Beardie not getting much bigger?????????????

[sieradon]

I bought 2 babies and the one baby is growing like a weed and is shedding his 2nd time in about 1 month. My other one though seems not to be growing hardly at all. They are not housed together. I got them at seperate places. The smaller one doesn't seem to be eating as much either. And he seems to prefer the ones with white calcium powder than the ones without the calcium. Also how many crickets is OK to leave in cage if he doesn't eat them?

 

[sieradon]

They were about the same size when I got them.

 

[thegreybush]

There's probably no need to worry here. Dragons grow in spurts and at different times like we do. Sometimes they'll grow fatter while the other grows longer, or vice versa. With all environmental factors being the same you could very well end up with one dragon being bigger than the other due to genetics.

If feeding with crickets, the textbook answer would be to remove any excess feeders that weren't consumed until a later feeding. The crickets can irritate the dragon while it sleeps. They can climb on it and bite. If I was feeding in the morning I probably wouldn't have an issue leaving a few survivors for between-meal-snacks but I'd shake up the decorations before bed time and get them out.

Some of the calcium powders are manufactured with flavors like banana and strawberry if I'm not mistaken. He/she could conceivably prefer the taste of your strawberry coated crickets over the regulars. :mrgreen:

One last thing: smaller dragon = smaller stomach. Keep them hydrated and have fun!

If you'd like us to analyze all of the environmental factors around your growing dragon you can give us the rundown on their enclosures, lighting, temperatures, diets, fecal consistency, substrate type, vitamins, and all that. I'm sure you've seen it done all around the boards. Folks here loooooooove that stuff. Cheers!