About Troy Jones

I have retired from keeping and breeding Uromastyx.

If you are interested in Uromastyx you might check with

Mike Rodriguez 714-366-3726 or Karl Koenig 631-398-2674.

My name is Troy Jones and I'm an animal lover of all sorts of animals and reptiles. As a child my Summers were spent in the woods and around creeks in Ohio. I collected frogs, crayfish, snakes, and turtles. I've always been fascinated by reptiles. The first reptile I had was a box turtle and I had it for over 10 years. As a child, I breed fish, hamsters, gerbils, and rabbits. At the time, one of the local "TGIF" stores (similar to a K-Mart) would pay me $1.00 per hamster, which I proudly sold, in fact I was their supplier for several years. As I got older I kept turtles, rabbits, ferrets, flying  squirrels, turtles, tortoises and different types of lizards. As an adult (10 years ago) I bred Bearded Dragons and traded some of my babies for Mali Uromastyx and the rest was history! I was instantly drawn to the Uromastyx Lizards or "Uro's", much more than the Dragons because they don't require insects. I began reading every book and care sheet that I could find on how to care for them, how to house them, and how to breed them, everything!! I contacted & befriended Randall L. Gray, one of the Pioneers of breeding Uromastyx and shortly afterwards we founded the Uromastyx Home Page  http://www.kingsnake.com/uromastyx/ . Randall provided the articles and I took the pictures and discovered out how to design and manage a website. During this period of time Randall Gray began selling me Uromastyx Ornate pairs every once in a while. I successfully bread Uromastyx Ornates for 3 years and built my collection up to 40+ of them. I wrote an article and was published in the Volume 6 No. 3 Reptilian Magazine, I then knew I was following a dream! Unfortunately, In March of 2000 my home was nearly destroyed by a tornado and I was forced to sell my entire collection.

10 years ago I corresponded with Danny Molco. Danny is an Eilat Mountain Nature Reserve Ranger and was involved in a 4 year 700 hour study of Ornate Uromastyx http://www.uroranch.com/Osnat%20Molco.htm. This study uncovered some interesting facts about Uromastyx, one of them being that they are 99% vegetarian.

Afterwards, I spent a couple of years working with salt water aquariums. I grew & fragged my corals. I  grew and fragged SPS, LPS, and Softie Corals. During this time I decided to get back into breeding exotic species of Uromastyx. Ornate, Philbyi, and Saharan. I finally got back into breeding Uromastyx last year (2009). I am working with Philbyi, Ornate, Sudanese, and Rainbow Benti. My rainbow benti should be laying her eggs any day now. 

Uromastyx are observation pets to me. I enjoy setting up their enclosures and watching them bask and move about their cages. I do not handle them too much.

Two weeks ago I purchased (12) Uromastyx philbyi from an importer and I set them up in separate cages to acclimate them for several weeks prior to shipping. So far, I've had great success with acclimation of wild caught Uromastyx (i.e. Sudanese, Ornates, and Saharans). Turns out I only received 2 females out of the 12 philbyi I purchased so, I decided to acclimate the males and sell them as single pets... as they have a very gentle & calm disposition. They also don't seem to even mind being handled. In mid-May 2010, I was offered a Crested Gecko breeders collection to  include: cages, lights, gram scales, loop, food, vines, nesting boxes, and more! "KR Crested Geckos" (owner Ryan Billups) sold me a turn key Crested Gecko colony of 14 Crested Geckos. I had also purchased 4 crested Geckos just two days prior so, today I have 18 crested Geckos total. Crested Geckos are much more of a pet then Uromastyx. They seem to enjoy being handled! They have gorgeous Morphs that include earth-tone colors ... brown, yellow, orange, lavender, and red. They have interesting markings like pinstripes or harlequin also called "Harley's". Each Morph is more beautiful than the last and many of them are worth quite a bit of money. Main worry with Crested Geckos is not to let them get over 80-85 degrees as it will kill them. They are forest creatures and don't do well with high heat.

My goal is to keep pursuing other breeding projects as well. In the future I hope to have a wholesale location with climate controlled rooms for forest animals like Geckos and Chameleons and desert rooms for desert species like the "Uro's". My goal is to create a business that provides animals proper care and educates people on how to work with keeping and breeding various reptiles. I plan on continuing to breed Uromastyx,  Crested Geckos, Gargoyle Geckos, Chuckwalla's, Turtles, and Tortoises' specializing on animals that can eat premixed food or animals that do not eat insects. Ha Ha Ha, side note: My wife has a thing against feeding pinkies and insects so, my focus is species that I can captive breed and feed a premixed diet like the Crested and Gargoyle Geckos or greens and vegetables like I feed the Uromastyx.

I'm interested in advanced discussions about Breeding, Brumation, Egg incubation, Genetics, Etc.

If you have any questions, comments, or would like to discuss Breeding, Brumation, Egg incubation, Genetics, Etc. send me an email... I'd love to hear from you troy@uroranch.com!

***THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING CAPTIVE BREEDING!!!***

Please stop by and visit me:

WEB PAGES

Uro Ranch Uro Ranch http://www.uroranch.com/

Gargoyle Gecko http://www.gargoylegecko.com/

BLOGS

Gecko Blog http://www.gargoylegecko.com/GargoyleGecko.com/GECKO BLOG/BLOG.htm

Uromastyx Blog http://www.uroranch.com/uro ranch blog.htm

Uromastyx face book http://www.facebook.com/uroranch

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