Is my Beardie a Vittikins?

Hi, so I've had this account for months now, pretty much as soon as I got my 'beardie' for my birthday in Feb - but this is my first post. Since about may I've been having my doubts that my beardie, Bash (Sebastian), is a beardie at all. My parents knew a little about reptiles when they bought him for me and actually bought him on impulse one day when a traffic diversion sent them past a reptile store so they stopped.

As you can imagine we were more unprepared than we thought, and we actually found out we got him from a store with a bad reputation, but we actually have a reptile store in our town, a very good one, so we got pretty much a brand new setup the day after we got him. This was 8 months ago (to the day), we think he may have only been about 3-4 weeks when we were sold him so we estimate his age around 9 months.

Anyway today I took him into the reptile store in town just to get his nails trimmed and the owner of the store said he was wondering the last time he met him if he was actually a beardie or not, but he was too young to tell at that point. Today however he said he was pretty sure he wasn't a beardie, but he didn't think he looked much like a Rankins either. He said about him maybe being a cross but he'd not seen many crosses in his life, so I was wondering: What does everyone else think?

Here's some photos that show him off a bit.

This first one was a picture the day we got him, the second is his size this date last month



This was taken two days ago when he got his leash



Three days ago



Today!

Hi. He's a nice looking beardie Defiantly not a Rankins.

For anyone curious:

His first vs. current setup:



First: Newspaper & paper towel substrate with lots of deco leaves for hiding (were removed when he started to chomp on them, funnily enough still doesn't eat salad) 3ft x 2ft viv. he has a UV strip light bulb and a heat/basking spot, cant remember details for UV but the basking is 100w prorep. electric thermometer and plastic hygrometer
Current: 4ft x 2ft/2.5ft (it's a little deeper than out old one), repticarpet & slate substrate, not much deco as he kept trying to jump on his bulbs, just branches and cushions (handmade by me, fabric was safely cleaned in nontoxic things) cactus has been removed as it was being repurposed as a launching pad, same brand bulbs (replaced heat bulb, uv strip is due a replacement this month), same elec thermo, new joint hygro&thermo wall mounted.

Has a habistat thermostat we adjust morning & night & timer on uv bulb.

Picture of his viv today:



Feeding: He used to be on a diet of Locusts in his viv all day & each morning we'd put him in a separate tub with 8-10 crickets in and let him go wild, sometimes we added more if he ate them all. He went off crickets though for some reason so now we just shove 10-12 locusts in his viv in the morning and give him more if he eats them all before 4pm & he gets mealworms every few days and occasionally waxworms if we have any. Tried him on calciworms but he wasn't interested, all are dusted and gorgefed, calcium 5-6 days a week, nutrobal 1-2 days - we used to have a set day to nutrobal but we go too busy to keep a schedule so one of us (me or my dad) gives him it each week, hence the 1-2, sometimes we forget to tell each other we've given him it one day and the other gives it another.

He doesn't like to eat any greens, but he has it readily available, we've never seen him drink from his water bowl but it is in there, we spray him to keep him hydrated though because we dont want to assume he knows to drink from the bowl if we never witness it.

He does seem skinny but I promise he eats so much! We've only ever forgotten to feed him a few times in his whole life and thats when we've had early shifts at work and assume the other had fed him, and even then we've given him some when we've got back from work and kept him awake a little longer in the uv and heat (if we're home late) so he can safely digest (he was not a happy lil reptile on those days, but he forgave us :lol: )

He sheds loads, every couple of weeks! So he's definitely a growing boy.

Yes, he is definitely a beardie and a nice specimen as well. It is truly sad the the owner of the pet shop is willing to trim his nails but can't recognise what it is, almost laughable.

That's a very distinctive log he has in his viv. I sense I've seen it before.

SpacialCoogs":2gxoudkv said:

That's a very distinctive log he has in his viv. I sense I've seen it before.

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Your profile says Canada, so unless Canada is a small town in the UK beside mine, it's unlikely

Do you mean the elephant trunk or the scythe?

The elephant trunk is obviously the bamboo root, and well I call the other the scythe because it looks exactly like a handheld one used for wheat :lol: I tend to play with it alot whilst cleaning Bash out, I am clearly a high functioning adult.

Clearly, lmao!!!

This is a Rankins....yours isnt a vittakins

I follow a few beardie accounts on Instagram. One of them had a distinctive log like that aims is from the UK.
?

Yeah, in the UK I imagine there are quite a few vittakins. Both rankins and bearded dragons were smuggled into Germany. They were in the same boxes, so female bearded dragons got crossed with Rankins. It wouldn't suprize me if most bearded dragons have some genetics of a Rankins. Just diluted down through breeding. Its incredibly hard to find 100% Rankins.

SpacialCoogs":nnot6ooy said:

I follow a few beardie accounts on Instagram. One of them had a distinctive log like that aims is from the UK.
?

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Sorry forgot to reply to this :lol: if the account is LauraahFTW then it's me if not someones either got a similar log or is stealing my pics :lol: :lol: :lol: