Youkai
Hatchling Member
**VERY long post coming up... **
Well today is two weeks that I've had Sakura and with all the help/advice from this forum and all of you, I believe she has a great home and she should be pretty happy.
The problem is, I just don't know if she IS happy. I guess from reading all your tales and experiences, I'm expecting her to behave a certain way and she isn't....yet. :lol:
First of all, I'm guestimating she's about 8-9 weeks old. She's eating great! She loves crickets and phoenix worms, she loves her "salad" which has been mostly kale, bok choy, and some carrots. She's pooping like crazy, once a day at least, sometimes two times a day.
I believe her temps are excellent and a few people here have agreed they are good.
She has two basking areas, one that is straight heat @ 110-115 consistently, and another that is only slightly cooler (95-100) that is about 6 or 7 inches away from a ReptiSun 10 UVB tube. The "cool" side of her tank ranges from 76-82 depending on the ambient temps in the room.
She's getting calcium w/D3 every day, one feeding, and Vitamins on Sat and Sun, one feeding.
She's probably 75%-85% finished with what I believe is her first shed and I know she was pretty unhappy right before it and during it. I think she's almost doubled in "girth" since I've had her, although she doesn't seem to have gotten all that much longer. It's hard to tell because I couldn't measure her before and I can't really measure her now.
When feeding, she has no problems chasing the crix around the viv when she's in "feeding frenzy" mode, but once she gets spooked the crix have to go right in front of her face before she'll scoop 'em up. As far as the worms go, she'll eagerly dive out of her basking branch and run over to my hand to grab a worm out of it, provided I go into the viv slowly and far away from her then slowly come to her head on. If I'm too fast, or go at her from the side or an angle, she backs away from me then looks puzzled at my hand and eventually comes to me.
I can lay my hand out flat with a worm in my palm and she'll "climb on board", eat the worm and stay there (although she seems kinda timid to be in my hand). If I try to lift my hand slowly, she flattens out against me and seems scared to be moving. Sometimes she'll try to jump off (about 2-3 inches is all I lift her up right now), sometimes she tries to back off my hand too. Sometimes she'll stay on me and I almost have to tip my hand over to get her to move.
When I remove my hand, I back away from her slowly until I'm as far away as I can be and then lift my hand out, that seems to be OK with her, but even that seems to spook her sometimes.
Basically, I'm worried because all she does is sit on her basking branch with her head and upper body held high and her beard is very dark and her stomach is very dark with tons of "cranky marks" (are we now calling them that? :mrgreen: )
She'll go over to her UVB basking area a few times a day and she generally seems more calm there, less marks and her beard/stomach seem clearer. They also seem to go away when I'm feeding her or when she's chasing crix around and eating.
She gets spooked really easily and if she's anywhere other than her basking branch when she's spooked, she'll haul a** over to and up her branch. It's like the only place she seems to feel safe.
At night, when her lights go out, she finds a spot between the base of her basking branch and the side of the viv, always a different spot and ALWAYS somehow touching her basking branch. She's even taken to crawling under the paper towels in her viv. I put a washcloth in there with her and she crawled into it one night to sleep, but hasn't gone back to it at all. She has a "hide" and I've only seen her go in it once, when she was chasing a cricket down.
I understand I'm dealing with relocation stress, a much larger home than what she was used to, and a shed all at the same time....but I'm just hoping/wishing she'd be less nervous around me and not seem so scared of me. I know it's only been two weeks...
And I'll admit, whenever anyone goes near her viv, she'll practically crush herself against the branch as if she's trying to hide from them, but she doesn't really do that when I'm around...she'll turn her head and watch/follow me, but as long as I move kinda slowly, she doesn't shy away from me as much as she does with everyone else.
I think I'm making progress with her. She wouldn't tolerate anyone or anything in or near her viv when I brought her home and she's slowly accepting me, but it's so slow going. I'm so terrified of trying to go too fast and pick her up right now or bathe her because I don't want to ruin any type of bond we're forming, and I KNOW we're "clicking" with each other on some level, no matter how slowly.
I'm NOT going to give up. Even tonight, she was practically jumping at my hand to get the phoenix worms from me and didn't get spooked and run until after about 25 worms or so. It's always when I take my hand away to get more food that seems to spook her. Yesterday she got spooked and ran after about 10 worms. So that makes me believe I'm making progress with her.
So everyone who's made it through this long post... does this all sound pretty normal? Am I being too paranoid or rushing things? Do you see anything here that your beardies have done or still do? Any advice or tips to help a distressed beardie lover?
Am I doing things wrong or should I just say "to heck with it" and force her to trust me and be comfortable with me?
My family and friends are all telling me I should just kinda force her and they say "she's got to get used to being handled and she needs to get used to the noise and action of people moving around" but I just feel like she should be comfortable with me FIRST... then I can introduce other things and other people. I want her to trust me so when something freaks her out, I can calm her down or soothe her.
