Buddy... is not a boy, she's a momma! 3 times now *Pics*

So Buddy is almost a year now (from when I got HER from petsmart). Thought she was a boy because I self examined her and she got those pore things around her vent. Today Buddy decided to lay an egg! (infertile)
Buddy has been SOO active for the last couple days or maybe over a week.. thought "he" was going through an adolence phase. Guess not...

Is there anything I should be doing for her while she is going through this?

I provided a sandbox for her (which she is making a mess!!)

How long will this last, and is it every year?
Any tips will be very appreciated. I'm also going to do some research. Wasn't expecting this at all..

Thanks.

 

[platinumtreasure]

Buddy is so gorgeous! Still waiting for Venus to shed her body. For some odd reason her head has started to shed again. Go figure! I guess she is in a growth spurt.

 

[platinumtreasure]

Venus update....Thank goodness she has FINALLY started to shed her body! Just the chest area for now but hopefully her back will soon follow. I hate seeing her like this. It just seems like it would itch so bad! I guess it's good timing though. I just finished her beardie condo :lol: She was due an upgrade I think. Now she has a 4 foot home, but I plan to wait until she finishes her shed before transferring her. Don't want to stress her anymore than she already is right now.

 

[jsnsan]

Yay Venus!! I wish my girl would shed her back and chest already. She is refusing to eat, and worrying her mama.

 

[StaceysBuddy]

Yay! I'm sure she is wayy more happy now that all her skin is shedded. Well, I'm assuming it's shedded all off by now. I love seeing the new colors!

Buddy is done shedding for the time being. I wish the rest of her would shed though, it makes the old skin look so dark and dirty-looking. It's weird looking right now because on her back, random bits of her side shedded so she looks all spotted. Even her tail didn't shed in one peice, it was only one side and not straight, it was all loopy. Haha.
She was mad the day of the big shed, she was all dark and tearing up her tank. She even pooped in her tank, she never usually does. She was black bearding a bit. I'm sure she's happy its done with for now.

She is sleeping more than usual... I can either blame it on the shed or on brumation. She didn't eat at all yesterday..she ate worms today, ignored the greens. Not to worried though, she looks healthy and is pooping regularly.

Post more pictures when Venus is done shedding! I will try to get a body picture of Buddy so you can see how odd she looks at the moment. It shows the best when she is in the bath but the light in there sucks. I will figure something out. And you're a "beardie expert", so you know what to look for lol

 

[platinumtreasure]

Venus gets black, then she has a huge poop, then the next day she starts shedding her body. So I guess that's her cue that it's time! And her appetite is also horrible during that time. Everyday I would come home to no food eaten for the past few days. I did get her to eat a few dubias though. This morning she acted like she was STARVING but I didn't have anymore roachs and she didn't want her veggies so I felt really bad! So I went out and got crix that she will crix in the morning for breakfast while we wait for her dubias to arrive. Gosh she LOVES those darn roaches!

Ok I just think she's so adorable when she poses for her picture... LoL

But here is her shed from this morning..it's so crazy how you can tell what was the belly and what was the back because of the patterns in the shedding.

Her lights are out for the night but will see if I can get some good pics in the morning once she warms up. I couldn't really tell what color this shed brought about because when I got home she was already trying to go to bed for the night even with her lights still on :roll: :lol:

 

[StaceysBuddy]

That first photo is so cute!
Yeah I've noticed the differences in the skin before. I love looking at the sides (the really spikey ones). It's awesome how they keep their shape.
Dubias.. I got 4 of them in my lifetime.. Buddy did eat them all but it took her forever! I don't know if I just picked a bad time to try them out because she wasn't really eating at the time or if she just didn't really care for them. I got them right before she started laying eggs, before I even know she was a she! I should try them again, but they kind of creep me out. I need longer tongs for those lol I know I can go buy the tongs but I just use regular size tweezers for everything else.
I'm pretty good at not letting any bugs out in the house, but if a roach got out... I would freak! My family would too if they seen it first!

I gave Buddy a bath and was going to take another picture but I felt so bad because she really didn't want to get in the tub. She clung on to me where I could barely get her off to put her in there. She hates the bathroom now, she's figured out when I go in there it's bathtime. She will climb up to my neck and hold on for dear life! I couldn't bring myself up to giving her a bath last night because she was being so cuddly. She knows how to get to my soft side.
I'm thinking, IF she is going into brumation, when should I stop bathing her every day... I don't want to keep waking her up for it if her metabolism is going to be slowing down. Main reason for her baths is to poop. She seems to be sleeping, a lot. A lot. She still eats though. Should I wait til she stops eating to slow down on the baths?
She still eats but will go a day without sometimes, not a lot but it's happened 2-3 times.

 

[platinumtreasure]

Ok, it's countdown time! I moved Venus into her new beardie condo after lights out tonight.

I snuggled with her for a few minutes then put her in a spot that I thought she might love for sleepytime. She got up and just kind of stood there for a few minutes so I left her alone to see what would happen. Then I heard her moving a bit. When I checked on her she had moved up with her face in the corner of the glass like she likes to do when sleeping. She laid down and went back off to sleep. That was about 3 hours ago, so I'm hoping she wakes up in a happy place and content.

FINGERS CROSSED!!!!

