It's been almost 2 years!!!

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March 26th is the day we brought Spike home. My 7 year old son picked her out at our local Exotic pet store and named her Spike. She was in an enclosure with other dragons around her size and away from the smaller ones. We were told that the babies she was in with were moved because 'they were growing faster than the rest'. Spike ran right to the front of the glass and started scratching when my son walked by. Needless to say, she got his attention and we took her home. She had a full body shed 3 days off getting her home, too. ('She' does look female (I looked when we brought her home, but not since) Spike is now, roughly 3 months old and weighs 31g at 9 inches long.
We have had some set backs with her lights, which you guys have so graciously helped me with, and her lack of eating for a little while due to her relocation stress, but she is definitely a hearty eater now. BSFL being her favorite.

When we first brought her home:
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Throughout the month:
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New tank:
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Cuteness:
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10 minutes ago, waking up and warming up:
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Sorry for all of the pictures! ^-^ :D
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
She's soooo cute. :love10: And apparently turning out to be quite a climber.

It's funny how some of them respond to pictures of bugs or worms on a computer screen and others don't. My husband found an app that would display bugs crawling around on his iphone and tried holding it up for Puff to see, but Puff would give him the look like, "So what? Am I supposed to be impressed?"

And I've been wondering lately if each beardie has their own individual favorite color. I understand that they have full color vision, plus being able to see into the ultraviolet as well, and my husband says that the color blue seems to have a calming effect on Puff, but I'm not convinced that he isn't just imagining that because he likes blue himself for that reason. :? I haven't noticed any beardie color preferences myself.

You're not the only one who has gotten a reaction to brightly colored nail polish -- a few other people around here have mentioned that their beardies went after their nails when they painted them some funky color. I quit painting my nails long before we got the beardie, so I've never found out if Puff would react to sparkly nail polish or not. Some insects have bright iridescent colors, so it probably makes them think you have some tasty bugs in your hands.

Puff does sometimes seem to mistake my knitting yarn for worms.
 

smackey2

Hatchling Member
Original Poster
She has been quite full of herself the past couple of days, which is a little odd because she has always been a little skittish/shy, but lately, she is the complete opposite. She even took to snuggling with my 3 year old last night for about 15 minutes... he got fidgety and disturbed her. Haha.


Soooo.....
Interesting story today...
Well, today, I went to the same pet store where I got Spike from. I even took her with me. All the employees loved her and she was so social! (We are looking to possibly add another pet to the family, hence my being there.) The owner, actually kept one of the babies that Spike was housed with and one of the other employees took one home as well. They could not get over how SMALL Spike is. The owner keeps her baby in her office but did take me back to see him. And let me just say, he is HUGE! He is already 14 inches long and so bulky! The other employee showed me pictures of his girl and she was bigger than Spike, too. She is only 13 1/2 inches, but still. I asked the owner if she knew where the babies came from and supposedly they came from the same breeder and were from the same clutch. I know, I will never know if that is true or not, but jeez. Honestly, seeing those two compared to Spike... either she is a very slow grower, I am doing something wrong, or she really is the RUNT of the bunch.
Not that I care if she stays on the small side as the vet says she is perfectly healthy, but just the comparison of all three made Spike feel very small and delicate.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Sounds like Spike is gaining confidence and learning that humans are warm and cuddly and harmless even though they're way bigger than her, so she's getting over her initial skittishness. :)

I wouldn't worry about her size as long as she's healthy. That may just be the way the genes mixed it up in her family between the brothers and sisters. Not too different from humans, really. For example, both of my parents and both of my sisters are taller than me -- I seem to have been the lucky one who got all the "short" genes, even though I am not the smallest (what I lack in height I make up for in width :roll: ).