Thanks for reading and thanks for any advice you can give..!!
Well today is two weeks that I've had Sakura and with all the help/advice from this forum and all of you, I believe she has a great home and she should be pretty happy.
The problem is, I just don't know if she IS happy. I guess from reading all your tales and experiences, I'm expecting her to behave a certain way and she isn't....yet. :lol:
First of all, I'm guestimating she's about 8-9 weeks old. She's eating great! She loves crickets and phoenix worms, she loves her "salad" which has been mostly kale, bok choy, and some carrots. She's pooping like crazy, once a day at least, sometimes two times a day.
I believe her temps are excellent and a few people here have agreed they are good.
She has two basking areas, one that is straight heat @ 110-115 consistently, and another that is only slightly cooler (95-100) that is about 6 or 7 inches away from a ReptiSun 10 UVB tube. The "cool" side of her tank ranges from 76-82 depending on the ambient temps in the room.
She's getting calcium w/D3 every day, one feeding, and Vitamins on Sat and Sun, one feeding.
She's probably 75%-85% finished with what I believe is her first shed and I know she was pretty unhappy right before it and during it. I think she's almost doubled in "girth" since I've had her, although she doesn't seem to have gotten all that much longer. It's hard to tell because I couldn't measure her before and I can't really measure her now.
When feeding, she has no problems chasing the crix around the viv when she's in "feeding frenzy" mode, but once she gets spooked the crix have to go right in front of her face before she'll scoop 'em up. As far as the worms go, she'll eagerly dive out of her basking branch and run over to my hand to grab a worm out of it, provided I go into the viv slowly and far away from her then slowly come to her head on. If I'm too fast, or go at her from the side or an angle, she backs away from me then looks puzzled at my hand and eventually comes to me.
I can lay my hand out flat with a worm in my palm and she'll "climb on board", eat the worm and stay there (although she seems kinda timid to be in my hand). If I try to lift my hand slowly, she flattens out against me and seems scared to be moving. Sometimes she'll try to jump off (about 2-3 inches is all I lift her up right now), sometimes she tries to back off my hand too. Sometimes she'll stay on me and I almost have to tip my hand over to get her to move.
When I remove my hand, I back away from her slowly until I'm as far away as I can be and then lift my hand out, that seems to be OK with her, but even that seems to spook her sometimes.
Basically, I'm worried because all she does is sit on her basking branch with her head and upper body held high and her beard is very dark and her stomach is very dark with tons of "cranky marks" (are we now calling them that? :mrgreen: )
She'll go over to her UVB basking area a few times a day and she generally seems more calm there, less marks and her beard/stomach seem clearer. They also seem to go away when I'm feeding her or when she's chasing crix around and eating.
She gets spooked really easily and if she's anywhere other than her basking branch when she's spooked, she'll haul a** over to and up her branch. It's like the only place she seems to feel safe.
At night, when her lights go out, she finds a spot between the base of her basking branch and the side of the viv, always a different spot and ALWAYS somehow touching her basking branch. She's even taken to crawling under the paper towels in her viv. I put a washcloth in there with her and she crawled into it one night to sleep, but hasn't gone back to it at all. She has a "hide" and I've only seen her go in it once, when she was chasing a cricket down.
I understand I'm dealing with relocation stress, a much larger home than what she was used to, and a shed all at the same time....but I'm just hoping/wishing she'd be less nervous around me and not seem so scared of me. I know it's only been two weeks...
And I'll admit, whenever anyone goes near her viv, she'll practically crush herself against the branch as if she's trying to hide from them, but she doesn't really do that when I'm around...she'll turn her head and watch/follow me, but as long as I move kinda slowly, she doesn't shy away from me as much as she does with everyone else.
I think I'm making progress with her. She wouldn't tolerate anyone or anything in or near her viv when I brought her home and she's slowly accepting me, but it's so slow going. I'm so terrified of trying to go too fast and pick her up right now or bathe her because I don't want to ruin any type of bond we're forming, and I KNOW we're "clicking" with each other on some level, no matter how slowly.
I'm NOT going to give up. Even tonight, she was practically jumping at my hand to get the phoenix worms from me and didn't get spooked and run until after about 25 worms or so. It's always when I take my hand away to get more food that seems to spook her. Yesterday she got spooked and ran after about 10 worms. So that makes me believe I'm making progress with her.
So everyone who's made it through this long post... does this all sound pretty normal? Am I being too paranoid or rushing things? Do you see anything here that your beardies have done or still do? Any advice or tips to help a distressed beardie lover?
Am I doing things wrong or should I just say "to heck with it" and force her to trust me and be comfortable with me?
My family and friends are all telling me I should just kinda force her and they say "she's got to get used to being handled and she needs to get used to the noise and action of people moving around" but I just feel like she should be comfortable with me FIRST... then I can introduce other things and other people. I want her to trust me so when something freaks her out, I can calm her down or soothe her.
Thanks for reading and thanks for any advice you can give..!!