My first beadie! <3

[Beth1843]

Heyy!! I just got my first bearded dragon. He (or she, but I just say he) is two months old. He is probablly about 4 inches? Maybe a little more? I got him a week ago today. He is the most cutest thing ever. I don't really know what I want to name him, but I kinda like the name Haythem. He is in a 40 gallon tank for now. He is able to get at about 5 inches from his uv ab light and about 6 inches fromn his basking light. His temps are all normal, about 101-103 on his basking spot and 85ish on his cool side usually. The humidity has never been above 20% in there. I gave him his first bath on Saturdy and he didn't seem to happy about it. When he relized he could drink the water he seemed to like it a little more. He really doesn't like to be held at all really. Me and my boyfriend are woried about this. He seems to hate us. Whenever we go to pick him up out of his cage he runs away. And we scoop him from the side, like were supposed to. And when he does stay still so we can scoop him up, he usually jumps off our hand and runs away within at least a minette or two. I don't know if hes just not used to us yet or if he is just always going to be skittish. I thought that bearded dragons were naturally tame. The only other thing that concerns me is he doesn't eat as amuch as others peoples dragons on this site. I feed him three times a day as many as he will eat in 5 min. And I have calcium and vitamin dust for him. But that is usually only 5 or 6. At the most 7. Is that normal? I am happy that he actually does eat his greens. He has dandelion and collard greens offered to him everyday, and he usually muches on them. Just a 2 or 3 pieces everyother day probablly, but thats better then most I've heard. He never acts like he's hungry though. He's always climbing on his branches, and running around in his tank. And he likes to bask on his rock. He's always alert to whats going on around the room. I'm gonna try to put a picture of him up, but I don't know how. The lady at the pet store said that both his parents were red, so I don't know what colors he might have when he's older. He has a little orange on his head. But I don't really care what color he is, he'll always be adorable to me! lol

 

[Lsorrent]

Hi and welcome! :wave:

Congrats on your new beardie - you'll become obsessed in no time. What kind of substrate and UVB do you have? These can have an effect on appetite.

Also, your baby is probably still going through relocation stress if you just got him. He needs some time to settle in. He's probably still scared and that's why he runs. But beware, babies are usually very active and LOVE to run around. Dante and Randal used to do everything they could to get away from us and run under my couch. Too bad they didn't realize it's a sectional and we could just pick up the one piece they'd run under :lol:

Good luck with your new baby, and I'm sure you'll get some wonderful help on here.

 

[Beth1843]

He has a reptiglo 8.0 15 watt 24 inches. And his substrate is this aspen bedding stuff. The owner of the pet store, Markheim pets in Amherst NY, says that she has always used it for her pets and she has been breeding all sorts of reptiles for many years. I originally had a reptile carpet, but she told me that that would cause bacteria to grow to easy. But the book I bought said reptile carpet was best. And then I have also read that sand is better. I've been told so many different things about everything! But he was living on the aspen bedding the whole while he was at the pet store and the owner seemed so confident in it and she has a very successful pet store, so I trusted her and got the aspen bedding.