Growth doesn't happen in a straight line, either. Spike still has time to get bigger before she's done growing. She may or may not have a few more growth spurts coming, or she may just end up smaller than average but still healthy and cute. :wink:
 

smackey2

Hatchling Member
Original Poster
I am pretty sure my vet thought I had a hearing problem as I kept asking to make sure that she thought Spike was nice and healthy. I worry about my furry and scaly babies just as much as I do with my own kiddos. The hubby tells me all the time that I can find a problem out of nothing and that one day I am going to worry myself to death. Eh. It is who I am.

Spike is definitely small, but I am not complaining. She is now, estimated to be about 5 months, give or take some days.
 

smackey2

Hatchling Member
Original Poster
I have Miss Grumpy Scales again today. She has been staying in the shade of her logs, but still on the warm side of her tank. Her back feet/toes are finally peeling. It almost looked like the top part of her nose peeled too, but she wasn't in the mood to be messed with or handled this evening. Her eating has been hit or miss this week, too, especially in the last couple of days.
She refused to eat this morning, this afternoon, but did eat 6 roaches for me this evening.
I probably wouldn't be too thrilled or hungry either if my skin was peeling.

My order of more roaches and first order of hornworms are supposed to be here in the morning. :) I am HOPING that the hornworms interest her.

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(Her right toes are peeling faster than the left ones)

Spike is still 12 inches and only gained 1 gram this week. I can't say that I am thrilled about only 1 gram increase, but at least she isn't losing any weight.
 

smackey2

Hatchling Member
Original Poster
My horn worms and dubias arrived this morning. :D The food in the cup for the horn worms smells horrible! Haha! My oldest was fascinated by the color and the fact that their feet felt sticky.
Spike was a little skeptical at first and left the first one hanging out of her mouth like she didn't know what to do with it, but once it started wiggling around again, she gobbled it up.
Then we tried one more and she gobbled it up, too!
I ordered small, and most are smaller than an inch or an inch, but I think there are maybe 4 or 5 that are slightly over an inch long, which worries me some, but they are so soft and squishy... could those ones be hard for her to swallow?

Her one foot is almost completely shed to the point it almost looks like a little glove. The other one is slowly peeling around her toes. She did shed the tip of her nose and now, the back half of her head is quite blurry and very smooth to the touch.

She is still a bit grumpy, but eh, I can't blame her.

Since she didn't really eat yesterday, I am glad she ate 2 hornworms for me this morning. Since they are supposed to be filling, I figure two is a decent amount for her at one time.
 

traildrifterphalanx

Sub-Adult Member
I forgot how much I hated the smell of the hornworm food/poop until I got them again.
I got them for my baby chameleon but ended up feeding most to the dragons, to my surprise, due to how fast they grow and how little the chameleon is.
Richter has had them before and did not care for them, but seems to love them now. Alucard seemed ok with them, not super excited but she ate them.

Since hornworms are so soft-bodied, they can really eat them at most sizes. They get very large very fast, so by no means would I recommend giving a baby/small dragon a full grown one, but I think Spike is big enough to handle it fine. The impaction rule doesn't really apply to them, just be sure they're not going to choke on them. I've been giving Alucard medium-large hornworms (arrived very small) and they're very filling due to all the hydration.

I think I'm going to need to order more of those things... :|
 

smackey2

Hatchling Member
Original Poster
I am definitely not fond of the smell of their food. I didn't think it would really have a smell to it, so being the person I am, I took the lid off to examine the hornworms and stuck my nose way too close to the opening. >.<

Spike didn't seem to have any issue getting the 2 I gave her down, so I think it is more of me being paranoid than anything. I am just glad she ate something this morning.

Her shed is driving her crazy right now.

