Hello Everyone Newbie here

[Hdrydr31]

Hi there everyone I would like to introduce my first Beardie Izzy! I've always loved lizards and well I had a 55gal free and decided on getting a dragon... Did lots and lots of research to make sure I got what I needed for the little fella.. (well not sure if Izzy is a male or female I keep going back and forth on that one sometimes it looks like 2 hemi's and sometimes it looks like a single bump so.... lol) So for ease of things I'm going male until I know otherwise He is just under 9" long and about 3-4 months or so.

I got him at petco about 2 weeks ago and I am just in love with him!! what a cute personality! He loves to be on me checking things out.
Just a little back ground I've worked in many a pet store in my life and always took care of the reps and birds.. so I'm drawn to them.. We have 3 cats, 1 American bulldog, 1 rescued wren from VERY young, and now Izzy The bird eats bugs so I have the crickets already, I know mealworms from the bird eating them so once he is big enough for superworms that's no prob, and soon to get my first delivery of the Dubia roaches.. (have to admit they creep me out but whatever is best for Izzy) He LOVES them gobbles them right up. Only seen him eat a tiny bit of the salad so far but I know right now it's bugs mostly.

I would like to know more of what Izzy is I don't know much about the many different types of dragons...So any info you all would have would be appreciated.. Got all the UVB lights, basking spot, cool side, no substrate other than reptile carpet.

I have been reading thru the posts on this forum and look forward to this journey with Izzy my little buddy.. just a really laid back dragon and I love it!!

This picture was taken today while I took him outside to get some sun
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Bath time yes this is the same dragon his color changes are beautiful!
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[PatsyB]

Welcome to the forum! He looks like a normal scale dragon with some nice orange color.

 

[Hdrydr31]

Welcome to the forum! He looks like a normal scale dragon with some nice orange color.

Thank you PatsyB I just love his color changes!! I am amazed everyday at how beautiful he is I just love him!!

 

[PatsyB]

They are easy to fall in love with!

 

[Jdubclark]

If you're going to continue to feed him Dubia's you might want to try breeding them yourself. For less than $100 you can get everything you need plus a slew of adults/mix that will get you started (I assume you don't live in Florida since you already ordered some). They are ridiculously easy to maintain. Ordering them on-line will add up. Every now and then some folks on this forum will sell their overstock off for cheap. I had a guy from Nebraska ship me well over 1,000 mixed sizes for about $50.

 

[Hdrydr31]

If you're going to continue to feed him Dubia's you might want to try breeding them yourself. For less than $100 you can get everything you need plus a slew of adults/mix that will get you started (I assume you don't live in Florida since you already ordered some). They are ridiculously easy to maintain. Ordering them on-line will add up. Every now and then some folks on this forum will sell their overstock off for cheap. I had a guy from Nebraska ship me well over 1,000 mixed sizes for about $50.

Thank you VERY much for this info!! I know with my crickets I've bred them, and over the winter I need to do this alot as I'm here in WI and winters get too cold for shipping often... I've learned to price hunt alot but I am very interested in learning how to breed them! Is there a thread on how to do that somewhere on here?? Izzy LOVES them and since they are way better than crickets that will be a staple for him. Very good to hear that folks often sell off their overstock! I will be keeping an eye out for that for sure!!! Yep they are not cheap that's for sure
Again Thank you VERY much!!

 

[Jdubclark]

Look under the forum "Diet". There is quite a bit of information there. I've heard/read that breeding/keeping crickets is a royal pain...especially compared to Dubias. It's simply a matter of having a large plastic tote (those big ones you can get at wal-mart, home depot, etc. Throw some egg crates in there along with some water crystals, food (I use high protein chicken feed; don't use dog/cat food). I'll also throw in some carrots, left over greens from my beardie's salads, oranges, apples, grapes, etc. Set them on a heating source like an undertank heating pad and check on them once a week or so to add water crystals and remove old food. They don't smell, they don't climb smooth surfaces, or fly. You can also search for youtube videos. Females can have up to 30+ nymphs per month. I probably only clean out my bin once every couple of months.

