Meet Hope. The 3 legged Dragon!

[firemist82]

Hi. Meet Hope and her slave CJ. We are new here and in each other's lives. The lady I got Hope from said that she was the runt of the clutch. One of Hope's siblings decided to bite her right front leg off! But don't let her fool you, Hope has absolutely NO problem with only 3 legs lol. She loves to climb and hunt her calcium dusted crickets! I was astonished the first time I seen Hope take off after a cricket! I'm not sure how old Hope is but she is tiny. The lady who have her to me said that she is 9 months old. Can someone tell me how I can get an approximate age? Any help would be much appreciated! Well gotta go, she just decided to try to jump into her desert background lol.

 

[CooperDragon]

Welcome to the forum! I'm glad to see she has a good home =). They are able to lead very happy lives with missing arms, toes, legs, etc. It's great to hear she is adjusting so well. Please let us know if you have any questions about her care and please keep us updated on her progress. She looks much younger than 9 months old to me. I'd guess she isn't more than a few months old based on her size, shape of her head, and size of her arms/legs. If her appetite keeps up I'm sure she has plenty of growing left to do.

 

[firemist82]

Thanks for replying! I thought that she was younger also but I was not sure as her being my first dragon I have ever known and loved. I am so excited about Hope being part of mine and my family's lifes. Any advice for a newbie would very much be appreciated. Yeah I have been a little obsessed with Hope in the 5 days I have had her. My wife lovingly accused me of paying Hope more attention then her lol!

 

[CooperDragon]

My advice is to give her lots of attention and spoil her =). I also advise using really good lighting. That can make a huge difference in their overall health. The care articles on the right side of the page are useful for general overviews on setup and care. Taterbug also has a really great lighting guide here https://sites.google.com/site/thelizardmadness/lighting-guides It also helps to get feeder bugs in bulk because she can probably put away a lot of them at once. It's way cheaper to buy crickets, dubia roaches, silk worms, phoenix worms, etc online than at a pet store.

 

[firemist82]

Thanks for letting me know about the feeders being cheaper in bulk online I have been getting her crickets at Petsmart and it is not cheap! Where can I go online to order feeders? On the lighting issues, I have zoomed uvb coil, I bought it b4 I read I need a tube instead lol. Going to replace it with Reptisun on Thursday. The issue I am having is keeping her temp in her cage high enough. It is running anywhere from 95 to 100 on the basking side. Anything I can do to bring it up to where it needs to be? Thanks again for all your help and advice!

 

[BG23]

Welcome she will be a very happy dragon with you because you seem to care for her well. Dubia roaches are a great daily feeder they are great in protein much better than crickets and less likely to have parasites wich is a huge problem for beardies and common its up to you but dubiaroaches.com is a great site to order from they take good care of their feeders and make sure to get the small ones if you decide to go with roachs they should be no bigger than the width of your beardies head. Good luck and enjoy they are wonderful pets.

 

[firemist82]

Thank you for the advice about the roaches! There is just soooo much to learn lol. Hope is definitely worth it though

 

[CooperDragon]

Roaches are a good option. I use them too. Much hardier and easier to care for than crickets but the colonies take several months to get established.

As far as crickets go, try premiumcrickets or armstrongcrickets for bulk. Just get a tote bin with some cardboard tubing for housing and a mesh top for their enclosure. They'll eat a combination of fresh veg scraps and grain/oat feed mix that they sell

For lighting, I'd go with a T5. What are the dimensions of your enclosure? A T5 has optimal output at about 12'' above the basking area.

 

[firemist82]

Right now I have her in a 20 gallon glass tank (23"long by 13"wide). I have a 75 gallon that I am fixing up to move her to, but have to replace one of the side glass panels cause it broke about 6 months ago. I was using it as a fish tank. Water everywhere when it broke lol.

 

[CooperDragon]

Eeek what a pain! Do be sure to thoroughly disinfect the fish tank. Clean it well with water and vinegar to get all solid bits off. Once it's clean, spray it down with some F10SC or a steam cleaner to disinfect it before putting it in use. With the 75g I'd definitely go with a 22'' T5 tube. In a 20g tank that would be a bit too powerful so I'd stick with what you have for now or get an 18'' T8 ReptiSun 10.0 and a Zilla Slimline fixture for it. That will provide OK UVB levels at about 6'' below the light and is appropriate for that tank size.

 

[firemist82]

What is F10SC and where can I find it at? Also are superworms ok as a feeder? Hope is starting to shed for the first time scense I got her! I'm sooo excited because she is starting to grow!

 

[CooperDragon]

Superworms are OK as a treat when she gets bigger. They are a bit fatty so they are only good as a treat a few at a time as part of a varied diet.

F10SC is a veterinary disinfectant. It comes in a small bottle of concentrate that you mix in a spray bottle of water. You can spray down surfaces and it will disinfect them in about 10 minutes.

https://www.amazon.com/F10-SC-F10SC-Veterinary-Disinfectant/dp/B00DR25TSG

The small bottle lasts a while. If you mix it at 1:500 it's about .72ml per 12oz water and at 1:250 it's 1.44ml per 12oz water so the 100ml goes a long way.

 

[firemist82]

Hope is becoming a photo hog on my phone lol!

 

[firemist82]

So Hope has been facing forward on her little bed not moving and staring intently at something. Put her up on her rocks thinking she needed a change of view or something, and she jumped back down on her bed and went right back to staring. I finally figured out that she is watching shark week on tv with me lol! During commercial break She would look at me like where did the sharks go dad?!? As soon as it came back on She was glued back to the tv lol. She has such an awesome personality.

 

[CooperDragon]

Hehe another shark week fan! =). They are quite curious, especially at that age. They want to be in the center of things and watch what's going on. It's really fun to hang out with them when they're little. And clear lots of space on your phone - she is going to fill it easily. My phone even has a photo of Cooper across the cover =)