Age Question

[Simonthecheeto]

Can anyone make a guess on how old Simon is with his length? The petstore wasn't able to tell me.

 

[AHBD]

Hi there, Simon is about the size of an average 3 month old. Looks pretty good, healthy + alert in the picture.

 

[EllenD]

Actually I'd guess between 1-2 months, looks like the babies at the pet stores, which are generally around 4-6 weeks. My new boy is now 3 months and he is twice that size, but he was that size around a month and a half, as was my girl.

 

[AHBD]

Not at all the size of a 1 month old....especially if gotten from a pet store. Most 1 month dragons are about 6-7" long. Some 3 month olds are much bigger, I've raised dragons for a 20 year period. I've had 3 month olds that were easily 13" long so I know the size they can get to if they are fast growers.

That dragon appears to be about 10" long, so the guess was taking in to account that it was from a store where it might have been fed once a day. The babies in the store would be much older that 4-6 weeks old, guaranteed, if they were 10" long.

 

[EllenD]

Actually no, at least not Petco unfortunately. I'm not endorsing them selling them this young at all, but I know the animal manager at my local Petco, and she actually puts the new beardies they just get in a tank in the back for at least 2-4 weeks before they put them out for sale, unless her district manager is there in which case they're for sale.

The vendor that ships beardies to them does not go by age but rather length and weight, and the average age when Petco first gets them is 4 weeks old, 4.5-5.5 inches long...It's awful but it's true. I don't know about PetSmart, as we don't have one locally, but Sally complains constantly about this particular vendor, they get all of their reptiles and some birds and small animals from them. So they just tell everyone that they're a month old (4 weeks is a month I guess). It's terrible, but when I got my girl Izzy from her last December (weird story, I caved and took her for my friend) she was only 4.5 inches long and weighed 7 grams...She's fine now, 9 months old and 18 inches, 451 grams, but she was the size of my pinky finger.

It's all dependent on what pet store you're talking about, and the vendors want to get rid of them ASAP to save money...It's terrible.

 

[AHBD]

Yeah, babies hatch out in the range of 3.5 [ small end of the range ] and 5" long. I've had them hatch out in those ranges, rarely less than 4"with 5" being the larger ones. Some breeders do sell them to stores very young and when they go on display they are often in the 5" range as you mentioned and barely a month old. Another problem is when employees don't know the age or are told to say they are such + such an age.

 

[StarWarsBeardies]

He looks at most 2 months, mine was a slow grower, but was that size at two months