Beardy scared of reflection

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Ariathedragon

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Ok, this is my first post. So I got my first beardy about 4 months ago, she is about 6 months old. I haven’t seen any worrysome behavioral issues(besides from stress in the beginning, but she’s warmed up to me) She didn’t mind when I picked her up, actually if anything all of her stress marks would go away when I played with her.
However, for the past couple days she’s been acting sort of strange. She started shedding a few days ago(I don’t hold her when she sheds because I don’t want her to be even more uncomfortable) About the same time that she started shedding she started giving her reflection the death glare, and would stare at herself for hours on end. She started having stress marks all of the time. She recently finished shedding, and I took her out of her cage to play. She went on my head so I couldn’t really see her, and after about 10 minutes of her sitting on my head I thought it was about time to put her back in her cage. I pick her up and I see that she has the biggest stress marks I’ve ever seen on her, which is weird because normally when she comes out of the cage her stress marks go away. She loves running on the ground so I figured I’d put her on the ground and let her run around for a lil bit, so she becomes less stressed. I put her on the ground and she sprints, faster than I’ve ever seen, right into my dresser and then keeps running into it over and over again. I get scared and pick her up to put her in her cage and she keeps trying to sprint off my hands, which is also strange behavior for her. At this point I just don’t want her to get hurt by either sprinting off my hand or running into the dresser again so I try to hold her and run over to the cage. I put her in and she goes crazy in her cage, running all around. And now she’s just staring intensely at her reflection again. I’m very scared and am trying to do what’s best for her physical and mental health.
Does anyone know why she’s doing this? Is it all related to the reflection? If so how can I fix it without boarding up her whole cage so she can’t see it?
 

KarrieRee

BD.org Sicko
Beardie name(s)
Hiccup he is 6 and Blaze is 4
Have you tried covering the sides that she can see the reflection? Is she by a window that see can see outside? Are there other animals in the house that bother her ? cat? dog? another dragon? It sounds like she has seen something that has scared her-- I would take care of the reflection issue in the tank - you may haft to move the tank so she cant get a reflection off the glass --
 

Ariathedragon

New member
Original Poster
Hello, thanks for the reply. She is not by a window, and all 4 sides of the tank are giving off reflections. She used to have a white poster board border on one side of her cage because at the time the cage was too big for her. I removed it a few days ago- maybe that could be it? I have a dog, but she rarely comes in and the couple times she has my beardy hasn’t seemed to mind. I will try to cover the main side that she looks at reflection, and keep my door closed so my dog can’t come in. Thanks for your help!
 

lisbetha

Member
What are the tank dimensions?

Beardies can't really understand glass as a barrier and do not understand reflections. Since they're solitary, she may see that as another beardie in her environment. I'd recommend covering a good portion of it - use some glass frosting or even an aquarium or 3d background. If the cage is smallish, you may end up with glass running problems later on too. Ideally, cover anything that's not a glass door.

Glass is also horrible for keeping the heat in :/.
 

Ariathedragon

New member
Original Poster
Hello, I am not exactly sure of the cage dimensions, I can measure them tmrw and write back then. I tried covering one of the sides(the one she was most frightened of) and she seems to be doing a lot better! She doesn’t mind me picking her up again, and isn’t staring at her reflection all day now. She still sometimes stares at the other sides, but not nearly as much:D
 
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