 

[Hdrydr31]

Look under the forum "Diet". There is quite a bit of information there. I've heard/read that breeding/keeping crickets is a royal pain...especially compared to Dubias. It's simply a matter of having a large plastic tote (those big ones you can get at wal-mart, home depot, etc. Throw some egg crates in there along with some water crystals, food (I use high protein chicken feed; don't use dog/cat food). I'll also throw in some carrots, left over greens from my beardie's salads, oranges, apples, grapes, etc. Set them on a heating source like an undertank heating pad and check on them once a week or so to add water crystals and remove old food. They don't smell, they don't climb smooth surfaces, or fly. You can also search for youtube videos. Females can have up to 30+ nymphs per month. I probably only clean out my bin once every couple of months.

Thank you I just found the thread just a min ago.. Well I got everything already for them because of the crickets and yes crickets are a pain!!! soo temperamental and can be SOOO sensitive!!

 

[PatsyB]

It's always good if you can try to breed your own feeders whatever they are, especially in the midwest. My first winter with Dexter was brutal and nobody was shipping crickets and the pet stores weren't selling them because half of what they were getting were dead and they needed to feed their critters. I had my brother in law drive to 4 different Pet stores looking for crickets and I ended up getting a variety of worms. Now at the beginning of November I try to make sure I'm stocked for a few months. Super worms last forever and I found a place in Michigan that sells these super crickets that never seem to die!

Where in WI are you? I'm in Chicago but my mom and dad are in Wautoma and my brother is in Ripon.

 

[Hdrydr31]

It's always good if you can try to breed your own feeders whatever they are, especially in the midwest. My first winter with Dexter was brutal and nobody was shipping crickets and the pet stores weren't selling them because half of what they were getting were dead and they needed to feed their critters. I had my brother in law drive to 4 different Pet stores looking for crickets and I ended up getting a variety of worms. Now at the beginning of November I try to make sure I'm stocked for a few months. Super worms last forever and I found a place in Michigan that sells these super crickets that never seem to die!

Where in WI are you? I'm in Chicago but my mom and dad are in Wautoma and my brother is in Ripon.

We are in New London I know just where Wautoma and have been thru there I also have lived in IL up in Cary. small world! I order my crickets from Armstrongcrickets and they are great!!! I have found that with their winter packing and heat packs I can get them as long as the temp doesn't go below 17 above that they do alright as long as they are not smaller than 1/2. For winter times I watch the weather and if I see a long cold snap coming I order smaller ones as well as my normal 1/2 and now they offer 250 count as well.. Their worms are good too and cheap but sometimes they are out of regular mealworms. I have a rescued house wren that crickets and mealworms are her staple. I'm going to see if she will eat a roach today as that would make my life WAY easier!!! As crickets are a pain and with my RA/OA/Fibro/Sjogrens/Raynauds taking care of them every day is hard.. and moisture will wipe them out FAST! I've done ALOT of trial and error... Breeding them is ok if your conditions are JUST right but with crickets they take too long to get to feeding size I've decided on not breeding them anymore..
Now on the roaches I will see about keeping a colony, $ wise it looks like a winner and Izzy loves them! I need to research the how to's as I've not done them before my first shipment comes in the mail today.

 

[PatsyB]

You kinda have to just go through Watoma, there's really nothing there LOL! My parents grew up in Park Falls and Niagara and always wanted to go back but compromised and moved somewhere close enough for us to visit.

I usually wait for a break in the weather too to order my bugs. I order from Josh's Frogs. They are in MI but used to send their crickets out of IL and they would come UPS which worked great for me because my UPS driver is the best. They started selling cheaper crickets out of their facility in MI and I started ordering them and they come FedEx. So far I haven't had a problem with them. I ordered like 1000 1/2 inch crickets like a month ago and the only dead ones are the ones that get eaten or the ones I purposely kill because they are now big and chirping! I tried breeding crickets but so far no luck. I am breeding super worms though and that is going pretty well. I can't do roaches, they creep me out too much. My beardies don't get any more excited over a roach than they do a super so I don't buy them.

