Hi, Grace here!
I’m a first time beardie owner, and I’m constantly nervous about how my new baby Julianos acts.
While buying him and supplies, I was unfortunately very unprepared for what I would actually need and I’ve made multiple store runs getting the right and wrong things and subsequently learning from them as I try to research more and more.
Julianos is very young, about “a few weeks old” was what the petsmart employee had told me. As of now, I can’t even tell if Julianos is actually a “he”! Either way, when I first brought him home almost six days ago, I had set him up with a 20-gallon tank and a 75 watt basking lamp along with some water and small crickets. During this time, I hadn’t read much about beardie behavior and didn’t know that I had to give him some space after his move. After the 2nd day of his stay, I read that apparently he wouldn’t want to eat for a while because of the move and I was panicking because the only two stores I knew of that sold crickets had crickets that were already dead or running out of the crickets that were alive (at least I knew not to feed him the dead and molding ones)!
Cue the next few days passing, with just me cleaning off the little hut he uses as a basking spot since he often poops on it and never moves from it. I had also upgraded his light to 100w and plan on moving the hut closer to the light. His current light right now is a Zoo Med desert UVB and heat lighting kit. The UVB is 10.0 and I switched the 75w it came with to the 100w. I keep both lights on since I read that apparently the UVB and the basking heat go hand in hand.
As of now, based on my digital thermometer, the area around his basking spot can reach about 91 degrees Fahrenheit. I know it needs to be hotter for baby beardies, which I am working on.
For now, Julianos often stays on his basking spot all day long, and the only times he does come off it is to glass surf... These past few days I have also tried to give him some warm baths, though I’m not sure if this helps with the whole “getting used to/adjusting” thing.
The stress marks on his belly are prevalent almost all the time unless he is sleeping (one time, he had slept with his belly up to the glass...it was all white and very cute!).
Like I said, he often does his business on his hut and I have to take it out so I can clean it, though I’m also worried if this just makes him stressed more since I’m taking a big thing out of his habitat and putting it back in. Whenever I put my hand in to do so, he is very adverse to me grabbing him to move him from the hut or when I have to bathe him, and he often turns his head away from my hand entirely and opts to stare at the glass instead.
It has been almost six days now, and he still continues the glass surfing/basking all day/prevalent stress marks. I have also started feeding him small Dubia roaches, which definitely piqued his interest, though his behavior remains the same. I am still looking to fix his basking spot so that it’s closer to the bulb in hopes that it will help.
But is this behavior still just him adjusting to his new home? Should I wait longer and continue with my current routine? Is there something else that I can do to help him?
I’m a first time beardie owner, and I’m constantly nervous about how my new baby Julianos acts.
While buying him and supplies, I was unfortunately very unprepared for what I would actually need and I’ve made multiple store runs getting the right and wrong things and subsequently learning from them as I try to research more and more.
Julianos is very young, about “a few weeks old” was what the petsmart employee had told me. As of now, I can’t even tell if Julianos is actually a “he”! Either way, when I first brought him home almost six days ago, I had set him up with a 20-gallon tank and a 75 watt basking lamp along with some water and small crickets. During this time, I hadn’t read much about beardie behavior and didn’t know that I had to give him some space after his move. After the 2nd day of his stay, I read that apparently he wouldn’t want to eat for a while because of the move and I was panicking because the only two stores I knew of that sold crickets had crickets that were already dead or running out of the crickets that were alive (at least I knew not to feed him the dead and molding ones)!
Cue the next few days passing, with just me cleaning off the little hut he uses as a basking spot since he often poops on it and never moves from it. I had also upgraded his light to 100w and plan on moving the hut closer to the light. His current light right now is a Zoo Med desert UVB and heat lighting kit. The UVB is 10.0 and I switched the 75w it came with to the 100w. I keep both lights on since I read that apparently the UVB and the basking heat go hand in hand.
As of now, based on my digital thermometer, the area around his basking spot can reach about 91 degrees Fahrenheit. I know it needs to be hotter for baby beardies, which I am working on.
For now, Julianos often stays on his basking spot all day long, and the only times he does come off it is to glass surf... These past few days I have also tried to give him some warm baths, though I’m not sure if this helps with the whole “getting used to/adjusting” thing.
The stress marks on his belly are prevalent almost all the time unless he is sleeping (one time, he had slept with his belly up to the glass...it was all white and very cute!).
Like I said, he often does his business on his hut and I have to take it out so I can clean it, though I’m also worried if this just makes him stressed more since I’m taking a big thing out of his habitat and putting it back in. Whenever I put my hand in to do so, he is very adverse to me grabbing him to move him from the hut or when I have to bathe him, and he often turns his head away from my hand entirely and opts to stare at the glass instead.
It has been almost six days now, and he still continues the glass surfing/basking all day/prevalent stress marks. I have also started feeding him small Dubia roaches, which definitely piqued his interest, though his behavior remains the same. I am still looking to fix his basking spot so that it’s closer to the bulb in hopes that it will help.
But is this behavior still just him adjusting to his new home? Should I wait longer and continue with my current routine? Is there something else that I can do to help him?