🗓️ May Pet Care Checklist
May brings real warmth: tick season peaks, the first hot days arrive, and beetle larvae head into pupation. It's the month to lock in flea-and-tick prevention and rethink heat, shade and enclosure temperatures before summer hits.
🕷️Flea & Tick Season Hits Its Peak
Ticks are now questing in tall grass and brush, carrying Lyme disease, anaplasmosis and babesiosis. Keep every dog and outdoor cat on a vet-approved preventive, and run a fingertip tick check — ears, armpits, between the toes — after each walk. Remove attached ticks with a tick tool, never with bare fingers.
🐕 Dogs🦎Reptiles: Spring Sun, but Nights Are Still Cool
Warm afternoons make natural-UVB outdoor sessions possible — use a secure, escape-proof, partly shaded pen, never a closed glass tank, which overheats in minutes. Keep night-time heating running: May nights still dip below safe temperatures for bearded dragons, leopard geckos and tortoises. Expect spring restlessness and appetite swings as breeding-season hormones kick in, and track weight weekly.
🦎 Reptiles🪲Beetle Larvae Are Pupating — Don't Touch the Substrate
In late spring, rhinoceros and stag beetle larvae build fragile pupal cells in the substrate — stop all substrate changes and keep the container still and vibration-free until the adults emerge. Keep the substrate lightly moist (it should hold shape when squeezed without dripping) at around 20–25°C. If you accidentally expose a pupa, move it gently into an artificial pupal chamber instead of reburying it loose.
🪲 Rhinoceros beetles🌡️First Hot Days: Heatstroke Before Dogs Acclimate
Early-season heat is the most dangerous: dogs haven't acclimated yet, and heatstroke cases spike on the first days above 25°C. Shift walks to early morning or evening, test asphalt with the back of your hand (too hot to hold for 5 seconds means too hot for paws), and never leave an animal in a parked car, even briefly. Flat-faced breeds like Bulldogs and Pugs overheat fastest.
🏃 Best pets for active owners🐰Fresh Grass for Rabbits & Guinea Pigs — Go Slow
Lush May grass is rich and can trigger dangerous GI upset if introduced suddenly — start with a handful a day and build up over two weeks, always alongside unlimited hay. Pick only from areas free of pesticides, dog urine and toxic plants like buttercups. Rabbits also start struggling above about 25°C, so move hutches into shade now.
🐇 Rabbits⚕️ This information is for general guidance and is not a substitute for professional veterinary advice. When a pet has eaten something questionable or shows any symptoms, contact your veterinarian or a pet poison control service right away.