meet my two. Ryuu and Ozzy

Ozzy is the larger male, has lots of yellow in him. Ryuu is the smaller and is female, she is more tan and blacks in her colors. She does have a really neat "peach" color on her beard. I took them outside to play in the yard today, they played for 30 minutes, running around and only trying to escape once! lol. Brought them in and gave them a bath, then cuddled with them in my chair and a towel to dry them off. After, I put them back in their cages, and Ryuu went nuts! I put out some fresh greens, and changed her water, and went to the bathroom to clean out the tub and bleach it, came back in and she was on her dish, dug out all the food, flung it everywhere, then climbed in the water dish, and started to dig like crazy, was not happy until almost all the water was splashed out. funny little girl, so I opened the bottom half of her cage, (2 levels, bottom usually closed off, do to no uv light down there) where I have a 8inch deep 16"x12" or so container with dirt, and let her go wild in there. she just ran all over and kicked up dirt for about 10 minutes. Now she is back up top kicking it in the heat light. here is a few picks of my two. They have put on so much weight sense I got them, they are so much more active then when I first got them.

Question for anyone, does your beardies have to "taste" everything? they have to lick everything in their enclosures, sticks, rocks, walls, my hand, when on me they love to lick my chin (I have a goatee) and my shirt. btw, I am the one who posted about Ryuu thinking my hanging mole, on my neck was a bug and wanted to get rid of it for me. She is such a character.

Sorry for running on.
btw, they are no longer housed together thanks for all your input everyone!

Ozzy, today after bath.

Ryuu on her Pink ugly rock. I no longer have this thing, I dropped it when cleaning and it broke, put it in for some pictures, now in the trash. I got this from the previous owners.

This is their old enclosure, it is now just Ryuu's untill I can build her a new one. I want to make a stand, and have them both in two tanks, one above the other, I don't have alot of space and need to conserve floor space in my house. Not very pretty, but it works.

 

[Strawburriez]

That is an amazing collection you have going there. I am in love with your corn snake, she's so beautiful! I'm trying to go to veterinary school, and hopefully someday I'll make enough money and have enough space to rescue, nurse back to health, and find new, loving homes for reptiles. Not to mention the good number I'll probably keep because I'm addicted to them. ;_; Anyway, it seems like you're a very caring owner to all these critters. Give poor Grumpy a good snuggle for me, and tell him he's still a very handsome boy. :3

 

[Jesislas65]

Wow you are a good person for rescuing those reptiles and caring for them

 

[william488]

no problem Strawburriez . we just got him out this evening to try to get him to eat bugs again and give him some lamisil cream on the suspected yellow fungus spots. the spots are looking alot better. and he actually ate two roaches! I am so happy. he ate a couple yesterday, and a couple the day before, plus I have been feeding him baby food. He is looking alot better. I was laying on my daughter's bed talking to her and he was running around on her bed, and he jumped up on the pillow my face was on, and ran right up to my face he was less then an inch from my glasses then he just snuggled down into the pillow.(one of those soft furry style pillows. lol)

 

[Strawburriez]

D'aww, sounds like he knows his daddy. c: I have a blue tongue skink in addition to my beardie, and she likes to curl up under my neck while I'm lying on my side in bed. It's really amazing how much lizards can enjoy some quality cuddle time.

 

[william488]

finally Grumpy is eating on his own. he ate most of his veggies the last three days, and even had a few roaches and supers the last few days without my prompting. also, we decided to have the other beardie we got, named Buddy keep his original name, we keep calling him that since we had him a few days with the old name. We cannot remember to call him his new name so he is back to Gimpy. lol . He is shedding right now and not in a good mood. hissing at everthing and puffing up all the time. Loving his bath time though.

 

[william488]

here is a closer photo of Grumpy's burn mark on his back. You can also see that he is gaining weight finally. I am happy. He ate 15 supers today and 14 yesterday and all his greens both days.

here is a picture of my roaches eating their home made chow. Wheat brand, Alfalfa, Bee pollen, reptivite, and little bit of dry cat food, fish flakes all blended all together. this photo was taken like 60 seconds after putting the food in. I just filled it up this morning and it was empty when I checked on them tonight and added more. I think I will only add the bee pollen and reptivite in for the gut loading tub, save me some money on the bee pollen and rpetivite. they usually hide when the lid to the tote is open, this was the first time they came out in the open with the lid open. there are around 1600-1800 still hidden in the egg crates just off camera.

here is Gimpy, aka Buddy, (daughter wants to keep his name Gimpy so I guess his name is Gimpy) he is shedding all over. You can see the part on his nose that is missing in that photo. he eats twice as much as much others.

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[william488]

double post because ozzy was sitting on my keyboard. he wanted to type too. lol

 

[sweetiepie9]

Loved all the pics and even though I'm not a snake fan, your corn snake has beautiful colours. Ryuu and Ozzy are so cute, ,loved the black beard and I'm so glad your new two are doing so well, I've been following your other thread and Facebook, you've gotten some great advice. I loved your cresties, I have a 7 yr old female named Bunny, never had one before, I bring her out every night to play & feed her Repashy, she's only ever eaten crickets before so that's something new. I also have a golden gecko, Rocco, he's not very friendly, prefers to be alone in his tank, so I just pet him once in awhile. I also have 5 adult male dragons, they're my loves, they also love to snuggle.

