Joeygachetti1120
Member
Hi there. I have some questions about my beardie. His name is venom and he is nearing 5 months of age and he is about 13 inches from nose to end of tail. My question is, shouldn’t he be a little bit bigger than he is now? I have done an EXTENSIVE amount of research before and after purchasing him and I’m constantly learning more about bearded and other reptiles as I go. Little bit of background information on his enclosure and eating routine. He is in a 40 gallon breeder with a sand mat as substrate to prevent impaction but still give the desert feel to it. I have two burrows that I made with half logs and excavator clay and some other decoratons for him to play with. His basking temps on the hot side are 110 and the cool side stays at 80. Humidity is usually at about 40% as I don’t use a water dish. His UVB is a reptisun 10.0 with a T8 hoodlamp that spans half of his enclosure and the mesh is removed from between the bulb and the enclosure to make sure none of it is blocked. He eats twice a day until he is full. (Usually morning and mid day/night) his diet consists of crickets, dubia roaches, super worms, wax worms (occasionally) and very occasional meal worms. All dusted with Repti-cal with D3 I also offer him collard greens and carrots daily dusted with vitamins and he usually eats most of them. He’s a great eater! Very easy going. He also poops regularly once a day and if not every other day. The only problem is that he hadnt shed for about a month and he just shed his tail, arms and legs a couple days ago and his back and head are very dull now and getting ready to shed. In the beginning he shed every two weeks like clockwork and now it’s slowed down a lot, it’s my understanding that they grow very quickly in their first year and he seemed to be on track but not it appears that he’s slowing down and I know he’s nowhere near close to fully grown. Like I said, only about 13 inches in length and he’s nearing 5 months old. Im not sure why this is because I’ve seen many other people with 5 month old beardies much bigger than venom. Is there anything wrong with my husbandry? I spot clean him every day and fully clean his Viv every two weeks. Could it just be his genetics? I got him from petsmart in October and was told he probably wasn’t any older than a month old and he was about 4 or 5 inches in full length so he has grown a bit. My main concern is why it is now taking him so long to begin shed and the shedding process itself is much longer now than it was in the beginning and it’s my belief that that’s what could be affecting his growth. If anyone could help I’d appreciate it very much. Pictures will be attatched below!
