Broly the new super saiyan beardie

Picture coming up!

I can't turn upwards!!! But there he is!

 

[BlueDragon09]

Still pretty windy here few power outages. Actually been a lot this month alone.

Gave Broly a bath Jan 13 and he was unhappy about that. I scrubbed some stool off the underside of his tail. Most came off but now lovely yellow/orange stains ugh. Well he’s clean at least I guess if you want to call it that. I’ll wait for it to shed off it will shed eventually. I accidentally tried to scrub off skin around the vent I realized it hurts him. I was brushing too hard I suppose a sensitive area. Maybe hurt isn’t the word I was looking for. He always try to get away when I try to brush it even if gently. I stopped just gently scrubbed his feet (how one foot was orange was probably stepped in squash to eat the pieces that’s my guess.) It’s not stool I would have known if it was that. He’ll shed all this off one day. I did see skin pieces hanging around the vent and maybe I did scrub a bit much there but no blood and no red coloring or broken skin as soon as I saw it I did stop. It didn’t hurt him I promise you that he was uncomfortable as usual. It’s not a shed either they were just hanging there...barely see it unless you look close. My first thought was caked on stool or maybe he hurt himself on his log and the skin was already hanging there. Whatever the case I took special care with his vent area. I said “sorry bud I thought it was caked on stool.” He just looked at me like I was totally being inappropriate LOL.
I noticed he loves when I play Switch Pokémon Scarlet to be exact. Broly likes watching me play and try to catch pokemon. He wanted to eat the grasshopper looking pokemon Im like “you can’t eat it, it’s on tv man” he just looked at me, defeated LOL. He wanted it. Ahh he’s funny. OH and he’s officially 8 years old now! 8 years of a great life and hope for many more! Grubpie cake with two hornworms as “candles” no worries they were just moving as Broly went in to eat them. I noticed he likes Paw Patrol. Skimming through channels and landed on Paw Patrol and I noticed he was glued to the tv show. I know there’s a few others he likes, Blaze and Monster Machines, Blue’s Clues and You and Bubble Guppies. I don’t really care for Bubble Guppies but I let him watch it, Im usually just drawing anyway. We watch NFL and Jurassic Park/World. Kane likes cars like monster trucks, nascar/indy car. I think he likes dinosaurs too. Jamie doesn’t really care she’s just a grumpy old girl LOL. She just does her own thing and listen to the tv.

Yes, he came from a pet store but the rot was barely noticeable till he brightened up in the tank. I noticed his tail was messed up but not badly. Im hoping to keep columnaris at bay because that infection is nasty. From my understanding it’s always in the water and only becomes a problem when the fish is too stressed out low immune system to fight it off. So far only dealt with fin rot (lesser of the two evils) and proud of him to fight it off so well.

Hope you enjoy this tldr.

 

[SHBailey]

Hi...

Yeah it's hard too get poop off beardies because their skin is so spiky or at least scaly even where there's no spikes. When Puff was younger he was pretty good about staying out of his poop -- he'd go "downstairs" to do it and then go back up on his basking platform which was clean. But when he got older and more decrepit I think it was too much effort to climb up and down and he'd end up sitting in it. That was the only time the bath was for getting clean -- usually it was just for hydration. We bathed him every day and usually he just tolerated it, but he made a big fuss about it when he was younger. He'd usually get cuddled afterwards, and then dinner. That was probably his favorite part, but it got so he wasn't even very good about catching crickets. He'd get squash all over his face too, and it would be stuck on there the next day if we didn't wipe it off right afterwards.

Always difficult to clean up anything around the vent. You're right -- sensitive area.

I once saw a YouTube video of a bearded dragon trying to catch bugs on a computer screen -- some game that displayed ants crawling around or some such. He was snapping at the screen and licking it and everything beardies do when they're "hunting." It was hilarious. So my husband found an app that displayed bugs crawling around on the screen and held his cell phone up for Puff to see, but Puff just gave it a blank stare like, "So what?" He never seemed to care about what was on TV -- like Jamie I guess. Maybe they like dinosaurs because they look like distant relatives?

On the other hand, once when I had yarn all over the table and I was winding it up into ball, Puff was watching me from his tank and he went nuts. I think he thought it was worms. Same thing with the computer cable.

