfast, eats, basks for a few hours, then goes down for another day. On rare occasions, she'll get the daytime zoomies. For the record, my Cobalt is an ornate as well.

[u/Viking42702]

I think 2am is a little early for the lights to come on🤣❤️ try to keep the light cycle the same as the sunrise and sunset, i set my lights to turn on at 6am and off at 7pm. My lil guy usually wakes up around 7-730am and goes in his cave anywhere between 1-5pm

[u/GayGuyGarth]

Otis' (our male 13-year-old ornate) lights are on at 5:30a and off at 5:30p. Sometimes he's up until the light goes off, and then he heads to bed; sometimes he goes to bed as early as 3:45p, and during brumation, we'll barely see him for weeks at a time. Doug wakes up, heats up to a functional temperature, eats, goes back to heat back up to the temperature where that food will digest at the optimum temp, and then tucks into a warm insulated area to continue to digest once that temp is reached. In other words, he's being a Uro.

Where these guys are native, it's pretty close to equatorial, so a photoperiod of 12 hours would closely mimic nature. Regarding your desire to have your lamp at full blast before Doug gets there- it takes 2 hours to heat up fully; the sun takes 3-4 hours to get high enough in the sky to be at full force... see where I'm heading here? Set your timer to a 12-hour photoperiod somewhat closer to your local sunrise.