Koopa & Gilbert

[drpayne1990]

I have a couple questions I wanted to ask about my two bearded dragons Koopa and Gilbert. Below I will post the details about them both;

How old is your dragon?
K= 12months, G=7months

How long have you had your dragon?
K= 11months, G= 5months

How long is your dragon?
Last time I checked from nose to back legs;
K= 8" G= 7.5" (unfortunately Koopa's growth was a bit stunt because I was a n00b with him being my first)

What is the sex of your dragon?
K= Male, G= Pretty sure Male

What size enclosure do you have your dragon in?
K= 3x2x2, G=2x2x2 (before you judge Gilbert's enclosure size I want to say something. He is missing his front and back left limbs, so I have spent allot of time tying to get temps as good as possible in a small enclosure)

What type substrate do you have on the bottom of your tank?
K & G = repticarpet

Do you use UVB lights?
If so, Is it a coil, compact, fluorescent tube, or Mercury Vapor bulb?
K= 24" Fluorescent tube, G= 18" Fluorescent tube

What is the brand name and number of your bulb? Wattage (if MVB)?
K= Reptisun 10 - 17watt, G= Reptisun 10 - 15watt

How old is your UVB bulb?
K&G= Aprox 1 month

How close can your dragon get to the UVB?
K = 9-11" G= 8-11"

Do you use a separate basking bulb? What kind and what is the wattage?
K= 50watt Halogen Flood Light with dimmer, G= Heat regulated with 50 watt CHE mini as well as a low wattage energy saving compact globe to create a bright light.

What are the basking temps?
K= 94-108 G= 102.2-109.5

What is the cool side temp?
K= 82.4- 86 G= 85.1 - 88.7

Do you take the temps with a stick on thermometer, a digital thermometer with a wire and a probe end or a temp gun?
K&G =mainly temp gun which has been cross referenced with a mercury thermometer. I also have a weather station on the cool side to read humidity and temp, at the basking area a probe is reading there.

Where exactly are you taking your basking temps?
K&G = the closest position they can get to the heat.

Do you use a heat rock or heat pad?
No

What do you feed your dragon? Please be specific.
Crickets, butternut squash, boc choy and kale

How often do you feed and what time do you feed (morning, afternoon, night)?
Two times a day for both. Morning feed is around 9:30-11:00. Night is 7:00-7:30.
Koopa gets aprox 5-7 large crickets in the morning and around 10 crickets at night with salad.
Gilbert, aprox 15 in morning medium crickets and 15 at night with some little bits of squash hand feed.

Do you gutload (feed) your crickets, worms, etc?
Have two seperate cricket pens for the different sizes. I have given apple as their staple for a long time, but just switched to orange two weeks ago. Also the pallet food that comes with them.

Do you use vitamin or calcium supplements? What brand(s)? How many days a week do you use each of them?
Yes to both and rep-cal is the brand. Calcium is 5x a week and multi-vitamin 2x a week.

Is your dragon having regular bowel movements (poops)?
Both usually they wait for a bath to do poops, but if they really can't hold on they do it in their enclosure.

Do you bath your dragon? How often?
I bath them aprox every 3-4days just to make sure they poop for about 10-15min

Do you mist your dragon or offer water other than in the bath?
Nope I do not have any water in enclosure or mist them because I do not want to raise the humidity.

Does your dragon share an enclosure with another dragon?
No

Have you gotten a vet check and fecal done?
Not yet for either of them, are doing some research into where somewhere close to me are able to do it. I live in Australia, Victoria, Point Cook if anyone knows of somewhere good and close.




Okay now down to the questions!! (P.S. That takes a long time, but obviously worth it if someone responds )
....Now trying to think of what the question was supposed to be.......
well lets start with your judgement on the information above.
ahh I remember now!!

I have a feeling Gilbert is scared of water (most likly because he only has two limbs). The reason why I say this is because when I bath him he holds his breath and appears to be gasping for air (mouth closed), this is usually only when he tries to move. I was a little bit concern it had something to do with URI, but after doing excessive research I don't think this is the case because other symptoms are not present. But I would definitely appreciate another persons opinion and how I could help him if it is fear.

Koopa tends to stick over the cool size of his enclosure most of the day, after feeding and baths he tends to go to basking spot. Is this going to be unhealthy for him? or is it that he just likes it a bit cooler than expected.

How long is too long in between poops? As I said previously they generally don't do poops in there enclosure, which is why I bath them every 3-4 days. Is that amount of time to long? The poops are usually MASIVE, and do not stink (any more than poop should). Urate is soft and hydration seems fine. They both get blue eyes occasionally which I see as a sign that they need some water.

Is it time to switch Koopa on one serving of salad and one serving of crickets?

Today the rain was coming and it became quite humid. It has now settled down with Koopa's enclosure at 42% and Gilbert 46%. It normally sits around 40% for both. My question is, when and if the humidity goes above 50%, how long can it be like that with no serious effects? What can I do apart from dehumidifier and air con? I closed the window and door which caused the room to become very stuffy, but lowerd the humidity a fraction.

