Curiousity about Traits and Behavior

[Jeremy11]

I've had Hurley for almost a year now and he just turned one year old at the beginning of February. I'm just a little confused because he is really healthy, always eats well, and never ever shows any traits of the normal beardie! Everything environmentally is in check and always has been. He has never arm waved, never head bobbed, and occasionally stretches his beard but as soon as I creep up to get a look he returns to normal. And he STILL JUMPS EVERYWHERE!! In his tank out of his tank wherever whenever. Is any of this normal?

Another question is that hes always running around making a ton of noise in tank the past few days. He doesn't stop! He runs back and forth, tries to climb the walls, runs into the walls, and I can't figure out why. I recently built an structure for him like on http://www.reptilelandscapes.com and he has been fine, but I noticed that he freaked out when I changed the background of the tank. When I take him out hes fine, he doesn't move much other than the curious walk about my room. But as soon as he goes back in, he runs laps across the tank again.

Some feedback would be much appreciated

 

[peera]

Waving, bobbing and bearding are all signs of dominance/submission. If he has no reason to feel that way towards anything in his environment, there's no reason he should be doing them. None of mine do any of those things either unless I have my male in the same room as my older female and they notice each other. As for the jumping, it's usually a younger dragon thing, but my 3 year old still does it too, so I'm not sure some ever grow out of it. Just have to be extra careful when walking about with them and keep a hand on them. Dora never ever goes outside without a leash because of this.
As for the mad running, it's usually a sign their viv is too hot, or that they want attention or let out. This is another one Dora's famous for, I call it her poop dance because she hates pooping in her tank and will do this for hours if I let her.

 

[Jeremy11]

I figured that the attention bit could be it, but I left the room for an hour to test it and I could still hear him running around like crazy.

 

[Goonie]

It could simply be that he doesn't like or is scared of something in his viv, thus the scratching and climbing to get out.

What you could do is to remove one item at a time and leave it out for a couple of day, and see if he calms down.

Or he could just be going thru "the change" - like beardie puberty.

 

[gulfbrzdawn]

Maybe he doesn't like the background.Try covering or removing the background and see if he's any different. Like Gina(Goonie) said maybe try removing different things and get his reaction. Has he been in the same set up his whole life? It could just be relocation stress...some beardies don't do well with change, especially drastic change, like a new viv.

Good Luck,

Dawn

 

[Jeremy11]

Well like I said I just drastically changed the viv but he was fine with it, hes been fine with it for a couple weeks now. But as soon as I changed the paper background he went nuts! I'm starting to think it could be "the change" because he is just about a year now. But the lizard landscape covers a lot of area, maybe he just wants to run and because hes so high in the tank hes trying to get out?