New beardie - Nova

Just got a Beardie today at the NY Reptile expo (though i didn't plan on it quiet so soon) and thought i'd introduce him (no name just yet but i have a few things in mind i'll wait a few and see if his personality makes me lean towards anything)

got him from Dachiu at the show he is 5-6 weeks old and either a Red Hypo Translucent (possible leatherback) or a Red leatherback Translucent not totally sure at the moment but im sure time will tell


for some images on my enclosure / Viv and custom rock structure you can check out my sort of work log here viewtopic.php?f=34&t=213601



Edit: decided to call the little guy Nova (as in Nova Shenron as his color reminds me of a dragon ball)

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

ok new poop pic im not sure weather i'd call this runny or just wattery as it seems to be a formed poop just with a good amount of water to

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

waited a little while and offered him more crickets and he ate 3 more dusted so 5 dusted today gonna offer him like 4-5 undusted for dinner later

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

ate 5 undusted for dinner at least he is consistent lol

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

today he did a normal looking poop and ate 17 crickets (8 dusted for breakfast 9 undusted for dinner)

also got him a new piece of wood on his cool side which he is climbing all over maybe it will become a secondary basking spot in the future i'll have to see how he acts

 

[CooperDragon]

Sounds like he's right back on track =) It's always nice to add new furniture that becomes an instant hit like that.

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

Sounds like he's right back on track =) It's always nice to add new furniture that becomes an instant hit like that.

yea he slept under it last night and seems to like using it to get from his rock to the ground


anyway he ate only dusted 3 crickets for breakfast today but did a pretty big poop in his tub a few hours afterwards(which was changed to clean water and he soaked a bit more with me rubbing what shed he'd let me) so i expect him to eat a pretty good dinner

also got a humidity gauge today my room is reading between 16-22% so im probably gonna put a water dish in to bring up his humidity as close to 30 as i can get

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

ah this little guy is funny if his dinner isn't served by 6PM he goes off and tries to go to sleep then i have to reach behind his log and bring him back to his basking spot while i get his crickets (we fed him with tongs as he isn't to fond of the feeding bin as he seems to like eating in the basking spot and we can't let the crickets lose in the Viv as they get in all the little cracks were he can't get them making it so we have to take apart the Viv the get them all out at bed time which is partly the reason i want to get Phoenix worms so i can get a nice dish and fed him those for breakfast and the crickets for dinner)


as usual he ate right around his norm and ate 7 more for dinner making a total of 10 today


also how long should they be up? as this little guy like to stay up for about 10 hours then wants to go to sleep while i have been trying for a nice 12 (how long i keep my birds and such awake)

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

his tail shed finally came lose last night before his bed so he was helped get it lose (gently rubbing it to help get all the lose parts off not pulling on it)


his appetite is also increasing as he ate 14 dusted crickets for breakfast alone


another funny thing is before his bed time he was trying to hide again so i reached in to get him and upon pulling him out i was greeted with a partial black beard which actually made me want to pet him more lol

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

19 total crickets today


He is doing well though one issue we had today is i noticed him breathing hard and gaping when not basking and noticed part of his face had some shed. So i pulled out a jewelers scope i had looked and sure enough shed was in his nose. Next i spent a good hour or so petting him then trying to get it out of his nose and loosen it up which i eventually did. (which involved a wooden nail file to carefully snag the lose piece of skin and very very gently roll it back as the scales were so small and in a awkward place that neither him scratching nor i any other way could get at them)

After i loosened it up enough that his nose wasn't blocked and he could breathe through it he went over and rubbed the rest of the lose pieces off on the base of his rock. So now it looks perfectly clean with the scope.


At the moment i pulled a humidifier out of my closet and im trying to bring the humidity in my room (were Nova's viv is) up to right about 30 to hopefully make his life easier with any more shedding. As 16% just seems to dry.

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

doing good


today before i knew it i was out of crickets with only a few bigger ones left (8 but 4 were just to big hopefully the other 4 were ok in size as they were 3/8 last week) so he got 4 for breakfast and some pieces of greens he ate from my hands (he seems to prefer eating on his basking platform though i have seen him go to the greens dish once or twice)


he wasn't to pleased with that but after hunting around for more of the right size crickets in store locally (what a pain as pet stores never keep track of exact size so asking for 3/8 crickets is a bit of a joke you just gotta look for one were the smalls are big enough or that sells mediums that aren't to big yet)


after that he at 17 more for a new record of 21 crickets followed by a poop that seemed ok looked about the same as always and has little to no odor until crushed (in toilet paper of course) which is to be expected with poop but urate looked good aside from a bit of brownish orange fading into the poop itself but i just chalked that one up to record amounts of crickets for him

also measured him he is up to 7 inches flat now so he has grown a half inch in little over a week

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

today he ate 16 circkets (he would have eaten more but im running low again and need to have breakfast for him so i figured 11 for dinner was enough and he didn't seem mad that we stopped there)


also gave him a bath and he still hates water but made it 10 min with me keeping my hand in there with him


finally i have been keeping the humidity between 20-40% (i shot for about 35%) but at one point last night it hit 55% but pretty quickly dropped down into the upper 40's and by morning was back at 16% which is my rooms normal humidity in the winter but i currently got it back up to 30% flat mainly in trying to keep it in a good range to help with shedding

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

my god his appetite has grown again he ate 35 crickets today and it looks like he may be going into a full body shed soon

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

holy hell he grew about an inch and a half in 6 days (up to 8.5 now and his shed hasn't even come off yet) i knew they grew fast but that is crazy


also ate 40 crickets today but a few were on the small side

 

[HitokiriBattousai]

just finished a full body shed and one thing i can say is his appetite barely slowed down at all he eats between 40-60 crickets a day (usually on the higher end of that)

but one thing i did notice is he wanted a lot more water yesterday then I've ever seen him drink as usually when i show him the spray bottle he will walk away, turn his back to it or close his eyes yesterday he looked right at it and licked the rock in front of him so i sprayed it right were he was licking and he drank for a good 6 seconds this way twice yesterday (and yet his poop today was totally normal! i expected a little runny with all that water)

but he also shed his whole body throughout the course of yesterday as well (only a few flakes on his head remain otherwise he shed his whole body, and his feet earlier this week which i also made sure i got off his toes) but now his tail seems to be going into shed again as it is fading to a lighter color with a gray tint

 

[CooperDragon]

Sounds like he's growing at a very healthy rate =)