Finally. Koopa appears to have black lines on his stomic sometimes. I am aware this is possibly stress marks, but they are more straight instead of oval. Is this something else?

Thank you in advance.
Paul

 

[drpayne1990]

extended information was added to first post.

 

[drpayne1990]

While I'm at it, here are a couple old photos of the two. Koopa's enclosure is not set up the same now, but this is mainly so you can see the lighting and understand a bit better.

Gilbert; now there is a mini CHE at the back, and compact energy globe in front of that (which is what you can mainly see).


Koopa; Set up completely different, will try get a new photo up. Basically he stays in the back right corner on a stick against the wall there.

 

[daner923]

Your set up looks and sounds great! Are they only willing to eat that many crickets at a feeding, or is that all you are offering? It seems low, especially for the younger dragon. Greens you need to adjust - neither kale nor bok choy are really good staples. Kale binds calcium, and bok choy is a bit high in vitamin A for everyday use. I would stick with dandelion, collard, or mustard greens. You should also have the salad available to each all day, not just at one feeding. Stick it in in the morning, and take it out at night.

On to your questions:
1) It sounds like Gilbert is puffing up in the bath, which is completely normal behavior. They do this to stay afloat. Given that he is missing limbs, he probably does this even more than most to keep his balance and not sink. You may want to keep your hand in the bath with him so he feels more secure.

2) Try lowering Koopa's basking temps to around the 100F range. He is probably sticking to the cool side because it is too hot for him on the basking spot. It varies from dragon to dragon. As long as he is basking for a couple hours after feeding, though, he should be okay.

3) As long as they are pooping regularly and don't look like they are straining too much, 3-4 days per poop is totally fine. You could try upping the baths to every 2-3 days instead to keep them hydrated and to poop a bit more often.

4) You should try to lower the viv humidity. Even in the 40-50% range, it's a bit too high and could cause a URI eventually. I think that you can buy mini dehumidifiers that you can put in the tank on Amazon. You just plug them in to recharge them, no water to empty. Might be a worthy investment. The proper range should be in the 20-30% range as much as possible.

5) Those are stress marks on Koopa, but nothing to worry about necessarily. They are more like parentheses than an oval, and if they're not too dark they may look like lines. It could also be his marking. The marks often darken if a dragon is too cold. This probably ties to the fact that he spends a lot of time on the cool side - he'd rather be a bit cold that too hot. They darken to absorb more heat. I think he may stop doing it if his basking temp is right.

 

[drpayne1990]

First off, thank you for your response Andrew.

With the kale, bok choy thing, I accidentally put in kale when I was supposed to say endive. Silly me, brain was thinking on thing and I typed out another .

1) Thank you, that's what I thought. Just being a protective parent .

2) Temp now lowered.

3) I was bathing them every second day, but did not want to over hydrate them so moved it to every 3rd for Gilbert and 4th for Koopa. They seem to pass it very easy with no real strain.

4) That is an awesome suggestion, I did't even know they excised. Will do some research into that.

5) Thought as much.

Thank you once again
Paul

 

[drpayne1990]

Should have mentioned the following before. Was just posting in a hurry because I was in the middle of making dinner.

In reference to the crickets. What do you think is a better amount? I only offer them that amount because any more I run out of crickets before I am able to get them from the suppler. Also being a student makes it very hard to buy more than that. In theory I should not have got Gilbert when I got him, but just had to get him out of this horrible petstore.

And the humitidty range is usually between 35-45, it was just that the weather was very overcast and humid outside. That is why I was wondering how long it would be 'safe' for them to be around the 50% mark.

 

[daner923]

I understand with the humidity, but my point was that 35-45% is really still a bit too high. 35 is probably more the top of the range you want, not the bottom.

Crickets-wise, well... you really need to be feeding the younger dragon as much as he will eat in 10-15 minutes, twice a day. The older dragon should be as much as he can eat in 10-15 minutes once a day. Max (my dragon) has eaten over 50 crickets in a day many times. It sounds like they are both 15-16 inches long including tail? If that's the case, you could also offer them super worms which you can get cheaply and keep alive pretty easily too. They just live in a bed of oats. At their ages, you should still get the crickets too, but a balanced diet of crickets and supers would be just fine. The other option would be to start a dubia roach colony, but that takes a few months.

 

[drpayne1990]

I posted in the general chat section about a dehumidifier. On phone at the moment so bit of a pain getting a link . Basicly it was just something that you generally hang up in your room or something like a car, have a look at it when you get a chance.

As for the colony I really think that is the path I want to go down. Here in aus I'm I am pretty sure we can't get dubia, and the other half refuses to have them breeding in fear of them escaping (even after explaining how much better they are than crickets). But I know we are not feeding them the best amount and it kills me, I think I might have to just put my foot down. Wish me luck lol.

 

[Mediabandit]

Daner923 has covered mostly everything. But as far as being scared of the water goes, place a small rock in the tub with him so he can rest hishead on it. It will still allow him to absord the water through his vent but will make him feel much more comfortable if he has something to rest on.