One card per animal
A reptile sitter may be confident with a dog and still be a beginner with your snake, so write the briefing per animal rather than as one general talk. Each card opens with the animal's name, species and enclosure location, then its photograph — in a room of similar vivariums, a photo prevents the classic error of feeding the wrong snake on the wrong day. State plainly which animals are not to be handled at all, which tolerate brief handling, and which must never be taken out while you are away. If an enclosure has a lock or a weighted lid because its occupant escapes, that fact goes on the card in the first lines, not as an afterthought discovered later.
The feeding routine, written exactly
Write the routine as steps the sitter follows in order: which prey item, what size, how it is thawed and warmed, how it is presented — tongs at the enclosure front, or left at the cool end overnight — and which days each animal is fed. Name quantities for insects and salads in practical terms: the number of feeders, or the size of the leaf pile compared to a familiar object. Add the invisible jobs around feeding: water bowls rinsed and refilled on set days, misting where a species needs it, and supplement dusting stated simply as which food gets dusted on which day. A sitter should never have to interpret phrases like feeding as usual — usual is exactly what they do not know.
Refusals, leftovers and hard rules
Reptiles refuse food for reasons that are usually harmless, and the card should say so before it happens, or you will get a worried phone call — or worse, a sitter who keeps offering until the animal is stressed. Write what a refusal means for each animal: note it, try nothing further, and leave the next attempt to the scheduled day. State the removal rule with equal clarity: uneaten food comes out the next morning, and live prey is never left in an enclosure unattended with a resting snake or lizard. Then the hard lines: no handling for two days after a feed, no opening enclosures just to peek beyond the stated checks, and no feeding anything that is not on the card — no garden insects, no leftovers, no substitutions.
Environment checks between feeds
Feeding is only part of the visit, so the card lists the quick environment checks that keep animals safe between meals: glance at each thermometer and note whether the warm end sits in its written range, confirm heat lamps and lights are on their timers, and check that water and humidity hides are as they should be. Give the sitter the one or two readings that matter per enclosure rather than a lecture on climate — a number to compare against is usable; a paragraph is not. Any reading far outside its range, a lamp found cold, or water spilled across a dry species' substrate is a same-day message to you, with the fix you have written beside it.
Contacts for when something looks wrong
Close each card with the escalation route: your phone number, the reptile vet's name and number, and the short list of sights that justify an immediate call — an animal found limp or unresponsive, a burn or injury, an escape, or regurgitated food appearing twice. Everything else waits for the daily update message, where the sitter reports feeds eaten and refused against the card. When you return, those returned notes join each animal's own history. KinsLe's Care Pass gives your sitter temporary, clear access to these routines and details for exactly the days you are away.