Giving water to baby bearded dragon & twitching

[Jessieamandabhb]

I posted last week about losing my bearded dragon to gout at roughly 3 1/2 months old, and I received a lot of good information from those that posted. Well after a week of moping around and doing more reading, I purchased a baby today. I will say that he is tiny, but he is very alert and wants to know everything we are doing. Since getting him home a few hours ago, he has already eaten some crickets and a few bites of greens, explored his set up, pooped and drank water from me from a cup. However, I do have two concerns.

My first concern is with hydration. When I had to put down my first beardie baby, Louise, the vet mentioned the importance of misting the dragon several times a day. I have misted this new one, and the water seemed to really irritate his eyes. Isn’t there a concern that misting could cause a possible upper respiratory infection due to moisture getting in his nose/ears? Also, with my previous dragon, I would hold a 2 oz cup full of water in front of her and she would drink it. I offered the same to this baby, and he gulped it down happily. Is it safe to offer them water like this?

That leads me to my second concern. He has been “twitching.” The first time I noticed it was about 10-15 minutes after he had eaten his first cricket and was basking on his tree. The second time was after I let him drink from the cup of water. This second time, it was like full fledged hopping around to the point that I worried he would fall off his tree. I want to say that maybe he just didn’t like that his feet got water on them, but it still seems abnormal to me, especially because he seems very alert and healthy otherwise.

Does anyone have any insight on this? After losing my first baby to gout, I am trying to do everything exactly right this time.

 

[Claudiusx]

Hi there,

Welcome back, I'm glad you ended up getting another dragon. Right now the hardest part is realizing how hyper-vigilant you are going to be, which is understandable

I don't like misting. And I think the term misting should really be changed to "dripping water on their snout" instead.
However, how you are giving water is perfectly fine, especially since your dragon seems to so readily drink that way.

If the twitching happened after he was being misted, I would probably attribute it to that. Did you buy this dragon from a breeder of a pet store?

Ps. you should definitely make an intro thread for the little dude and post up some pics of him

-Brandon

 

[Jessieamandabhb]

Thank you for your reply! I really appreciate your insight as I believe it was your article that I first read a few months ago to help me understand everything that I would need to purchase and do for when I did get my first dragon.

I am definitely analyzing everything, so I’m trying to focus on how well he has done with eating and drinking today! It’s a much better first day home than I had experienced previously.

I ended up purchasing from a pet store again.? I plan to watch him like a hawk and give him some time to settle in then take him to the vet in a couple weeks for an exam to make sure everything is as it should be. I was rather reluctant to purchase from them again, but the majority of breeders I found won’t be posting their dragons and shipping them until after the beginning of January or the ones that are still shipping were either out of my price range or I was weary of them due to things I had read or seen about them. I was considering Repticon but when I looked at the list of vendors attending, there didn’t seem to be any reputable bearded dragon breeders. The only one I saw was one that is local to me, and they didn’t have the best reviews.

I think I will have to make an introductory thread, especially to help get ideas on what to name him!

Thank you again for your help,

Jessie