GrowingaBeard
Member
Okay, so its actually my son's beardie, but....
We are completely new to the reptile world (only pets we've ever had are cats and a goldfish!), so this has been quite a learning experience so far, with surely more to come as we've only had this one since yesterday.
We picked this one up at Petco yesterday, after spending several weeks reading up on care/setup, and then taking a few days to get the enclosure set up with the right temps and lamps and lots of the wrong things that I'm hoping can be returned (ka-ching! $$). Not sure how old he/she is (or if he or she!), the guy at the store said 5-6 months, but he also sold my husband calci-sand and too-big crickets and tried to sell us mealworms, so not sure I trust him... :? I haven't measured, but s/he looks maybe 10 inches long....does that sound like 5-6 months old? And what is considered "baby" vs. "juvenile"?
S/he is tan with bright orange marks...a beauty! No name yet.... Here's a pic:
Started with 60 crickets from the pet store ($!), many of which are too big, so I've been hand-picking the smaller ones. I have had to get over my crazy-intense fear of crickets very very quickly.... I still use a giant glove and sometimes scream when I grab the crickets, ha ha! S/he ate crickets and pooped within an hour of being in the tank, so hopefully all's well.
I need to find a good source of cheap healthy crickets, though, because we're going through them fast. S/he ate 8 for dinner last night, and 7 for breakfast this morning. S/he also likes mustard greens, yellow squash, collard greens, red bell pepper, especially when my son hand-feeds those (spoiled, much!).
How does this setup sound, below? So paranoid as a new mommy...
40-gallon glass tank (yay for Petco's dollar-per-gallon sale!)
Repticarpet - the felt kind (hopefully won't snag his toes) on part of the floor and paper towels on the rest (bought the wrong size carpet, duh). Already considering how on earth to clean the carpet when it gets pooped on - may just switch to paper towels or newspaper, or tile?
A hollow half-log with a driftwood log leaned over it to make a basking spot.
A hammock on the glass on the cool end of the enclosure.
Food dish
As for lights:
Got the reptisun 10.0 mounted inside along the center back wall of the tank. Its the 24" and the tank is 36" long.
First had a 100w basking light (exo-terra "intense basking" spotlight) but it didn't seem to get the basking spot warm enough (mid-90s) so I swapped to a 150-watt, and I fear its verging on too hot - have the zoomed reptitemp digital IR thermometer, and yesterday the basking spot was between 105 and 120 (though I could only get the 120 to show once, mostly was 105-115). That's another question - if the beardie was too hot, wouldn't s/he climb down off the hottest area? Or will they cook themselves?! S/he gapes a lot up there, so I don't know. I might try putting the 100-watt back in there instead.
On the cool side it seemed too cool with no light (70s), so I added a flukers daylight 75w bulb on that end and that brought temp to low 80s, but then 90s in the afternoon so I turned it off. Ack, controlling the temps through the day (we're not home during the day) is going to be a challenge!
For night, we turn our heat off at night and live on the central coast of CA so our house definitely can get below 65 at night...so I put a 60w CHE on last night right over the basking log, and s/he slept there all night. So funny how as soon as we turned the lights off, s/he laid down and eyelids got all droopy, and was still in the exact position sound asleep when we turned the lights on this morning. So still I thought s/he was dead! But s/he woke up fast and was eating right away. Quite the acrobat - jumping off the logs, leaping up onto the hammock and eating a cricket while hanging by front feet only, hilarious!
Questions....
-- A couple times I saw him/her rub the side of his face on the wood. Is that normal or a sign of anything bad?
--Should we have a water dish in the enclosure? I've heard mixed opinions on that. We've misted him a couple times and are spraying the salad with water, but haven't done any soak or bath yet. How often should we do a bath?
--One I asked above...if the beardie gets too hot atop the basking log, will he/she climb down? Is it better for the basking spot to be a little too cool or a little too warm if we have to err one way or the other?
--Anything else we should get/change from what I described? I also have calcium/d3 powder and figure we'll dust the crickets for the early evening feedings and then feed "plain" flavor (ha) crickets in the mornings. Does that sound ok? Is it possible to feed him too many crickets? How about superworms? Can they have those (hubby bought some too). I'm not sure, since not sure of his age, whether he should be eating more protein or more veggies.
