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About Coastline Canopy
& My Goal
More Coming Soon...
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Thanks for stopping bye to get to know me! I have been raising reptiles for over 15 years and several of those were spent working at a veterinary hospital. I'm very passionate about reptile & amphibian husbandry & care and love to talk about it (clearly).
Over the years I have kept & bred several species of “advanced” captive bred reptiles that were high up there on the ‘ol bucket list and were a fun challenge due to their high environmental demands and needs, however, I always find myself drawn to Crested Geckos at the end of the day. I have a soft spot for Crested Geckos and despite needing to downsize due to life events and having only 2 Cresteds at one point, I just could not part with them entirely. One of my favourite parts about breeding them is making predictions as to what will come out of the egg and the surprise it holds! Oh, and don't even get me started on how adorable baby geckos are! That being said the reason I decide to occasionally breed certain geckos is because of how I enjoy raising the little hatchlings and seeing their progressions.
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Currently working on the following Crested Gecko Projects:
My Night Shade, Empty Back Super Stripe line, Extreme Dalmatians (there's technically no such thing as a "super" dalmatian as the dalamatian genes do not stack on each other to create a "super" version like with Cappuccinos or Lilly-whites which create leucistics which are fatal), Extreme drippy tri-colours, red phantom porthole harlequin line and a couple more high contrast stripes in the making!
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I worked at a veterinary hospital for several years where I saw many reptile illnesses that were sadly entirely avoidable had the owners been properly educated on care requirements. A lot of the illnesses I saw were diet & husbandry related. A common belief amongst the reptile community is that you can never give your animal too many supplements. But in actuality, loading an animal up with too much of XYZ can cause certain minerals & vitamins to bind differently making other essential nutrients unusable to the animals system, or, in some cases providing too much D3 can actually contribute to causing Metabolic Bone Disease which is what we aim to avoid. Over the years I came to realize how little there was on the market in terms of proper nutrition for feeder insects (which act as a vehicle for delivering essential nutrition to our cold blooded friends) to offer our animals. A proper diet is essential for good health and the common house crickets sold at most pet stores do not offer complete balanced nutrition which is unfortunately a lot of pets main diet. In effort to correct this, I came up with my feeder insect gutload to feed to bugs before being fed to our pets. It's helped a ton. Fast forward several years later after some careful tweaking of the formula and I mainly make large batches for my reptiles feeder bug colonies. Several friends would ask for some gutload/bug food as they were seeing the positive results in my animals being fed bugs raised on this diet. I figured why not make it available to everyone? After all, the whole reason I started making it in the first place was for the pets / reptiles benefit.
Aside from creating awareness on certain husbandry and health aspects, I also enjoy breeding Crested Geckos on a small hobby scale (that seems to be slowly growing…). For me it is fueled by my passion for reptile genetics, the geckos themselves (OF COURSE!) and overall admiration for the species. Oh and how can one forget how adorable they are when they hatch out of the egg!? My next absolute favorite thing that I find the most addicting about this hobby is raising the little babies and waiting them progress and change over time.
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This is by far my biggest passion and I refer to breeding them as a hobby but in reality these little guys are my what I like to call my “gecko crew”, they are my pets and that is what comes first before anything else at the end of the day. Their health, happiness and overall wellbeing are my absolute number one priority before anything else.
Wilbur “befriending” the frogs.
This photo belongs to Coastline Canopy and is an example of the enclosures we aim to provide for our animals (where appropriate).
“The” Mission. Buckle Up It's About To Get Real (and I'm sure it'll tick some people off)…
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As pet parents we should aim for our animals to thrive and not to just survive. Over the years I feel there has been a large "acceptance" amongst the reptile community towards keeping these incredible creatures in basic, small, enrichment lacking "tubs'' or in paper towel only containers that deny the animals of any enrichment or stimulation (which I feel is like denying a dog the ability to sniff things, go for walks or outside, run, dig, or have any toys) stacked on top of each other all for the sake of being able to "collect" or breed more animals. In my own opinion this NEEDS to change for the sake of our cold blooded friends. The animals I'm speaking to are kept in basic small containers that deny the animal the opportunity to climb (incredibly important to species that evolved to climb amongst tree branches and have the drive ingrained in them), explore, dig (some species feel most comfortable digging their own caves as a shelter), and completely lack any enrichment or stimulation. You'd be surprised how many reptile species actually dig hides or burrows out of their substrate so denying them this instinct must be like denying someone the ability to scratch an itch (but much worse as this is their "safety net" when they feel threatened to escape to) and I'd imagine it drives them a bit crazy. Could you imagine being kept in a box without any daylight and with nothing to do all day & night? I feel this is inhumane and it bothers me that this treatment towards these animals is so widely accepted in some areas without a second thought as to the animals well being & needs. As a society we do not stand this treatment should it be inflicted upon other animals like dogs (puppy mills for example, aka dogs being kept in small cages solely to save space to be able to breed more animals to sell) or zoo animals in very basic small habitats without any enrichment, yet it seems to be largely accepted amongst the reptile community under the misunderstanding that these animals are "simple minded" and "enjoy" or "feel safe" in small cramped enclosures or that they do not mind because we cannot "interpret” or recognize their stress signs. I have yet to see any research showing that these animals feel "safer" when denied the ability to fully stretch out in their cramped home. If an animal truly feels safe in a cramped space then it should be provided a hideaway space to act as such however it should also still have the ability to fully stretch out and move comfortably should it want to. Could you imagine having a 6' long spine and never being able to fully stretch or straighten it because of not having the adequate habitat space to do so? I'm getting a back cramp just thinking about it! Studies are showing that these often misunderstood as "simple" creatures have a lot going on under the hood, brain activity wise that contradicts this common misconception. It's been shown that they share many similar emotions to people and they even dream. They're a lot more complex than we initially realized! And these scientific studies have only just scratched the surface of what we don't know. Environmental enrichment plays a big role in a reptile's longevity and overall health and I feel it's important to break this misconception that they "don't care". The picture below is not mine, it was taken from a gecko breeder on social media bragging about how many geckos they had hatched & how they were keeping them and were promoting others to do so as well.
**This is not my photo** These rack systems are unfortunately popularly used so people can keep more animals in smaller spaces. This is what I refer to as the "puppy-mill" treatment; very small, basic, cramped, enrichment lacking containers stacked on one another for the sake of being able to keep more animals.
**This is not my photo** Here's another example of what I refer to as the "puppy-mill" treatment; very small, basic, cramped, enrichment lacking containers stacked on one another for the sake of being able to keep more animals.
**This is not my image, just an example as to what was spoken about above**
While I'm obviously not against reptile breeding (in fact I feel it's rather important towards keeping some species alive that otherwise would have gone extinct, like my favourite species, the Crested Gecko, for example) I do feel it is irresponsible to keep breeding animals when a breeder cannot properly house them in appropriate habitats but choose to do so anyways to have more animals to sell/”collect”. This is what I am referring to when I say "puppy mill" treatment amongst reptiles. I know I've just pissed off a lot of breeders that raise their animals this way but it warrants being called out for the animals sake. I'm not meaning to cause any sort of divide amongst the reptile community but I do feel it's time we educate ourselves about this topic and no longer accept keeping animals this way as a common practice. We can do better.
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You will never hear me refer to my critters as a collection. These are my pets, and I will treat them as such with the utmost respect so I can provide them with the best care to my ability. I continue to try to educate myself to ensure I am up to date on this always evolving topic as that's the commitment I made to these incredible creatures. After-all, they were only rediscovered in 1994 so we are still learning lots about them!