juvenile dragon update (the sequel)

[Dennis Cronin]

As I said before he's gone from not eating to eating us our of house and home. Eats a boat load of crickets every day, plus usually about half his salad. Yup, there's no two ways about it... he's getting fat. And then the "leavings" are like some large dinosaur is living in that cage. Seems like no physical way something that big could come outta that little guy.

Thanks yet again for all the help here. They're surprisingly easy to deal with once you get the light and temp right I think. I just wish that had been made a bit more clear to me at Petsmart.

Dennis

 

[GroomerMo]

May I ask how you got him to eat I bought a beardie from pet smart and its not very active or hungry I can only get him to eat one horn worm in the morning and a little bit of greens. His tank is perfect temps and I have been giving him vitamins.

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[Dennis Cronin]

Mungi's Buddha and others here were super helpful getting me going and are certainly more knowledgeable but maybe I can offer some beginner perspective. I'm guessing the temperature is probably the most important thing. I changed several things at once so I can't say for sure, but I was particularly tentative about cranking the heat and MB here urged me to push to 110 degrees. So now I currently run 2 50w lamps sitting on the enclosure screen and then have a fairly tall fake rock so he can get up and very toasty. I've got a digital temperature probe stuck to the rock so I know the temp. I was concerned about roasting the guy but I think they move out of the heat if they're too warm, or they'll adjust they're position so they're getting what they need. I understand they need lots of warmth to help digest their food and they won't eat if they can't digest.

Also at the same time I switched to an 18" Reptisun 15w UV bulb. Also administered some Reptaid but I'm frankly not sure much got in cuz he was keeping his mouth pretty clamped shut. Temp probes and Reptisun bulb are from PetMountain.com. They took over a week to come but you can crank up the basking light in the meantime.

He gets about a 13 hour day, and I turn all lights off at night. Ambient temp in our house at night is 78-80. It was hard to imagine him exhibiting appetite after seeing him so disinterested in food for so long, but really over the space of a couple days after changing the heating and lighting he suddenly began making up for lost time and pouncing on the crickets. When I put crickets in the enclosure now, he doesn't act aloof and disinterested--he dives across the cage and gulps 'em down.

Dennis