New Dragon

[MsJessC]

I did a lot of research and lurked around several forums, and have now brought home my first bearded dragon, Ramses! I absolutely love this guy already and am looking forward to getting to know him better.

(If I attached the photo correctly- this picture was taken of him his first day home, three days ago.)

 

[Abby Cuccia]

Hi Jess! Adorable little beardie. Do you know if it is m/f? Our Devlin is unknown. I call it her and my boyfriend calls it him since he is rooting for another boy. We have 2 female cats and he wants another guy on his side what is Ramses eating? How old?

 

[MsJessC]

Hey Abby We don't know if Ramses is male or female yet. I am referring to him as "he" out of habit since all our other animals (cat betta and chameleon) are males. Come to think of it, I should change my rooting stance.

I'm not entirely sure how old Ramses, "several months" per the pet store. He's about 8" long.

Unfortunately he's not eating much yet. One cricket his first day and, I know it's not great for them, but when he wasn't eating crickets I bought "super worms" at the pet store hoping he'll eat something! He's had about two of those a day for the last two days. I do have phoenix worms on the way though. I'm hoping he'll like those. How about Devlin. How is he eating? What is he eating??

 

[Germ]

A few good links to help get you started ...

Basic BD Care Sheet - A Place To Start

Bearded Dragon --- Exclusive Care Info Library

Beautiful Dragons Nutrition Chart

UVB Bulb Types & Setup

Is Bearded Dragon Co-habitation a good plan?

How to sex a Bearded Dragon
How To Sex A Bearded Dragon

 

[Abby Cuccia]

Hi Jess-

This is something I typed to respond to your message but figured I might as well keep it public incase anyone has feedback. That's why we are here, right?

That is so funny! We have cats (2) and they hover constantly. The first night we brought D home we shut our bedroom door to make sure the cars couldn't bother the dragon in the living room. My cats are very anti closed doors so this was an extremely rare event. The more dominant cat must have stayed up all night bc the next day she passed out next to the tank. I texted the pic w a caption: "can't leave her bestie!" D doesn't seem to mind the cats. I shoo them off if they express stalking behavior as compared to observing.

D is eating about 20-25 crickets per day and I offer greens - collard greens - which she has eaten but not a lot at a time and not often. One of the links Germain posted re nutrition is very useful. Devlin is almost 7 inches long and she is about 10 and a half weeks old so maybe you can use that as a gauge for Ramses. She is also very photogenic and loves to be handled. I attribute that to the breeder we got her from. It was a young girl probably 18 who knew everything under the sun. Immediately we could hold her and she never ran or showed aggression and when we would go to put her in her tank she would climb farther up our hand as if to say "not yet!"

We are very pleased with our experience. The one thing we are having trouble with is keeping the crickets alive. We have a cricket carrier and buy about a 2 day supply and by the 2nd day they are all pretty much dead. We use the Flukers all in one cricket nourishment (orange cubes) and they eat it but they still die. We even started keeping them on the patio but they still die. I've talked to the people at the pet stores - I have talked with roughly 5 dif stores- and they are not sure what I'm doing wrong. So that's something I'm on a mission to fix. Any thoughts?

 

[MsJessC]

That's wonderful to hear how social Devlin is. The image of him not wanting to let go is exceedingly sweet. Next time breeder all the way for me. Though I can't complain too much. Ramses doesn't mind being handled. I admit he doesn't run to us yet, but he doesn't run from us, or fight being picked up, either. Nor does the cat bother him. Even when Fiz (cat) sleeps on the top of Ramsey's cage.

He's eating quite a bit more this evening. So I'm feeling a little better. No greens yet, but we'll get him there.

 

[MsJessC]

Update.. crickets, mealworms, superworms and greens all eaten tonight!

(If you'll note the new avatar he's looking much happier.. as am I. )

 

[Abby Cuccia]

Oh wow that's awesome news! Congratulations! How many crickets do you buy at a time and how are you storing them? I bought wax worms once for Devlin but they didn't take. She had no interest.