So are all your beardies done brumating yet?

Glad to hear your fish is still doing well. Our vet mentioned treating fishes -- not sure how you would manage to take a fish to the vet -- you'd have to bring the water. Wouldn't be an easy thing to do. You're lucky you have your own vet to take care of all your critters at home. Just like I have my own computer wiz, so when the computer acts up I don't have to mess with it. I just say, "Sweetie! Do your magic!"

Our weather has "warmed up" a little, relatively speaking. Mid 20s, and it snowed a little yesterday. No major wind and no power outages, but we have had our internet go down a few times. I'm lost without the internet -- it's kind of scary how dependent I've become on it. And I don't know if I'd even have it if I hadn't married my husband, so I blame him for that

One good TLDR deserves another...

 

[BlueDragon09]

Ive had to join a betta fish community...he was getting worse with bloody tips on his fins. They’ve helped so much. Poor fish.

Broly is down for the count so now I don’t have anything to post. Except about the fish. He’s getting better. Ive been too stressed out to post lately. This probably won’t be a TLDR. I really don’t have much to say at this point. Im still around just hadn’t posted anything. Oh we adopted a rat well 2 rats...very skiddish..they’re coming around. They’re males no names Im sure I’ll come up with something. My hamster still being a pain at times she just likes playing but tonight Im sick...ugh how annoying. Now I gotta listen to her be pissed off about not coming out...yeah ok girl..sorry I can’t get up right now. I’ll have to drown her out with noise. Im gonna get to sleep I feel very drained.

 

[SHBailey]

Sorry to hear that you and your fish are not feeling well. I hope you both get better.

I got to play with rats in the psych lab at the university around 15 years ago (doesn't seem that long) and fell in love with them. Cuddly little things, but then most people don't know that reptiles can be cuddly either, let alone rats (They don't know about bearded dragons). We were teaching the rats to do tricks for treats -- studying "operant conditioning." They're pretty smart. I don't suppose it takes too long to tame them. Ours were already tame. I'm sure you'll come up with some cute names for yours. I've noticed that you're good at that.

Nothing much new around here. We're dealing with medical bills -- my husband got diagnosed with an ulcer. At least now we know why he's been having so much trouble with heartburn, nausea, etc -- even though it wasn't good news. And I've got my usual regular checkups for depression, and all the stuff that goes with being fat -- high blood pressure, cholesterol, and the like. More and more meds. As my husband says, we've got enough of them to open a pharmacy! Then we have the rest of our windows to be done (more $$), probably in the next couple of months when they get made and shipped. Life is getting too expensive and it's getting harder and harder to makes ends meet. But we really need the new windows. Our old ones are about to fall out.

I can't believe it's February already. Another month or two and it will start getting warmer. 2023 -- Don't blink or you'll miss it...

 

[BlueDragon09]

He’s better now all cured. I should probably attach pics now.

Really not much to say. We have snow and ice storms so that’s...great...

Hoping this works I used attach files. Ignore the box reflection in the pic it fell when I was setting something up.

 

[SHBailey]

Yes I can see the pictures. Beautiful beardies. We have some good ones of Puff but I don't know how to put them on here. My husband would have to help me.

So the second attempt at putting in our windows partially failed. Got the measurements wrong again, but a couple of them fit. 3-4 down and 4-5 to go -- one of them is in but it's marginal. We don't get charged extra because the error is their fault. They put a bunch of foam around the others so at least they're not leaking warm air in the meantime. Next attempt will probably be in the spring, so it will be nice for it to be warmer when we have holes in the wall while the windows are out.

Niki (her name is an acronym that stands for Network Infrastructure Keyless Ignition), our electric car, is in the shop -- iffy if it starts. Some circuit thing that they don't have in stock and they're having trouble getting. But supposedly it's not going to cost us anything because it's still under warranty. Makes up a little bit for the windows. My husband walks to work in the meantime, but that's what he always does. Only uses the car for grocery shopping and such. Otherwise we're doing a lot of stuff over Zoom like we did during the pandemic. Fine with me -- I don't have to get dressed and go out. I get to lay around the house in my comfortable clothes all day.

Had another death in the family -- my great grand nephew. Fentanyl. He was only 20 year old.

