Cheif":1e01rtnw said:
LewisBD":1e01rtnw said:
Refrain from handling him and
bathing him for a while, he's new and he needs to get used to his surroundings. Once he warms up to you, put him in the
bath only if he's stinky, or he likes it, or if he's shedding. Any other reason will make him stressed. I actually kinda trained Lewis to go to the bathroom in the
bath, so he goes in everyday until he gets older.
How do I keep it
hydrated then? I've put fresh water in everyday and plan to keep doing so. Do I spray it instead? It's just that I've read that beardies use baths to
hydrate, but maybe I'm misinformed. How long should I refrain from handling? Cheers for the help!
The only way to
hydrate an bearded dragon in a
bath is if it drinks while there,
>> they WILL NOT absorb moisture through their skin
>> they WILL NOT absorb moisture via their cloaca.
They get nearly all their
hydration via their food .
So provide a good diet of live insects as a hatchling (3 times per day), supplemented with nice fresh high calcium greens offered daily .
This is sufficient unless it's REALLY HOT , then drip water on it's nose and if it's
thirsty it will drink.
Handling is OK if the hatchling is calm when being picked up and not stressed by the experience or shows it's scared of you.
I restricted my handling to a bonding routine & ritual each day where I handfed the first few insects to my hatchlings each morning and when I needed to take them out of their rearing tubs to spot clean, recover uneaten insects (crickets). I slowly built up from that.
Very few hatchlings or even adult beardies will ever drink from a water dish, they are more likely to sit in the water to cool off, or deposit their poos in the water, this is why many beardie keepers don't have water dishes in their beardie's vivs, but the warmed water will tend to evaporate and increase viv relative humidity.