 

[Hdrydr31]

Thats funny about Wautoma as there are many little towns here that are like that lol....Don't blink you'll miss the town.
I have no problems breeding the crickets that is the easy part the hard part is finding the right medium to incubate the eggs! Worm bedding seems to work the best. As long as you got the chirping males and willing females done deal the beds get packed with females laying eggs like crazy.. I can get them to hatch and some make it to grow but most for whatever reason die off.. Too much moisture? but you have to keep the medium moist or the babies can't hatch! medium gets at times mold they die off....(I have them in a closed off room in the basement with fans/heat lamps/dehumidifier. but my honey does remodel work and sometimes a fume will penetrate boom die off) temp dips or raises too fast... soooooo friggin picky they are!! OH and I had to feed organic romaine/carrots as they were dying off from regular stuff because of pesticides used on the crops!!
I'm really hoping to have better success with the roaches even though they TOTALLY creep me out!! I'm not a bug person especially when they can grip as well as they can. But when I found out that 1 roach = 5 crickets I was sold more bang for the buck! Izzy is in heaven it's 1:41 pm and he's eaten 17 already little piggo (but he could stand to gain) I weighed him and he's 31 grams at 3 1/2 months ish..
I gave Willow my bird a roach and she devoured it although it was super fast and that took her by surprise sure would be nice not to have to keep crickets....She is equally a pig when it comes to eating considering her size (a small egg) she can put away 20-30 crickets, who knows how many mealworms, flightless fruit flies, and whatever moths happen to be caught by us each day..

 

[Jdubclark]

For the record, the roaches creep me out too. I only touch them by hand in an emergency (like if a couple escape when I'm cleaning their bin). But, I'm more afraid of my wife's reaction if one somehow got in the house so I do want I have to do. I've got a pretty good system down now so I haven't had to physically touch one in a while. Since I'm still feeding Si the smaller ones I just shake an egg carton into a large plastic storage container and then pick the ones I want out with some feeder prongs into a smaller feeding dish. Then I dump all the left over guys back into their bin.
I also feed him some wax worms a couple of times a week which he really likes and I just ordered some Phoenix worms to see how he likes them.

 

[Hdrydr31]

Well I know I've gone back and forth about if Izzy is a boy or a girl because it's been hard to tell.... Well It's a GIRL!!!! I'm about 80% sure ... Gave her a bath this afternoon because her face is starting to shed and her legs have gotten a bit dull, tail has been shedding. I think I've got things nicely set up, she's in a way healthier environment then petco She is a happy little dragon. And after she swam and soaked a bit I took her out and dried her off and thought I'd check again as she's filling out.... and I could clearly see a single bump in the shape of a half moon right above her vent.
Do I need to do anything differently since she's a girl? Care wise??

 

[Lynchman18]

Welcome and I love Izzy he is such a handsome dragon.

 

[Hdrydr31]

Thank you very much she is growin like a weed

 

[Hdrydr31]

Well we know for a fact that Izzy is indeed a girl lol finally did the LED test on her tail and no hemipenes!! lol that's a pretty cool trick

 

[PatsyB]

WOOHOO!!!! Congrats on your girl

 

[Hdrydr31]

It's kinda funny that I'm happy that she is a she I would be just fine with a boy too... I was really hoping for a girl, only thing I'm not sure about is the whole possibility of her producing eggs in the future and making sure that if she does that she doesn't have any issues in that area... So I guess now I do research on what to do, what to expect if she becomes gravid.

 

[PatsyB]

I was happy that Dexter was a girl too but then when I read about the egg thing I got totally freaked out. Luckily at almost 3 she hasn't had any. I was more freaked out about the boys having sperm plugs LOL! So far again with Luci haven't had the problem.

Now my male chameleon is 8 months old and has already showed me his man parts and rubbed them all over his cage decorations