Petsmart concern

[Spikeshuman]

The Petsmart near my house has a resident Bearded dragon named Nigel. Nigel is a pretty translucent. He is mostly light yellow with some brilliant bright orange on his cheeks and ears.. and on his back. They keep him in a 40g breeder with two UV lights one on either side.. and a heat source in the middle where his branch reaches up to. They have always had a basking light as the heat source and hes always been so pretty. They recently changed to a ceramic heat source so that he can stay warm at night. Here's the concern part... since changing to the ceramic.. Nigel has been icky brown with a grey beard (his beard was always light yellow before). I wondered why he has looked so dull for the past month.. and today I decided to stick my hand up under the ceramic heat source. I could hold my hand there no problem.. I know if I get my hand within 3 inches of Spikes lamp.. it hurts. I practically had my hand on the coil of the ceramic emitter and just held it there. Then I took a look at the temp dial they have in there right under the ceramic thing.. where Nigels head goes.. and it read just under 90. I know that dials suck.. I use a probe myself.. but under 90 when the dial is placed at the highest point in the tank.. seems low. So.. here is my question..

Is Nigel icky cause his basking temp is too low? Should I attempt to mention this to someone at Petsmart? I wanted to ask here first because I am certainly no beardie expert yet.. Spike just turned 4 months.. so I have very little experience.

 

[wmwelch]

Yes, I would politely say something. I think that Nigel would thank you for it if he could.

Wendy

 

[kcarello]

You should go to the enclosure section on here and print out the thread on lighting and take it to them. Explain how they need bright white light placed right next to the uvb light. Also about the temps for basking, the CHE is only for night time to give off a little heat without putting out any light. Please try to politely tell them / ask them to do the right thing. Let us know how it goes,
Kelly

 

[Spikeshuman]

Thanks for pointing me to the enclosure section.. I will take a look in the morning and take it to them.

 

[NEROtheMONSTER]

Let us know how talking to them goes .

 

[Spikeshuman]

I went in today.. but I am waiting for the right employee to be there. One lady I know could not care less, the manager will dismiss my advice thinking she knows better.. and the other two ladies that work there are just clueless.. but the boy that works there.. is a total animal lover.. so is his whole family.. they practically have a zoo at home. If I tell him about it.. he will work hard to fix the situation.

 

[NEROtheMONSTER]

Good idea.Hopefully he will do something

 

[kcarello]

Good luck!!! I truly wish there was some way to get through to the Petsmart and Petco stores and make them take proper care of the animals they keep..if your gonna sell them you should know how to take care of them..Period!!!
Kelly

 

[Melody12]

Good luck!!! I truly wish there was some way to get through to the Petsmart and Petco stores and make them take proper care of the animals they keep..if your gonna sell them you should know how to take care of them..Period!!!
Kelly

Petland sold me a bag of calci-sand and told me that it was okay. After looking up on the Internet, here, and there, I found it not so good. I took Melody off the sand and put her on paper towels, instead. I've learned not to listen to pet stores when they try to sell you things they don't need. They also told me I needed a 75 gallon critter tank for Melody and I just don't have room for a large tank that size. I got a nice 55 gallon critter tank for Melody and she's doing just fine. There's still a lot of things I'm learning about beardies.

I once spotted some baby bearded dragons on sand. They were so small and different from Melody. They were dark brown and had only a Heat Lamp. When I saw someone, I told them they needed to get rid of the sand and put paper towels down on the bottom. (They didn't listen to me. I even asked to 'pet one' and opened the tank. What they got was a me doing the sale's associate's job. I took out the food dish and asked, "Would you eat this?" They said, "No." and I said, "Neither will they." They learned a lesson to feed the baby beardies right away. They still didn't remove the sand, they didn't even have a UVB tube bulb, they were using a heat rock, and heat light. Nothing else.

Sometimes I just wonder.

 

[cilla05]

My local petco keeps their baby beardies on sand, no basking light, just UVB. They are being fed small mealworms and the employees dump the mealworms in the feeding dish with the flakes that come with the mealworms. The feeding dish has tons of shedded mealworm skin in it. I am far from being an expert on bearded dragons, we have owned ours for only 2 weeks.

 

[vampy]

I always get sad at the way the beardies are kept in chain pet stores, but recently I've been surprised by 2 local reptile stores too. One of them appears to keep his beardies really well, newspaper substrate, and I've seen him feed them teeny tiny crickets, but I was rather disappointed the other week when he told me the repti-glo bulbs are the best on the market, and if i want to feed superworms I need to squish their heads so they don't eat their way through the beardie's stomach. Still, the animals there do look well cared for.

However the other store, which used to be my favourite, and who are very good with looking after snakes, had their babies in really unsuitable conditions. On purple sand, with locusts easily twice the size of their heads crawling all over them in the tanks, and with massive lettuce leaves in there with them...I'm pretty sure it was romaine rather than iceberg, but even so. And all the babies had really dark stress marks.

 

[Spikeshuman]

I have to agree with the super worm advice. I actually cut their little mouths off. Spike has only ever had two.. because they seemed to stop her up.

As for Nigel.. I spoke to someone today. He is going to either up the ceramic fixture to a higher wattage or go back to a mvb. He had no idea that the temp was so low until he stuck his hand under the fixture too. Then he checked the temp with a probe.. it was 90. He was all.. "Oh no.. that wont do!" So long story short.. hes going to work on fixing Nigel's temps. The manager was the one that took his mvb away.. so he is planing on talking her into putting it back.

 

[vampy]

How the hell would a superworm eat its way out of a beardie's stomach? For starters, I've never seen a beardie eat one without being gross and squirting a little superworm goo out of its mouth, so I'm pretty sure they are dead way before they even reach the stomach, and the stomach has acid in, which would finish the job.

I could understand if he said that they can bite and might nip the beardie's mouth or something, though even that I'd be dubious about, but actually eating their way out of the stomach? I just can't see it ever ever happening, nor have I heard of it happening, it just seems to be a bearded dragon urban legend.

 

[Spikeshuman]

I had not heard about it eating its way out of a stomach.. but my vet said they could bite Spikes face or eyes, so I take off their little chompers.

 

[LadyMeridius]

I had one take a bite out Fluffy's lip once. I blame my husband for trying to make her eat when she didnt want to. The next shed, it healed up fine. You can't tell anymore