GodzillaMax
Member
Hello everyone! This year for my son's birthday, I was scratching my head on what to buy a turning-9-year-old boy and someone suggested a Bearded Dragon. We've had several animals (horses, dogs, cats, parakeets, ferrets, rabbits) but never a reptile! I wasn't quite convinced at first to get him one because I knew absolutely nothing about reptiles but when I went into the petstore to check out these critters, I had 2 petstore employees point me to the Bearded Dragons as an "awesome" pet for a boy. Now my son has 3 sisters so he definitely needed something more um, boyish, than the fluffy guinea pig that his sister wanted me to buy him so she could name it a foo-foo name. So somehow I ended up walking out of the petstore that day with a new pet that I was told was sooooooooo easy to care for and one of the coolest birthday presents ever.
Since that day (only last Thursday!) I have learned a TON. First, I have to say that my son was absolutely ecstatic. He is so sweet- my husband and I wrapped up the CRICKETS because we live in the country and my kids love to play outside and catch crickets and whatever other insects are nice enough to not bite them so my little boy actually believed us when we told him that we got him crickets for his birthday to go in the big terrarium set-up package that we bought from the pet store (petsmart). Then I brought out the REAL birthday present which was his baby bearded dragon. Needless to say, he was in awe!
At first the little beardie scared me! I got him out of his little pet carrier from the petstore and he felt cold. I actually thought he was dying in my hands because he was not moving at all. I mean I could barely see him breathe. It was like his body was shutting down and I was thinking, crap, I just killed the thing somehow!! So I let him rest in my hand which was pretty warm since I was all nervous and scared and eventually he started warming up to us (literally). I think he was just in shock and maybe going from 100 degrees to 70 degrees was a bit too much for him? I don't know! But that was pretty scary.
My son named his beardie Godzilla. We aren't sure if Godzilla is a boy or a girl, but I guess if he/she ends up being a girl, we can call her "zilla" :lol: The first few days were exciting but a little intimidating as well. Thank goodness I had off that Friday and the following weekend because feeding these little guys takes some commitment! We realized soon through researching that they aren't like cats who you can just throw food in a bowl and they're content for days on end. I think they're a little more like our horses, who have to eat several times a day, and have certain things that they can eat and other things that aren't really recommended. The petstore told me that about everything we needed was in our little kit, but we ended up going back out to the petstore the same day we purchased Godzilla so we could buy some of that reptile carpet for the bottom of his set-up. The terrarium (is that what it's called?) kit came with the orange sand and I read right after we of course dumped it in, that the stuff isn't good for babies. Oops. IT would have been nice if that disclaimer had been on the all-you-need-for-a-bearded-dragon kit somewhere!
Another subject- CRICKETS! Holy crap I never in my life thought I'd be worrying over what to feed CRICKETS! :shock: Then I was stressing over several dead crickets. Did the lettuce I gave them kill them? Should we have bought that orange stuff instead? Can we just give them tomato slices from our garden and they can get water from that? Ugh, so many questions and so much research!
And WHY is our beardie only eating about 9 crickets per day? That's another thing. The petstore guy said they only eat about 3 per day! Obviously from reading on these forums, that's not right. So we're working on upping the cricket munchings with our little guy.
I'm running out of time on my lunch hour, but also wanted to say, we were worried bout how much our little beardie should drink. We've been giving him drops of water from a baby medicine dropper (all cleaned out of course) and he licks it up here and there. Yesterday I gave him his first bath (probably overdue since we'd had him 6 days but hey, we're getting there in the learning department!) and he drank water like he was really thirsty. So we'll probably be doing the bath thing every day now. I just used a small container filled with warm water and set it on our living room floor. He loved it.
So that's all I can write for now. My son just adores him and Godzilla seems to enjoy being held and pet, but I'm super careful of the kids holding the baby beardie because he is SO SO SO small. I mean he fits in my hand with just his tail hanging off so I don't know how many inches that is, but I'll have to measure him later. I'm loving these forums though and wish I had time to write more! These little guys are so cute and I can see how people just love them so much!