Thanks for sharing & I also wonder at your cat, she really likes your dragon! So cute!

 

[william488]

your Rocko sounds like my leopard gecko named No-Name. he is grumpy, he doesn't try to bite, but always tries to get away. my newer female leopard is very friendly loves to be out of her cage. my two crested are still really small, but I love to see them hunt, they love small roaches. they also have fresh Repashy.

 

[sweetiepie9]

I need to see if Bunny will eat roaches, haven't tried them with her, she's a cricket lover, loves to chase those down. Rocco won't eat roaches either, only crickets. He is a beauty though, 5 yrs old already. And gets really golden on his back and tail. Your two cresties are just the cutest, you can tell they're young. And your female leo is really pretty, too. Glad I'm not the only one with a grouchy gecko!

 

[william488]

well, I think Ryuu might be with eggs, she is huge, you can feel round "things" in her lower belly, and she starting today digging up a storm, keeps making tunnels, then climbing out, sitting in the heat light, then back to the bucket, and starting a new tunnel. she stopped eating three days ago.

I heard they can hold it for a while, but they were separated end of September. Now 3 weeks ago, she got up to the upper cage, (by climbing up the screen door) when I was not home and was in there with the male for a hour or so, My daughter got home, found them up there, and they were really "busy". She freaked called me and asked me what she should do? they were attached and she was afraid to hurt them. To be on the safe side, I am getting more dirt tomorrow and giving her a bigger dig box, as this one is only about 6-8 inches deep.

Now if she is with eggs, could it be from when they lived together? can she store the sperm that long? or could it be from their last encounter? what I read was that it should take 4-6 weeks before she would lay eggs if it was from that time.

below is a short video of her digging tonight: just click on it to open it up.



here is a picture of their cage, this was in September before I found out by you guys that I need to separate them. I took out the ladder, added heat and uvb to the bottom and both levels are tile now too.

 

[sweetiepie9]

Yes, she'll be digging for awhile, then she'll suddenly turn around and start laying. It takes a couple of hours for laying all the eggs, it's intense labour, so make sure there is a warm bath and lots of bugs with calcium waiting for her, greens, too, as she's be exhausted plus may be really hungry. She'll also be really skinny. I'm not sure which mating caused her to be gravid this time, they can hold sperm for long periods of time. She not only could lay 30 eggs, but she may have another couple of clutches, every 3 weeks to a month apart. Did you fix the door to make sure she can't get back up to him again? As this is breeding season, she will try again. I'm glad you're getting her something deeper as usually 12" is good, as they dig tunnels to hide the eggs and once she's done she will want to tamp the earth down flat. When my Sweetie was laying infertile eggs, we'd take her out when she was done and tamp down the earth ourselves, then let her check that it was done properly, as it's instinctive to hide the eggs but it's alot of extra work for her.
Good luck!

 

[william488]

I think she might do it today, we went out first thing this morning, got more organic dirt and vermiculite and mixed it together in a bigger container then what she already had in her cage, and she is in there, has been digging for the last few hours, she is now 18 inches or so down, and keeps turning around but first down the hole then turning around and digging deeper. she caught me looking and opened her mouth and hissed at me. So, i moved one of my security cameras, and have it facing down into her lay box, and can keep an eye on her from my laptop without disturbing her. I got tons of bugs, calcium and a worm bath waiting for her. I have her dig box infront of my electronic fireplace with the heat on low giving her heat, the tote is sitting at about 82-88 depending on if the heater is running or not.

 

[william488]

I think she is finally laying ther eggs. She made a tunnel about 8 inches back under about 10 inches of dirt. She is butt first into the hole now. All I can see is her face and she is making weird movements every few seconds.

This photo was from about 10 minutes ago to show you how deep she got. I don't want to take a photo now and disturb her.

 

[william488]

Well, Ryuu laid her first eggs (well first set while I had them) she did good. Poor thing was so tired after, I gave her a nice warm bath, and wrapped her in a towel, and tried to give her some Roaches, but she fell asleep in my hands within just a few minutes. I don't know if I could go through this again, but know I most likely will in the coming weeks if she has a few clutches. She had 16 what looked like good eggs, and 2 that did not look good. In the photo, you will see the "good" eggs on top and the 2 "bad" eggs are near the bottom, this was just after we got them out of the dig box. I have not decided what I am going to do, I don't have the cages as of right now to raise some babies, but can get that all together before they hatch, but not sure if I want to deal with that, and have to let them go after I get attached. So, I have them in vermiculite, in a shoe box Rubbermaid with holes, in a bigger tote with a heating pad, I have had it ready all day and been watching the temperatures and it is staying right around 82 in the shoe box. I will have to decide soon what I want to do. I am a single father, with a 16 year old girl, and I work full time.

photo is the eggs right after I dug them up: