New to Beardies

[Gaby]

Hello, I just rescently was given a birdie from a home breeder, she is three months old female, my son named her Toothless, like the dragon in the movie 'How to Train Your Dragon', we have fallen in love with her.
I am very new to beardies and am learning as I go. She seems healthy, but rescently her ureate was light pink, and I'm worried. She eats crickets, acorn squash and kale. Yesterday and today she has been eating cockroaches. I spray her food with calcium supplement every other day, her basking Zone is at around 95f and cool zone 75f. Her UVB bulb is 20watt dessert 50, Zilla, basking bulb 75 watt zoo-med. I would greatly appreciate your advise, my son is very attached to her, he is a very special boy and would not want to loose Toothless due to not taking good care of her.
Thank you!

 

[Hdrydr31]

Hello, I just rescently was given a birdie from a home breeder, she is three months old female, my son named her Toothless, like the dragon in the movie 'How to Train Your Dragon', we have fallen in love with her.
I am very new to beardies and am learning as I go. She seems healthy, but rescently her ureate was light pink, and I'm worried. She eats crickets, acorn squash and kale. Yesterday and today she has been eating cockroaches. I spray her food with calcium supplement every other day, her basking Zone is at around 95f and cool zone 75f. Her UVB bulb is 20watt dessert 50, Zilla, basking bulb 75 watt zoo-med. I would greatly appreciate your advise, my son is very attached to her, he is a very special boy and would not want to loose Toothless due to not taking good care of her.
Thank you!View attachment 15593

Welcome to the forum and to beardies!! You got a adorable leatherback!! At 3 months of age you want to bring that basking temp up to 107F what size tank do you have her in? There should be 3 zones of temps basking, warm and cool side where they will typically sleep at night. As they thermo regulate their temps to what they are needing.. As you will find you will end up with quite a selection of bulbs finding the right ones and also they will change as the seasons change.
** if you take a look below several of our comments you will see a couple of links one being general info as we have put together a ton of info on what's needed to take care of them...
Depending on how long ago or recently your little one may just be a bit stressed from the move. we call it relocation stress, this will fade in a week or so. It can also be due to lower basking temps.
A big thing I also see is the UVB coil bulbs are known to cause eye damage and are not very good for them. In the link you will find info on good bulbs, most of us use Reptisun T5 HO 10.0 these bulbs get replaced once a year (more if moved around alot or bumped into) they can be mounted ontop of the mesh T8's can not as the UVB won't penetrate.
In the link you will find food links Kale is one of the items that is ok IF fed with other leafy greens like collards, turnip, dandeilion, mustard greens. but fed alone it is an occas to be fed item.
after she has settled you will want to get her fully checked out by a exotic vet and get a fecal test done to test for parasites that are not good.. it is common to carry pin worms but a healthy dragon immune system they can keep them in check however a stressed dragon they can get out of control. Feeding crickets are also known to carry pin worms just fyi.
Hope some of this helps and know that we are all here to help. we love pictures of the enclosure as we may see things that need tweaking.

 

[Gaby]

Thank you!!!!!