 

[sweetiepie9]

Brumation can happen slowly, just sleepy then really sleeping. The most important thing before she sleeps for any length of time is to be sure she has nothing in her digestive tract. There's a really good care sheet on brumation at the top, under Care Sheets, that's written by Denise Bushnell. She's a real expert & read it every winter to keep my sanity. So keep giving her baths daily at this point, the water will do her good, keep her hydrated & then when she's done eating & has done her last poop you can then expect her to sleep for awhile. It's always frightening the first time, but the care sheet can explain it alot better than me. Once my boys are sleeping I always leave the lights on as my living room is never less than 72F, as I have a gecko in the living room in a mesh tank. The bedroom, where Gabriel is, gets cooler, so I have a temp gun I check the temps with & use a ceramic heat emitter to make sure he doesn't go under 65F as I like to keep the window open a crack at night. So just make sure her tank never goes under 65F and she'll be fine. Let me know how it goes. Also if she doesn't want the bath for long, you can feed her water from an oral syringe, it's good to get her used to that as weekly you can give her water that way. Some people just leave their beardies covered up without lights for the whole time they're asleep, because I have heating in the living room I give them some water every week. I just don't want them to get dehydrated.

 

[StaceysBuddy]

Well I live in AZ so I highly doubt it gets below 65F in the house. I guess I don't know for certain but there are nights when I stay up late that I will use my gun to see how warm it is and it's usually in the 70s.. I will watch it more closely when "winter" comes around. She seems cold in the mornings but she warms up during the day. She used to take water from a dripper but she doesn't seem to like it anymore, I try it still time to time though. Whenever she does eat for me I take out her hideaway so she has to lay out somewhere, usually she lays on the warm side. She ate today, so I won't have her lay in her cave until tonight. I hate brumation. It's like I don't have my baby anymore for a few months. lol
I did weigh her today and she is a little over 500 grams. Last time I weighed her after she 2nd clutch she was only 425 grams. I'm not sure if that's normal but she looks pretty chubby to me so I'm going to say she's fine.
Do you guys weigh your beardies?

And platinum, you got a picture of this beardie condo? I'm interested.. my tank seems so plain but I don't know what to do with it.

 

[sweetiepie9]

Yes, I weight my boys twice a month, just to make sure they're maintaining their weight. I like them to have lots of extra on them for the brumation time, sometimes they lose weight & they definitely lose weight in spring fever time, they spend all their time blackbearding, bobbing & foot stomping, it's hard to get them to eat, so summertime I just stuff them full of food! I don't like brumation either, with 5 asleep it's really lonely, have more time to myself before work, but have to find other things to do on weekends. I'm glad you take out her hide when she's eating, she needs to basking to digest, so great that you do that. Mine haven't really started to slow down yet, but I can see it coming by October, maybe late September. I have one beardies that conked out beginning of September to early December every year, like clockwork. Oh well, it's instinctual, can't do much about it!

 

[platinumtreasure]

Venus' new beardie condo as I call it..lol.

 

[StaceysBuddy]

Very well put together! I like it, I hope Venus does too. I like the colorful desert theme that's going on. My boyfriend and I are trying to do a sandy desert theme and it's not really turning out. It's all like a sand, light brown color. I want all this stuff in there but I also want room for Buddy to move around. It's pretty plain but she seems to like it.

Does that rock on the wall come in handy, like can she actually use it or does she? I would love to make more room in my tank and just suction cup things to the sides.

I like that your background goes on the sides too. I want to find a background for Buddy's tank that does that. I only have it on the back. And I've put it on so many times it has bubbles in it. After trying so hard the first few times, I kinda got sloppy putting it on this last time. Did you have to buy it from a roll or did it come that long??

 

[platinumtreasure]

I found a roll of background that was close to the dimensions of her tank but a little bit over and cut it to size. I used double sided removal tape to put it on. The ledge is actually usable but she hasn't discovered that yet...lol. I am going to give her a bit more time and if she doesnt figure it out on her own in the next several days I'm planning to put her on it so she will know. It's called a mushroom ledge and it has an adhesive glue you use to adhere it to the glass and then tape it in place for at least 24 hrs. I also used the glue to adhere her hammock to the glass so it wouldn't keep falling. The rock she is on in the 2nd picture she discovered was a cave last night. It was dark and I was looking all around her tank and freaked because I couldn't see her. Then my daughter pointed out that something was in the rock. :roll: I didn't even think she could fit in there! It actually has to back to it so I was glad about that just in case she couldnt get herself out. But low and behold this morning she came right out on her own.

 

[StaceysBuddy]

Isn't it crazy where they can fit themselves into?! Buddy's cave seems to small but she always manages to get in it. Sometimes (most of the time) I can hear her scratching at it while trying to lay down, as if she is digging or trying to make it bigger. She has more places to sleep but her cave is her "bedroom".
I'm too scared to glue things in her tank. It does make a lot of sense, but until I figure out the best decorations, I keep changing things. I could always glue the suction cups on the hammock, just not with super glue. It would make it stick a lot better but not be permanent... except I'm not sure what to do with the inside corner suction because it's not the actual suction cup that falls off, it's the hammock material falling off the suction cup. It's ripped or something, or just stretched out. I've never seen it fall with her on it but it would be horrible to watch her "healthy" (..fatish..) weight get on the hammock and it fall! Her self esteem may take a hit... :wink:

Did you just wing it when decorating or did you have a plan? I can't seem to choose or make anything look that great. At first I had sand in there and it looked awesome, I have a whole upstairs area and everything. But I ditched the sand and when I moved the upstairs broke from the car ride.. I need to talk my bf into making another one. hehe.

 

[platinumtreasure]

Actually I didnt have a plan for her tank. Over the course of a year or so I kind of purchased things and when I got her new tank I arranged things around a couple of times to see what worked best and still would give her room to move about freely. As for the things attached with adhesive, you can still get it off with a razor or butter knife. I usually change things at ground level but leave the things she likes to be up high on anyway. So will likely not take down the ledge or hammock. Plus the hammock provides a good shaded spot to lay under when she needs to photo regulate.