Hi I'm New

Greetings to all,

Hello, my name is Emma, I've gotten tons of info from this site over the last few months so I figured I'd join. ☺

I have an 11 month old boy named Rocky, he will be a year old on May 19th. A family member gave him to me when he was 4 months old, he was a hatchling from their female. I'm completely besotted with this guy, he's my baby and I can't believe how much I love him already, he can drive me crazy with worry sometimes but he's very worth it. I ordered him a blankie to see if he's a little cosy snuggler like some of your little ones!

Anyway, it's nice to be a part of this site.

Emma

Welcome to the forum! I hope Rocky likes his new blanket. My Darwin loves his and I wound up getting lots of them. I'd love to see photos of Rocky. You can upload them here https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/ and post them to your thread using the XIMG button.

Hi!
Thanks for the reply and the link, that helped me out, lol. Although, there was one picture I wanted to upload that shows some beautiful colouring but it's getting jammed on 100% no matter what browser I use, I'll try again later.

I should probably mention that his previous owner, when she had him, couldn't get him to eat anything but mealworms which is bad but as soon as he came to me, I had him eating crickets like crazy, plenty of veg, hoppers, wax worms. Because of this, his growth has taken a little longer than your usual Dragon but he's grown quite a lot if you ask me. The 'baby' pictures here are from days after I got him so he was hitting around 17 weeks old - ish. Yes, very small still for such age but I took care of it, he's now a healthy 19" almost. I'll try and get the newer pics uploaded soon. Please do let me know if he looks healthy to you. Any comments are welcome.

He looks great! Nice and happy & alert. =). I'm glad to hear you're able to give him a more varied diet. That will help him out a lot in the long run. The more variety you can provide the better!


Sometimes the upload manager gets hung up. In those cases I just refresh the page and try again. It takes a few tries sometimes but usually goes through and completes the upload.

Oh I'm so glad he looks good to you. I'm still new to it all but your comment tells me I'm getting the hang of it. =]

I actually have a couple questions regarding changes in Rocky's behavior lately, could it be posted in here or should I head over to the forum to ask in the correct thread?

This is your main thread. Feel free to post/ask whatever you'd like. If you don't get enough views or answers you can create a new thread in a specific forum if you wish.

Oh okay great!

Well, a little over a week ago Rocky (1 year old 19th May) started to spend a lot of time under his log on the cool side, not eating very much, I wouldn't say loss of apetite because if a locust came near then he would eat it. And still never turns down a wax worm. He's had a few bites of his greens. He's not always asleep inside the log, he lays in there awake. Trouble is if he is near the end he is eating what comes close but not coming out to bask so ends up not passing a bowel movement. I was able to coax him out with a couple wax worms yesterday and he basked for a few minutes before retreating back to his hide, still no BM, the last one was 2-3 days ago. Currently he is in a 3ft vivarium (going for a 5ft very soon) I've changed his lighting so it's new, he has a 100W Exo Terra intense basking spot bulb with ceramic dome and a 15W Arcadia D3 10.0 UVB T8 tube with reflector. Temps are measured with digital probes and a temp gun and are currently Warm end - 109.8 Cool end - 81.1. I should add that there has been some time after this behaviour started when he was out and active. So it seems he comes out one day then hides for the next couple days.

I thought at first that he was due to shed because it's been well over a month since the last one and he had bulged his eyes and stretched his chin like he does before a shed (usually face sheds first).

Will be making a call to a vet tomorrow if I can find one in my area to try book a faecal test at the least. I'm a little worried about my boy so any help would be greatly appreciated, guys. And thanks in advance!

A few days without a poop isn't necessarily bad. It's quite possible the mood change is due to shed. His temps sound good. How far is the T8 above his basking site? They should be around 6-8'' but their effectiveness drops off quickly beyond 8''. Moving to a T5 makes sense if you need higher output or need to cover more distance.

How long is his daytime cycle? Has the weather been cold or have there been any fronts going through recently? Sometimes the outside weather can have an effect on them too.

I managed to get him to come out by talking to him, he kept nudging out a little more the longer I talked to him and eventually came out, he came over to me and gave me a cute look then walked up his log on the cool side, he's eaten two locusts. He has a long root type log across the middle of his viv and the highest point gets well within 6" of his UV which is his usual place to sit but not lately. He did look up at his old UV tube before I changed it, almost his snout touched it. Also, before he came out I saw him rub his chin on the ground a little so maybe he is going to shed?
I did try to upload a pic I took a few minutes ago but it still won't let me.

Looking at him, he seems to be frequently tilting his head, is this normal?

His hours are between 12-13, even though it's spring we're having very cold air, coming from Iceland apparently. And I am going to order the T5 tomorrow, thanks for telling me that.

That sounds pretty good. It's possibly a combination of the weather and an oncoming shed that has him out of sorts. The head tilting is common. They do that to focus on something overhead or below them. He sounds fairly alert and isn't really acting sick so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Try increasing his daylight by an hour or two and see if that helps keep him up a bit more.

He stayed out of the log for the most part today, spent some time on the warm side, had a BM, It wasn't perfectly formed but it wasn't diarrhea, is this normal? Now he is back in his log again. I'm just hoping it is just shedding. Can Dragons have difficult shedding like this? Baths and misting seem to cheer him up and make him stretch his skin.

Yeah that's common for a shed. They can sometimes be quite stubborn and irritating to them. Their poop won't always be well formed either. As long as it doesn't get messy and excessively smelly for an extended period it's not usually something to worry about.

Okay, I'm not so worried now. Thanks =]

I wish I was able to upload a newer picture so I could show off how beautiful he is.

Rocky2710":2xe58b5y said:

I managed to get him to come out by talking to him, he kept nudging out a little more the longer I talked to him and eventually came out, he came over to me and gave me a cute look then walked up his log on the cool side, he's eaten two locusts. He has a long root type log across the middle of his viv and the highest point gets well within 6" of his UV which is his usual place to sit but not lately. He did look up at his old UV tube before I changed it, almost his snout touched it. Also, before he came out I saw him rub his chin on the ground a little so maybe he is going to shed?
I did try to upload a pic I took a few minutes ago but it still won't let me.

Looking at him, he seems to be frequently tilting his head, is this normal?

His hours are between 12-13, even though it's spring we're having very cold air, coming from Iceland apparently. And I am going to order the T5 tomorrow, thanks for telling me that.

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he looks great .... only change I'd suggest is upping his hours to 15 - 16 hrs per day.

I can't tell you how happy it makes me to hear other beardie owners say my Rocky looks good.

I'm still trying for 30+ minutes everyday to upload a photo but still no luck

Okay great, may I ask, what upping the hours to 15-16 will do to benefit him? I'm not disagreeing or anything, just wanting to absorb all the info I can.