Oy, sooo many questions....so grateful to this site and forums, its our new bible! :mrgreen:
We are completely new to the reptile world (only pets we've ever had are cats and a goldfish!), so this has been quite a learning experience so far, with surely more to come as we've only had this one since yesterday.
We picked this one up at Petco yesterday, after spending several weeks reading up on care/setup, and then taking a few days to get the enclosure set up with the right temps and lamps and lots of the wrong things that I'm hoping can be returned (ka-ching! $$). Not sure how old he/she is (or if he or she!), the guy at the store said 5-6 months, but he also sold my husband calci-sand and too-big crickets and tried to sell us mealworms, so not sure I trust him... :? I haven't measured, but s/he looks maybe 10 inches long....does that sound like 5-6 months old? And what is considered "baby" vs. "juvenile"?
S/he is tan with bright orange marks...a beauty! No name yet.... Here's a pic:
Started with 60 crickets from the pet store ($!), many of which are too big, so I've been hand-picking the smaller ones. I have had to get over my crazy-intense fear of crickets very very quickly.... I still use a giant glove and sometimes scream when I grab the crickets, ha ha! S/he ate crickets and pooped within an hour of being in the tank, so hopefully all's well.
I need to find a good source of cheap healthy crickets, though, because we're going through them fast. S/he ate 8 for dinner last night, and 7 for breakfast this morning. S/he also likes mustard greens, yellow squash, collard greens, red bell pepper, especially when my son hand-feeds those (spoiled, much!). How does this setup sound, below? So paranoid as a new mommy...
40-gallon glass tank (yay for Petco's dollar-per-gallon sale!)
Repticarpet - the felt kind (hopefully won't snag his toes) on part of the floor and paper towels on the rest (bought the wrong size carpet, duh). Already considering how on earth to clean the carpet when it gets pooped on - may just switch to paper towels or newspaper, or tile?
A hollow half-log with a driftwood log leaned over it to make a basking spot.
A hammock on the glass on the cool end of the enclosure.
Food dish
As for lights:
Got the reptisun 10.0 mounted inside along the center back wall of the tank. Its the 24" and the tank is 36" long.
First had a 100w basking light (exo-terra "intense basking" spotlight) but it didn't seem to get the basking spot warm enough (mid-90s) so I swapped to a 150-watt, and I fear its verging on too hot - have the zoomed reptitemp digital IR thermometer, and yesterday the basking spot was between 105 and 120 (though I could only get the 120 to show once, mostly was 105-115). That's another question - if the beardie was too hot, wouldn't s/he climb down off the hottest area? Or will they cook themselves?! S/he gapes a lot up there, so I don't know. I might try putting the 100-watt back in there instead.
On the cool side it seemed too cool with no light (70s), so I added a flukers daylight 75w bulb on that end and that brought temp to low 80s, but then 90s in the afternoon so I turned it off. Ack, controlling the temps through the day (we're not home during the day) is going to be a challenge!
For night, we turn our heat off at night and live on the central coast of CA so our house definitely can get below 65 at night...so I put a 60w CHE on last night right over the basking log, and s/he slept there all night. So funny how as soon as we turned the lights off, s/he laid down and eyelids got all droopy, and was still in the exact position sound asleep when we turned the lights on this morning. So still I thought s/he was dead! But s/he woke up fast and was eating right away. Quite the acrobat - jumping off the logs, leaping up onto the hammock and eating a cricket while hanging by front feet only, hilarious!
Questions....
-- A couple times I saw him/her rub the side of his face on the wood. Is that normal or a sign of anything bad?
--Should we have a water dish in the enclosure? I've heard mixed opinions on that. We've misted him a couple times and are spraying the salad with water, but haven't done any soak or bath yet. How often should we do a bath?
--One I asked above...if the beardie gets too hot atop the basking log, will he/she climb down? Is it better for the basking spot to be a little too cool or a little too warm if we have to err one way or the other?
--Anything else we should get/change from what I described? I also have calcium/d3 powder and figure we'll dust the crickets for the early evening feedings and then feed "plain" flavor (ha) crickets in the mornings. Does that sound ok? Is it possible to feed him too many crickets? How about superworms? Can they have those (hubby bought some too). I'm not sure, since not sure of his age, whether he should be eating more protein or more veggies.
Oy, sooo many questions....so grateful to this site and forums, its our new bible! :mrgreen:
