Who knew I'd become so smitten w/these GIRLS? (Thread/pics)

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My son bought our BD, Smaug, on Saturday, and by today, Tuesday, I already adore the little lizard! :love5:

He usually goes to sleep in his "cave", but he seemed restless last night. I turned off his lights and put him in his cave, but he kept coming out and eyeing me up. I decided to scoop him up and take him with me into the living room and hold him while I sat on the sofa and watched TV. I partially covered him with one hand, and he flattened himself against me and fell asleep. So cute! Of course, if I moved, he woke up, but when I got up and put him into his cave, he stayed there and slept until morning.

Here are some pics!

Smaugsleeping2.jpg
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Smaugsleeping.jpg
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jenn4turtles

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CooperDragon":2ksdqty7 said:
When you think of it from their perspective it sounds a bit terrifying =/. She'll grow to appreciate her happy new home soon though and all will be forgiven =).


I know, right??
 

jenn4turtles

Juvie Member
Original Poster
All is well with the girls! :D

If you've read this thread, then you know that we took Smauggie home as a baby dragon, roughly 5-6 weeks old, so we've been there from early on. With Sydney, she's "around" 2 years old, so the past 2 1/2 weeks have been an interesting adventure for us. We've learned that she has to be soaked in the morning, because that's when/how she poops. You can't "put her to bed" in her tank; she won't lay down, even if we cover her. So I have to take her out of tank to get her to go to sleep, and she won't go to sleep UNLESS her nose is up against something - back of sofa, pillow, my hand, etc. - and only after she's fallen asleep for awhile can she then be moved into her tank for sleep - with her nose either up against the cave or against the back of tank.

I'm sure that we'll have even more to learn, as we get to know her better. :D
 

CooperDragon

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Darwin is a bit like that too. My other boys would fall asleep on me or in their tank but Darwin will get very restless and wants to fall asleep behind furniture or some other cozy part of the house. Even if he gets sleepy and I move him to his tank he'll be up and restless and glass dance until I let him back out so he can briefly roam around and fall asleep in a corner under some furniture. He has to be all the way passed out before I can put him in his tank. They all have their own little quirks I guess =).
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Gee, I guess I'm pretty lucky. We've never had a problem getting our beardie to go to sleep. Just turn off the heat lamps and he's out within about a half an hour. We do bedtime cuddles if he's still awake at bedtime (I wrap him up in a little hand towel, and sometimes if I'm really careful I can put the "beardie burrito" back in the terrarium without waking him all the way back up again when it's time for the humans to go to bed), otherwise we just tuck him in and cover the terrarium with a dishtowel and he seems to sleep through the night almost all the time until we turn the lights back on in the morning. But sometimes I have to unwrap him and do a "good morning" cuddle or else he sleeps until noon or so, and on other days if I don't get around to it soon enough he comes out by himself and gives me "The Look" like "Aren't you going to take me out and cuddle me today?"

He was also "housebroken" when we first got him and would get a bath every day and poop in the water. Nowadays he still gets a bath almost every day but doesn't always poop in the water anymore, but it makes it nice and easy to clean up after him when he does -- all we have to do is dump it down the drain. :)
 

jenn4turtles

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SHBailey":2ngfoy2h said:
I wrap him up in a little hand towel, and sometimes if I'm really careful I can put the "beardie burrito" back in the terrarium without waking him all the way back up again when it's time for the humans to go to bed.

Nowadays he still gets a bath almost every day but doesn't always poop in the water anymore, but it makes it nice and easy to clean up after him when he does -- all we have to do is dump it down the drain. :)


Yes, Smauggie likes being a beardie burrito, too! But sometimes (if she is on my son's bed) she will crawl out of the burrito and onto his pillows, instead of staying on hers. :roll:

Smauggie has always pooped in her tank, but she usually does it on a tray that I keep inside of her tank. The water bowl sits on it (I don't fill the bowl with water anymore; she gets soaked in the sink) and she climbs onto the bowl to poop on the tray. Easy clean up - just empty the tray into drain.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
We have a window right behind our bed with a bedsheet for a curtain that lets a lot of light through, so if I try to cuddle my beardie in bed, he often climbs the pillows (or my face :roll: ) to get to the window, even if it's bedtime, especially this time of year when the sun doesn't go down till after 11pm here in Anchorage.
 

jenn4turtles

Juvie Member
Original Poster
Just adding some new pics to the thread ...