Since that day (only last Thursday!) I have learned a TON. First, I have to say that my son was absolutely ecstatic. He is so sweet- my husband and I wrapped up the CRICKETS because we live in the country and my kids love to play outside and catch crickets and whatever other insects are nice enough to not bite them so my little boy actually believed us when we told him that we got him crickets for his birthday to go in the big terrarium set-up package that we bought from the pet store (petsmart). Then I brought out the REAL birthday present which was his baby bearded dragon. Needless to say, he was in awe!
At first the little beardie scared me! I got him out of his little pet carrier from the petstore and he felt cold. I actually thought he was dying in my hands because he was not moving at all. I mean I could barely see him breathe. It was like his body was shutting down and I was thinking, crap, I just killed the thing somehow!! So I let him rest in my hand which was pretty warm since I was all nervous and scared and eventually he started warming up to us (literally). I think he was just in shock and maybe going from 100 degrees to 70 degrees was a bit too much for him? I don't know! But that was pretty scary.
My son named his beardie Godzilla. We aren't sure if Godzilla is a boy or a girl, but I guess if he/she ends up being a girl, we can call her "zilla" :lol: The first few days were exciting but a little intimidating as well. Thank goodness I had off that Friday and the following weekend because feeding these little guys takes some commitment! We realized soon through researching that they aren't like cats who you can just throw food in a bowl and they're content for days on end. I think they're a little more like our horses, who have to eat several times a day, and have certain things that they can eat and other things that aren't really recommended. The petstore told me that about everything we needed was in our little kit, but we ended up going back out to the petstore the same day we purchased Godzilla so we could buy some of that reptile carpet for the bottom of his set-up. The terrarium (is that what it's called?) kit came with the orange sand and I read right after we of course dumped it in, that the stuff isn't good for babies. Oops. IT would have been nice if that disclaimer had been on the all-you-need-for-a-bearded-dragon kit somewhere!
Another subject- CRICKETS! Holy crap I never in my life thought I'd be worrying over what to feed CRICKETS! :shock: Then I was stressing over several dead crickets. Did the lettuce I gave them kill them? Should we have bought that orange stuff instead? Can we just give them tomato slices from our garden and they can get water from that? Ugh, so many questions and so much research!
And WHY is our beardie only eating about 9 crickets per day? That's another thing. The petstore guy said they only eat about 3 per day! Obviously from reading on these forums, that's not right. So we're working on upping the cricket munchings with our little guy.
I'm running out of time on my lunch hour, but also wanted to say, we were worried bout how much our little beardie should drink. We've been giving him drops of water from a baby medicine dropper (all cleaned out of course) and he licks it up here and there. Yesterday I gave him his first bath (probably overdue since we'd had him 6 days but hey, we're getting there in the learning department!) and he drank water like he was really thirsty. So we'll probably be doing the bath thing every day now. I just used a small container filled with warm water and set it on our living room floor. He loved it.
So that's all I can write for now. My son just adores him and Godzilla seems to enjoy being held and pet, but I'm super careful of the kids holding the baby beardie because he is SO SO SO small. I mean he fits in my hand with just his tail hanging off so I don't know how many inches that is, but I'll have to measure him later. I'm loving these forums though and wish I had time to write more! These little guys are so cute and I can see how people just love them so much!
The top of the tank has a mesh (screen) covering on it and the bulb it came with is a Reptisun 5.0 UVB. Do we need a better UVB since the mesh will block part of the UVB? We also have the red (nocturnal infrared heat lamp) and white "repti basking spot lamp" by Zoo Med heat lights on the other side. My husband set up the tank so he knows more than I do about the lighting on it. What concerns me is he has the lamps resting on the mesh rather than suspended. They seem okay but heat lamps worry me with being fire hazards. 
