NEW BEARDED DRAGON!!! HELP

[taylor91]

hey guys,

ive had my beardy for about 2 weeks now and he seems to be doing pretty good.hes running around and climbing around so i figured that was a good sign. this is my first one and i definitely need help.

first feeding. i have been feeding him about 15 small-medium crickets a day and im just wondering if that is enough or not. im pretty tight with money seeing as im a college student. do i need to be feeding him more and if so is there an inexpensive way of doing so.

second water. ive been misting him about 3 or so times a day and i have a little water dish should he choose to hangout for a bit. is this enough?

thanks! taylor

 

[zillathakilla]

Okay first, you should be feeding him 10-20 per feeding,feed twice a day, you can order 1000 crickets for 25$ online if your strapped for money, also,either mist him like once a day or once every other day, OR have a waer dish in there, you don't need both,also bath him once a week. Do you have a good UVB light?Do you also have a hygrometer and thermometer?

 

[taylor91]

yes i have the hygrometer and thermometer. and yes i have a uva bulb? its not uvb. but hes going to the bathroom fine and all. also its keeping his basking area at a steady 100.

 

[meadowsmommy]

I find when they are full they stop eating. I have trained Meadow ( or maybe she has trained me) to eat from a cup. I put the crickets in there, dust them, and put the cup in her viv. She sticks her head in and eats them, and walks away when she is done. There isn't an exact number to feed them, little poopers know when they are full. Don't stress so much!

 

[quigleysmom]

Congratulation on your new beardie. You really need to make sure you get a uvb asap. the cheapest place on the web is www.petmountain.com. The best bulb is the exoterra 10.0 and your beardie needs to get within 6 to 8 inches of this uv source. You need to be dusting his crickets too with calcium and vitamin powder. Are you offering him a salad everyday. You might want to look at some of the care sheets here to get a good idea of what kinds of vegetables to feed. I know they are really expensive when they are babies, but mine is pushing a year and he has already started eating less feeder insects and much more salad which is a lot cheaper. Good luck.

 

[spurlee01]

I have to disagree with a couple of things that people said here.
First, as for water, I do not mist or have a water bowl in the tank. I will occasionally add a water bowl when my dragon is shedding to bump up the humidity a tad. If you do either of these things, you need to very closely monitor humidity and make sure it does not get over 40-45%. Higher can cause respiratory infections.
As for feeding, You really should feed your dragon twice a day, whatever he/she wants to eat. I am a college student as well (for one more semester!) so I know this can be a bit hard on the budget. I bought crickets from www.ghanns.com and I've also heard good things about www.premiumcrickets.com. Another option would be starting a roach colony. I use www.thebugpros.com. How big is your dragon? You can also feed butterworms, reptiworms and small silkworms or hornworms, but these would be more expensive. I only use these as treats.
About UVB, I do not think that exoterra bulbs are good at all. They have been shown to cause eye problems, lethargy, and lack of appetite. I would go with the reptisun 10.0 TUBE. Here is the best price I know of: http://www.petmountain.com/product/reptile-fluorescent-bulbs/11442-504983/zoo-med-reptisun-10-0-uvb-bulb.html.
Good luck, and if you have more questions, feel free to ask.

 

[zillathakilla]

I would have to disagree with that... It's bey to go with one or the other but have atleast one( I'm not questioning ur care skills )UNLESS you have a humid house for some reason.., which would be bad, just make sure u keep the humidity between 10%-50% over 50 and fungus and mold can grow naturally !

 

[vince66mphs]

Well Taylor, as you can see there are different schools of thought on the water thing. I would agree with the posters that recommend no more than one misting per day, at the most.

Remember that these are desert creatures, so they aren't really built for being sprayed with water multiple times per day. They tend to get most of their moisture from baths and their food.

For Sigrun, he seems to HATE water. He hates getting spritzed with the water bottle, he hates his baths and the only time I've seen him even go near his water bowl (a very shallow dish kept on the cool side so as not to add too much humidity to the tank) was accidental when he was running around his tank. I have NEVER seen him drink from it, and one time he accidentally stepped in his water dish running around I saw him shaking his back leg like a cat would do

I bath Sigrun twice a week and offer him a couple of drops of water every live feeding from a dropper. If he doesn't opt to drink from the dropper he gets one spritzing in the morning only. If he DOES lick from the dropper (only had him do that twice in the month I've had him), then I'll forego the misting (unless he's in the middle of a shed).

I also mix a few of the juvenile beardie pellet dry food in his salad, but I soak them in water first and get them soft and soggy and squish them into a paste. He usually eats some of that through the day, so there's a bit of moisture there, too. Plus try to keep his salad moist during the day as much as your schedule allows.

The humidity in Sigrun's tank usually stays between 30 and 40% (though with the furnace running a lot like it is now it's usually 20-25%).

But like I said, there are different schools of thought on it. I'd say learn what you can here and get different input, then see how that advice seems to fit with your particular beardie. Our first one would often stop in his water bowl while running through it to dip his head down and take a couple of drinks, or he would drink from his bath water. Sigrun never does either of those (so far).

Always take the water dish out at night, though. You may have noticed beardies tend to fall out and go to sleep where ever, and I've heard stories of them falling asleep in their water bowls with very bad results.

 

[zillathakilla]

i find that highly unlikely...because i generally put my beardie to sleep and he falls asleep as soon as he hits the log and i have a water dish that's a little to tall for him i think, but i think im going to make him a little deck that will surround his water dish for his new cage,so he can get to it...not that he uses it =/