I’ve read that they have to have a very specific diet and sunlight. They are very very hard to raise.
Years ago, (up until the 80’s I believe) they were rounded up and sold as pets by the thousands because they were so cute and docile.
I remember my mother telling me when she was a child that there was a lady who paid children something like 2 or 3 cents apiece for every lizard- which she shipped off somewhere to pet stores.
I’m sure this didn’t help the lizard population.
We found one and wanted to keep it as pet. We went to the local pet store to find out what we should feed it. The guy said that it would probably die in two weeks because they needed carpenter ants to live.
Once a month I would go up into the mountains with a picnic cooler and find a carpenter ant colony and shovel it into the cooler. The ants were just fine doing their ant thing in the cooler.
We would feed the horned toad aunts almost exclusively with an occasional grub treat.
He lived for 6 years with us. My wife still has him in a box.