One of my surviving sister's old boyfriends turned up because he found out about my other sister's death from my husband's favorite genealogy website -- he'd put some info about info about our family on there. He sent an email with condolences for my other sister. I have one sister left.

This is a depressing post! Sorry about that. At least the days are getting longer. More daylight helps, and at least this hasn't been a really bad winter for us and it's almost over.

 

[BlueDragon09]

March update:
Everyone is awake the boys are head bobbing and as usual Jamie doesn’t care. She likes to tease them when she runs by their tanks. They’re crazy about mating with her and though she’s clear from adeno I don’t have the money to care for many babies plus three adult dragons. It’s as is for right now just three adults and no mating though they want to.

Our betta is a tail biter. He was before rescue and after rescue. People tell me either stress or boredom. I don’t see how he’s not in a bare tank which would stress him and bore him. He has toys in the tank to swim through and play in. I also interact with him so he has human interaction too. I recently got told on a betta forum males may do tail bite while reaching sexual maturity. It’s start and stop kind of thing he doesn’t always tail bite he can go months without biting and all of a sudden a chunk is missing. He did however blow a bubble nest so yup I guess he reached sexual maturity. No lady betta around so I guess that explains it. It doesn’t explain his first bite because that was months ago before this new bite. He didn’t blow any bubble nests back then. Oh well. I guess that’s it for now.

 

[SHBailey]

Sounds like a lot of your critters are sexually frustrated I suppose you could let the beardies have their fun (if Jamie was willing, that is) and then just don't incubate the eggs (reptile birth control is fairly easy, compared to, say, cats and dogs) -- like put the eggs in the freezer or something. Although I admit that I would feel bad about doing that myself. Sounds like you have a regular circus going on around there. It must be fun to watch, at least.

Puff didn't show symptoms of mating season for the last several years of his life. I guess he just wasn't healthy enough because I've heard that normally they don't lose interest when they get older. He'd do the head bobbing and black bearding at odd times of the year when he was younger -- didn't seem to have anything to do with the seasons. Often it was in the middle of the winter and I wondered if his biological clock was set for the southern hemisphere, or maybe it was because the winters here are so long. We didn't want him to mate because like you, we didn't have the money or the time to take care of a bunch of little beardies. He also had adenovirus and we didn't want to spread that around, especially since the babies can apparently get it from their parents.

Did Jamie used to have adenovirus? I didn't know that it could "go away." I thought that once they had it, they had it for life, unless they've found a cure. That would be awesome if they did. We never tested Puff more than once. The assumption was "once positive, always positive," and we figured that was what was causing all of the health problems he had over the years.

I wonder if some bettas just have a natural tendency to bite their tails more than others -- maybe genetic or something. It sounds like you're doing everything possible to keep him from getting bored, short of getting him a girlfriend. Bubble nests, huh? That's a new one on me -- I suppose it's a good way to tell if they're thinking about making little bettas.

Nothing much new around here otherwise, except that our house seems to be trying to fall apart. Working on the windows and now it's the back door. We can barely get it open and if we do, we run the risk of not being able to get it closed and locked again, and locked doors are a must in this neighborhood, especially lately. I've been trying to tell my husband that it might be "snow load" on the roof, but he's got to find a way to stand on the ground and get it off with a rake on a long pole or something. No way is he going up there. I'm a stickler about his safety.

It's slowly and steadily getting "warmer" -- highs in the 30s and 40s most days now. "Breakup" to look forward in a month or so -- several weeks of mud and slush. Pretty ugly but we Alaskans love it because it means summer is just around the corner. We have to enjoy our summers while they last because they're really don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it short.

Lately I find myself missing Puff maybe even a little more than I did right after he died. Go figure. Sometimes I still hear a noise that sounds like it came from where his tank used to be and for a moment I think it's him. Then I remember that he's not there anymore. Maybe his spirit comes to visit once in a while?

Another TLDR. Sorry about that. Congratulations if you've read this far

 

[xp29]

I had a Puff also (The girlfriend named her) she has been gone 4 years and i still miss her. Chomp has been gone a year in April, i still call Snicker Doodles by Chomp more than her own name.

 

[SHBailey]

My husband named him Puff, after the song (Puff the Magic Dragon). It was his turn to name one because we already had a snake and I had named him "Squirmles" -- it seemed to fit.

 

[xp29]

I like that name.