I'm at a bit of a loss guys. Maybe I'm just not used to this yet and I'm a major worry wart. I'm gonna touch base on a few things in the thread so I didn't really know where to put it.
Diet: I've had this guy for a few weeks now. He's my first dragon and is (assuming the pet store was correct) around 1 year old (16 inches and ~240 grams. Although I'm not sure what a healthy weight/size is, so here's a pic of him skinny and "frilled up":
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[/url][/img]) but yeah, the place I got him from never fed him anything at all but crickets. I'm worried about him becoming malnourished because I can't get him to eat any salad. At all. He just flat out refuses.
I've tried mixing it up, including a generous assortment of berries (strawberry and raspberry), fruits (mango, papaya, and a couple types of baby foods. Which he liked for a little bit but then changed his mind on), and various greens (collards, mustard, kale, broccoli, carrots, squash, and prickly pear are what I've tried. Even tried one piece of romaine one time just to see if he would even eat that, but he didn't.)
His bug diet consists of medium sized Dubia roaches (about 3 a day) and Superworms (about 3 a day as well). Dusted with calcium. When I offer bugs he'll eat as many as I give him and just scarf them down, but won't eat veggies.
I've tried tricking him with a bug first, then the salad. It'll get him to eat one piece but then he catches on and won't even eat any more bugs for the rest of the day.
I've tried putting pieces by his basking spot or hanging large pieces off the wall for him to tear off and he just ignores it.
If I mix bugs in he just digs through and eats the bugs without touching the actual salad at all.
I've put the salad on a white background to try and get his attention that way. He doesn't pay attention.
He doesn't let me feed him pureed veggies either. Keeps his mouth shut and if I try to weasel it in he hisses, then runs and hides.
I don't know what to do.
Habitat: I just wanna make sure this habitat is okay.
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He's in a 40 gallon breeder with 3 hides, a very small water dish, a daily salad that most often goes untouched, (I bathe him every other day and he drinks heartily from that mainly. I don't think he's dehydrated. The water dish mostly just helps keep it above 0% humidity in there as well as giving him the option to drink out of it. Normally humidity is at about 10-20% with the water dish. Without it stays around 0-5%)
He's got reptile carpet as substrate, and his basking spot is wood at about 110-115 surface temp, 103-105 ambient air temp. His cool side of the tank is at about 78-83 ambient. He has a UVA, UVB, and a nighttime basking blacklight in the center of his cage (emits a very very low level of purple light in about a 6 inch circle directly under it. The rest of the tank is about pitch black at night). Which keeps the night time ambient temp between 70 and 85 degrees depending on where he moves. He wakes up at around 8AM, and goes to sleep between 6:30 and 7:30 depending on when I work. I'm in the process of getting him an automatic timer but I'm short on money so I'm doing the lights manually for the time being.
Behavior: We get along great, he's very active and loving. super energetic and likes to stand tall and hang out on my shoulder outside of his tank. Doesn't even really freak out when I pick him up. He's really chill.
He's also never bearded at me, which I think is good. But he has to my father. He does do this thing where he slowly closes his eye at me then slowly opens it. Not sure if that's good or bad tho lol.
He's currently undergoing a light shed on his front leg as well, but I don't really think that's affecting him too much. He hasn't seemed lethargic so I don't think he's brumating.
He'll also sit with his toes up in the air sometimes. which looks weird. Not sure if there's anything to worry about there. I don't really know what's normal or not.
Like his rear legs are aligned correctly, and his feet is on the ground by his "ankle" but his toes aren't on the ground. They're like 1/4 inch off it. like this:
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Daily schedule:
7:30AM: wake up/lights on.
8:30: salad placed in bowl and water refreshed. morning misting.
11:00 bath time every other day.
1:00 bug feeding and afternoon misting on days he doesn't bathe.
1:30-3 basking time for digestion.
3-7:30 chill. Maybe take him out a bit and work with him on my shoulder. Play with him on my bed. Watch TV.
6:30-8PM: sleep. Usually leaning towards 8PM.
Also worth noting: Holy heck does his poop stink. His habitat doesn't usually smell up any more than about 1 foot away from it, and he isn't stinky himself, but when he poops the stench fills my entire room and lingers for about 1-2 hours after I clean it up. I'm worried he's got parasites due to not eating much. I haven't given him anything not store bought/washed off, but for a bit he just refused to eat anything. The nasty poop started after that.
He poops about once or twice a day, and it's relatively solid. The urate is white and somewhat chalky. Once or twice there's been a very VERY small amount of visible blood in his poop too. But that's really infrequent and mostly disappeared once I got rid of the sand he came with.
His coloration looks pretty fine from what I can tell. But yeah, here's his belly. I don't know if there's anything worth being worried about in this pic.