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This is where she is now. You can't see it in the picture, but the first, small row of spikes on her head are blurry as can be and turning grey, slowly. I gave her a nice soak the other day to help with her toes and I might again today to see if it makes her a little more comfortable.
 

traildrifterphalanx

Sub-Adult Member
I've never had a moody shedder, but Alucard gets twitchy when I hold her during shed and clearly doesn't want those spots touched. She doesn't hide and always has her appetite, even shedding while on coccidia meds, she'll eat anything :lol:

Do you have a little toothbrush for her for bath time?
I have one for each dragon and when I soak them I like to give them a little scrub with the toothbrush (Richter has a bad habit of running through his own poop :angry5: ) but I wonder if Spike would enjoy a scrub on her shed. I can imagine it's very itchy, and it seems Alucard likes to have her shed spots gently scrubbed, and she also likes to swim
 

smackey2

Hatchling Member
Original Poster
I originally didn't, but the other day while I was out running errands, she did her business and had a mess all on the underneath of her tail. It wouldn't wipe off, so I did have to use a toothbrush. She didn't seem to amused by my scrubbing the poo off the underside of her tail, but at least she was clean afterwards. I got the stink eye for it.

I might give it a try here shortly, though. She just looks so miserable to me. She is alert and watching everything, she just doesn't want the light touching any part of her that is working on the shed.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
That's one drawback to the spikey scales -- it makes it really hard to get poop off of them if they get into it. When our cornsnake forgets that civilized reptiles do not slither around in their own poop, it just slides off of his nice smooth scales. Our beardie is usually pretty good about staying out of his own messes, but we can't always count on it. We've had to wash off a few smudges on a few occasions. Not much fun. :(

We used to get hornworms for Puff once in a while. I would only get one or two and I'd feed them to him as soon as we brought them home because I know that they grow really big really fast. He would look at them kind of quizzically -- I think the color confused him and made him think they were yucky greens instead of yummy worms, but once he saw them moving he'd scarf them right up. You could almost see the little light bulb go on over his head: "Oh! It's moving. It must be good to eat." But the place where we used to get them went out of business. I noticed that one of the local pet stores is selling them, but I'm not too crazy about the way they're packaged, so I haven't been getting them for him lately. We're down to crickets and roaches, and just roaches for the past couple of weeks. I've been trying to work up the nerve to order some silk worms -- that would be an experiment. :?
 

smackey2

Hatchling Member
Original Poster
Spike got a nice LONG soak. I had to warm the water back up twice. I am pretty sure she enjoyed it, no stress marks or trying to climb out or anything of the sort. I gently scrubbed every inch of her, almost, with a tooth brush. At first she looked at me like I was completely insane, but once I took it to the top of her head, she was turning this way and that and pushing against the brush like I wasn't scrubbing hard enough or something. I even got her little toes, which some more shed did come off.
When I warmed the water up the second time, I always take her out and hold her until I adjust the temperature, just to be safe, and after a few seconds to get it right, she scurried right out of my hand and stuck her head under the running water from the facet. That was new for me, but she seemed to enjoy it and it was quite cute, too. Afterwards, I dried her off and she basked for a good hour and a half afterwards.
Sadly, she did refuse to eat anything this afternoon and nothing for dinner either. I will just give it another try in the morning with more yummy food. :)

**EDIT**
I spoke too soon apparently. 2 more hornworms have been eaten!
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Sounds like Spike really REALLY enjoyed the bath and the scrub. :D

Gotta wonder if she's being sneaky about the worms. Like if you don't see her eating them, maybe she can con you into giving her more? :?
 

smackey2

Hatchling Member
Original Poster
I spent the day with my mom at the hospital, but when I came home, Spike ate another hornworm for me, but only one. When I picked her up, I also noticed that her right front leg is now blurry and turning grey. Now it seems like the only part of her that isn't shedding is her back and tail, everything else is turning grey and becoming blurry.

I am pretty sure she enjoyed having all of her itchy spots scratched. Haha. She reminded me of my dogs when you scratch their ears and they turn their head so you can scratch the other one. :D
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Itchy shedding is just something that growing beardies have to put up with, but of course their human slaves can help with the warm baths. Keeping the skin moist makes it a little easier.
 
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