Family adjustment and quick question

[orangetabbys]

Hi all,
We've had Blaze for just over a month now, and I'll admit I was pretty skeptical about him warming up to us. I am the type of person who "tip toes into the lake", so I do others that way as well. Seems I just kind of needed to drop Blaze into the "deep end" of cuddling lol. I have a pet pen so we sit inside with him, and I'll put him in our laps, or on our chest, and now hes allowing me to pick him up from the cage without freaking out. He almost jumped out at me for dinner tonight which was funny. Quite a personality Im starting to see coming out and its awesome. He's very different from other reptiles I've had. My daughter loves him, she likes to have him on her while she plays on her tablet, lounging on the chaise. ( I put the playpen all around the chair to keep him safely enclosed if he should jump off her.) But so far so good. He has a well rounded palate which has been great. Ive enjoyed having dandelions in the yard with abundant leaves for the picking.

I'm going to ask this question now, though I hope its just a fluke. I saw him jumping onto the wall at bedtime just before I left the room. Perhaps he was jumping at the sunlight on the wall? No clue. What concerned me was when I came back into the room an hour later, he was asleep in his water dish. But he always sleeps in his cave. Do they ever sleep in their water? I spritz his salads with water. Im hoping he didnt fall off his wall and hurt himself. I picked him up and placed him in his "room" as I didnt want him laying there being wet and cold overnight.

 

[xp29]

In my opinion if your going have a water dish, it should be removed at night.
Do you have a background in his habitat? I've seen mine jump "into" the backgrounds when I've used them. I don't think they understand it isn't real.

 

[Sue E.]

Seems like they have pretty poor depth perception at times. But, and I dont know if its coincidence or an actual factor, I noticed Kai's depth perception and visual accuracy (zeroing in on those bugs lol) improved considerably after I added led lighting to his enclosure along with the usual basking bulb and uvb tube. It definitely brightened up his tank a lot, and its on the same timer as his other lights. So that wouldnt help at night, but if you dont change things around in their enclosure, they seem to "learn" where things are after a while. In my old tank, before and after led added...same basking bulb and same uvb. I never realized how dim it was in there before!

 

[Sue E.]

You mentioned the dandelion leaves, did you know they can eat the dandelion flower too? Some of them love the flower and it has a lot of nutrients in it also! Just dont feed the stem.

 

[orangetabbys]

You mentioned the dandelion leaves, did you know they can eat the dandelion flower too? Some of them love the flower and it has a lot of nutrients in it also! Just dont feed the stem.

Yes! He loves the flower. Luckily i was throwing the stem out. whew.

 

[Sue E.]

Yes! He loves the flower. Luckily i was throwing the stem out. whew.

Yes! He loves the flower. Luckily i was throwing the stem out. whew.

Stem isnt toxic, just tougher and more bitter and higher in oxalates. So I throw them out too.

 

[xp29]

Stem isnt toxic, just tougher and more bitter and higher in oxalates. So I throw them out too.

When I was a kid I made whistles out of the stems. They are CRAZY bitter lol.

 

[orangetabbys]

When I was a kid I made whistles out of the stems. They are CRAZY bitter lol.

i can whistle with a blade of grass but never thought about a dandelion stem lol

 

[xp29]

i can whistle with a blade of grass but never thought about a dandelion stem lol

They are hollow so it's easy. Just split the end a little bit and blow through it. But it taste horrible lol.
I always ended up just breaking the grass when I tried lol.