Spock's Sanctuary - Reptile Rescue and Sanctuary

10/14/2026

Y’all ever just… give a spray tan to a tyrannosaurus?

10/10/2026

Update - it took 409 screws 😅

10/06/2026

2x4s - 33
Plywood sheets - 8
Energy - A lot!

Who’s enclosure do you think we need these to build?

Bonus: How many screws do you think it will take?

10/01/2026

Today we we took a morning away from the work at the sanctuary because we were invited to be a guest speaker for Dr. Hart’s Animal Behavior class at Drake University!

We shared about the journey of what made Spock’s into what it is today, some of our animal’s stories, and about the different opportunities we have for students to be active in at the sanctuary.

Thanks a ton for the invite!

09/25/2026

09/25/2026

A snake escaped a fire at a reptile sanctuary and accidentally saved another animal's life. Now, he and the other survivors are settling into a new Des Moines home. FULL STORY⬇️

09/17/2026

So we’ve put out the location! What’s next?

There is SO much work to be done to get everything ready! This last week, we moved in a ton of items, each needing some extra TLC to be ready for its new use!

We’ve had a ton of people asking this summer to help in the recovery, and now that we have a facility, here is your chance! This weekend we will have time slots you can sign up for and give some extra love to help items be ready for this next step! We’ll attach the link below.

While we have a new space, and are on the road to recovery, there are some items that we lost and are looking to replace. If you want to contribute, we are hoping for the following items if you may have one collecting dust:

🥪A Regular Sized Refrigerator
🧊A Standing Freezer
📄A Printer - Donated!
👩‍🏫A large White board
⏲️2 Microwaves - 1 Donated!
🥘A large Stock pot
📱iPads or similar for surrender and adoption paperwork
🌱 Live plants
🪴 Fake Shrubs or Trees (or other plants!)
⛲️Old garden hoses (Can have holes!)
📦Large cardboard tubes
🌳With the recent weather, if you have any cool logs, branches, or rocks, your fallen tree might help enrich animals in our care!
📥Totes of any kind for storage, preference for commander totes!
🤔If you think of something else that may help, don’t hesitate to ask!

Make sure to ask ahead to avoid duplicates. All donations are tax deductible!

Here are the slots for volunteering this weekend, as well as our standard donation links:

Volunteer Signup: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0E48ACA62FA0FBC07-65951472-spocks

Donation Page: https://www.spockssanctuary.org/donate

GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/5ea8b7121

Amazon Wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/QLGUNRYJB7DM?ref_=wl_share

09/15/2026

We have our first correct guess!!

Congrats to Kelly Gomez for winning Spot the Spock’s!

Now for the location:

We had some great guesses, but there are very important reasons we chose the location we did:

🦠Biosecurity - We felt it would be best to go to a space that was not previously used for animals. We wouldn’t want to risk introducing an invisible pathogen from the environment to the animals!

✨️The Feel - We wanted a space that inspired creativity, felt warm, was affordable for our budget, and allowed us the same, if not more space than we previously had.

📍The Location - We’re only a half mile from our friends at Blank Park (Two Zoos in One Day?!), about a half mile from our friends at South Des Moines Veterinary Center’s new building (with a great exotics program!), a mile and a half from the Des Moines Airport (something to do during a long layover!), and so much more!

We’re very excited not only for the opportunities the space provides to us, but for what the space will allow us to do for the community.

Without further ado: the new location for Spock’s Sanctuary will be at 1202 Army Post Road!

We have been working tirelessly on this these last few weeks. With painting, replacing flooring, building enclosures, moving in supplies, etc it has been extremely intense. Many late nights and early mornings are going into this. So many that our landlord was surprised to hear we have other jobs outside of what we are doing here! We can’t wait to bring this staple in the reptile scene in Iowa back for the community.

We missed y’all ❤️

09/14/2026

This will be the last POST regarding our little scavenger hunt prior to letting everyone know our location!

A little update to the place we undertook was repainting the walls and replacing flooring from the old carpet that used to be there, seeing as this building used to be a carpet store before us!

This will help us disinfect everything regularly to prevent anything being tracked in from outside and ensure our animals are happy and healthy!