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I'd take him to a vet for all this but I'm really really short on money right now. Had some emergency expenses come up right after I got him and I'm about out of cash from it. I'd like to get him checked up though when I can. Preferably soon.
I just wanna make sure there's nothing super scarily urgent.
Diet: I've had this guy for a few weeks now. He's my first dragon and is (assuming the pet store was correct) around 1 year old (16 inches and ~240 grams. Although I'm not sure what a healthy weight/size is, so here's a pic of him skinny and "frilled up":
I've tried mixing it up, including a generous assortment of berries (strawberry and raspberry), fruits (mango, papaya, and a couple types of baby foods. Which he liked for a little bit but then changed his mind on), and various greens (collards, mustard, kale, broccoli, carrots, squash, and prickly pear are what I've tried. Even tried one piece of romaine one time just to see if he would even eat that, but he didn't.)
His bug diet consists of medium sized Dubia roaches (about 3 a day) and Superworms (about 3 a day as well). Dusted with calcium. When I offer bugs he'll eat as many as I give him and just scarf them down, but won't eat veggies.
I've tried tricking him with a bug first, then the salad. It'll get him to eat one piece but then he catches on and won't even eat any more bugs for the rest of the day.
I've tried putting pieces by his basking spot or hanging large pieces off the wall for him to tear off and he just ignores it.
If I mix bugs in he just digs through and eats the bugs without touching the actual salad at all.
I've put the salad on a white background to try and get his attention that way. He doesn't pay attention.
He doesn't let me feed him pureed veggies either. Keeps his mouth shut and if I try to weasel it in he hisses, then runs and hides.
I don't know what to do.
Habitat: I just wanna make sure this habitat is okay.
He's in a 40 gallon breeder with 3 hides, a very small water dish, a daily salad that most often goes untouched, (I bathe him every other day and he drinks heartily from that mainly. I don't think he's dehydrated. The water dish mostly just helps keep it above 0% humidity in there as well as giving him the option to drink out of it. Normally humidity is at about 10-20% with the water dish. Without it stays around 0-5%)
He's got reptile carpet as substrate, and his basking spot is wood at about 110-115 surface temp, 103-105 ambient air temp. His cool side of the tank is at about 78-83 ambient. He has a UVA, UVB, and a nighttime basking blacklight in the center of his cage (emits a very very low level of purple light in about a 6 inch circle directly under it. The rest of the tank is about pitch black at night). Which keeps the night time ambient temp between 70 and 85 degrees depending on where he moves. He wakes up at around 8AM, and goes to sleep between 6:30 and 7:30 depending on when I work. I'm in the process of getting him an automatic timer but I'm short on money so I'm doing the lights manually for the time being.
Behavior: We get along great, he's very active and loving. super energetic and likes to stand tall and hang out on my shoulder outside of his tank. Doesn't even really freak out when I pick him up. He's really chill.
He's also never bearded at me, which I think is good. But he has to my father. He does do this thing where he slowly closes his eye at me then slowly opens it. Not sure if that's good or bad tho lol.
He's currently undergoing a light shed on his front leg as well, but I don't really think that's affecting him too much. He hasn't seemed lethargic so I don't think he's brumating.
He'll also sit with his toes up in the air sometimes. which looks weird. Not sure if there's anything to worry about there. I don't really know what's normal or not.
Like his rear legs are aligned correctly, and his feet is on the ground by his "ankle" but his toes aren't on the ground. They're like 1/4 inch off it. like this:
Daily schedule:
7:30AM: wake up/lights on.
8:30: salad placed in bowl and water refreshed. morning misting.
11:00 bath time every other day.
1:00 bug feeding and afternoon misting on days he doesn't bathe.
1:30-3 basking time for digestion.
3-7:30 chill. Maybe take him out a bit and work with him on my shoulder. Play with him on my bed. Watch TV.
6:30-8PM: sleep. Usually leaning towards 8PM.
Also worth noting: Holy heck does his poop stink. His habitat doesn't usually smell up any more than about 1 foot away from it, and he isn't stinky himself, but when he poops the stench fills my entire room and lingers for about 1-2 hours after I clean it up. I'm worried he's got parasites due to not eating much. I haven't given him anything not store bought/washed off, but for a bit he just refused to eat anything. The nasty poop started after that.
He poops about once or twice a day, and it's relatively solid. The urate is white and somewhat chalky. Once or twice there's been a very VERY small amount of visible blood in his poop too. But that's really infrequent and mostly disappeared once I got rid of the sand he came with.
His coloration looks pretty fine from what I can tell. But yeah, here's his belly. I don't know if there's anything worth being worried about in this pic.
I'd take him to a vet for all this but I'm really really short on money right now. Had some emergency expenses come up right after I got him and I'm about out of cash from it. I'd like to get him checked up though when I can. Preferably soon.
I just wanna make sure there's nothing super scarily urgent.