Both Smauggie and Sydney are getting window time, made possible by a pillow ... A pillow shaped like a cat's head.








When you've been eating your greens like a good dragon ... :lol:
 

jenn4turtles

Juvie Member
Original Poster
Things are going well with Smauggie and Sydney! :blob8:

I noticed that Sydney was finally putting on weight back in July, and I was so happy to see it ... A few weeks later, she laid SEVENTEEN infertile eggs. :shock: Yeah. 17. :shock: So now she looks even skinnier, despite the fact that she eats well. (I wish my metabolism worked as well as hers. :lol: ) She's finishing up a huge shed - almost her entire body. She is still super active; we gotta keep an eye on her whenever she's out. She rarely sits still and apparently thinks she can fly. :roll:

Smauggie continues to be her usual self. Some days she wants roaches and veggies; some days she'll eat one or the other; some days she'll eat neither. It's summer here, but I think her internal clock is on Australian time. Usually she brumates in December/January (which are the coldest months here) but I've noticed her napping here and there in the early evening lately, when she would normally not fall asleep until 8 p.m. Other than that, she's doing well.

The differences between the two still amaze me. I'm willing to bet that if we took in a 3rd dragon, the 3rd dragon would be totally different from both of the two that I have now. :lol:
 

CooperDragon

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I'm glad to hear everything is well with them. It really is fun to learn their personalities. Quite different from eachother in my experience as well.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Yes, they all seem to have their own individual personalities. You never know what you're going to get. :mrgreen:

It sounds like they both have good healthy appetites, but it must have been disappointing to think that Sydney was putting on weight and have it turn out to be eggs. Too bad their bodies don't seem to know better than to waste their biological resources on infertile eggs, but at least she's got a good appetite, so hopefully she will recover quickly.

It seems like lots of beardies are trying to brumate early this year, and as you say, some of them do seem to have their biological clocks set for the southern hemisphere. Ours has been falling asleep earlier in the evening a little more often too -- understandable, since we are losing over 5 minutes of daylight a day and the weather is turning cool and rainy the way it usually does here in Anchorage in August. Our summers are beautiful but very short.
 

jenn4turtles

Juvie Member
Original Poster
Here in Louisiana, it's still unbelievably hot and humid. The humidity is rough. We barely have a winter, mostly during December and January, and even then, it's not frigid. I'm not a cold-loving person. I have arthritis (from a leg fracture many years ago); cold - & especially cold and damp - hurt. And I just don't like wearing all the layers, don't like long sleeves.

Based on what her previous owner told me, the clutch she laid with me last month made the 3rd one since April, but I don't know how many eggs were laid in the previous ones. I'm hoping that July's will be the last one this year, but I'll just have to wait and see. It seems exhausting and draining and miserable. And it was kinda sad to watch her with her little eggs. Like she was covering them with her body to protect her little babies, and I had to take them away. :cry:
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Yes, Alaska is weird that way -- August is the hottest month just about everywhere else in the country. But you're probably in a good place if cold bothers your arthritis, except when it gets too too hot and humid. But the reptiles probably like it.

I don't mind extra layers of clothes myself, and my husband has a hereditary skin condition involving a lack of sweat glands, making him very susceptible to overheating, so we're both probably right where we belong here in the subarctic. Besides, I have lots of blubber, and blubber is an excellent insulator. :wink: -- it keeps you warm. :mrgreen:

Too bad you can't explain the "facts of life" to your "littler girl" -- something like "Those eggs aren't going to hatch because you ain't had no sex"? :(
 

jenn4turtles

Juvie Member
Original Poster
I have some built-in insulation myself, and when it's hot, I'm miserable. I had to mow yesterday, and I was dying. But the dragons would have loved it.

I always wonder what beardies (and animals, in general) know and/or understand. Does she know that there was something missing in those eggs and that they wouldn't hatch? Was she carrying those eggs and planning her future with her 17 little babies? Since she's never had fertilized eggs (to my knowledge) would she even suspect that's how little baby dragons are born? Or is carrying eggs just some weird thing that she has to deal with?
 
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