 

[MsJessC]

Actually I'm having the same problem as you. =\ I can't get crickets to live beyond two days, even with the cricket food and yellow drinking cubes. We keep them in one of those live feed containers with the nifty tubes so you never have to touch them. My hubby is having slightly better luck with his tiny crickets for his chameleon, but by the third day they're still starting to keel over. We've ordered "multi" packages of other feeders online and hoping to see if we can expand on Ramses cricket pallette.

It turns out one of the problems Ramses was having eating the crickets is they were moving around too fast in his large terrarium. I squashed one and then handed it to him, and he ate it immediately. Eating problem solved. I read where you're suppose to twist the cricket legs off in order to keep them from jumping away, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. I felt it was more humane to just squish them and hand them over.

 

[Abby Cuccia]

We have the container with the tubes too. We now have an egg crate piece in with the crix and the tubes to see if that makes a difference... kind of a trial and error thing over here. How long has your husband had his chameleon? Devlin doesn't seem to want anything other than crickets so we are making do with what we have.

I heard that a terrarium that was too large for a younger beardie could be an issue because it would be hard for them to get their food, but someone on here told me that was ridiculous. You can get a lot of feedback from different places but I think you don't really know until you experience it. How large is your enclosure? Devlin chases her crickets all over. That's interesting that you have to kill Ramses for him. I feel as though if I killed Devlin's she wouldn't want them. (I definitely wouldn't be twisting legs off...) She has become a little skittish over the last couple of days, like she doesn't want to be picked up.

Have you bathed Ramses yet? I gave Devlin a little bath last week and am going to give another today. We have this large (like EXTRA LARGE) Tupperware container that I have designated a bath container and I fill it "shoulder length" with warm water and just let her wade/swim around. She was pretty unsure our first time around but I guess they get used to it. The first time we went probably less than 5 minutes but I'm going to go a little longer today. When she was done I used a papertowel and loosely swaddled her for about a minute and then put her back in her enclosure to get warm.

 

[Abby Cuccia]

Ok we had a bath - I'll upload pics and videos Also - cricket update: they seem to be doing VERY well with the egg crate piece in there. NO dead ones! can you believe it? I took the tubes out because they don't seem to care about the tubes with the egg crate piece in there. So to feed I just stick the whole container in the cage, open the top of the crix container, yank out the egg crate piece and shake into the cage until I'm sure there's plenty of crickets loose and place egg crate back into crix container, shut lid, remove and watch Devlin devour. It has worked 2 times out of 2, so I'm satisfied. The store where I got the crickets just threw a piece of egg crate in on request so I would go with that if I were you...

 

[MsJessC]

Ingenious. I'm glad you found something that worked so fast! I'll suggest the egg carton to my hubby. Ramses still won't chase the crickets. I have an oddly shaped aquarium. The length of a 55 gallon, but with a wider width. It would probably be too much for Ramses to chase the crickets, but he doesn't even try. They're not scared of him so they hop all around him exploring and he ignores them. Ah well, as long as he's eating something I'm not going to complain.

Ramses seems to enjoy his baths over all. (I'm giving one to him every other day until I'm sure he's eating enough vegetables to keep himself more hydrated.) Too adorable when he flattens himself so the water comes right up to his vents. We're still using the bathtub. Due to washing before and after Ramses' use it's the cleanest it's ever been. haha

I've attached a picture of how I found Ramses sleeping this morning. Does Devlin get into odd places and positions to sleep at night?
(Unfortunately I can't figure out how to turn the picture and then save it. He's actually sleeping straight up!)

 

[Abby Cuccia]

Oh he's so adorable I just want to snuggle next to him! For some reason my gmail is down... it's up on my phone but not on my computer so I can't upload what I've sent to myself. (very high tech over here) But here is the pic I took of Devlin sleeping the other night and this is not our first (or last) time sleeping standing up.

Here is during the bath:

Ok let's see if this works...I'm learning all sorts of things over here....
Here are some Youtube links:

 

[Abby Cuccia]

Oh cool that worked out great!

 

[MsJessC]

I love Devlin's color! He is a gorgeous boy. And well done on the video posting. It's great to see him in action. I really enjoy the fact he doesn't want to let go of you.