Nikka's World (new fresh pics jan24!)

I adopted Nikko August 20. He's just a few weeks old. 7 inches then and 7 1/2 inches as of yesterday (aug31). I waited the 2 week mark to start our own thread. Just worried I'd somehow mess up caring for him in my nervousness to do it all perfectly.

Nikko's Growth:
Aug20, 2011 Weight 12 grams | Total Length 7 inches
Aug31, 2011 Weight ? grams | Total Length 7 inches
Sept16, 2011 Weight 16 grams | Total Length 8 inches
Oct8, 2011 Weight 20 grams | Total Length ? inches
Oct22, 2011 Weight 28 grams | Nose to Vent 3 1/2 inches | Vent to Tail Tip 5 1/2 inches | Total Length 9 inches
Oct27, 2011 Found out he is a she and is now called Nikka instead of Nikko.. Weight 30 grams. Length is the same.
Nov14, 2011 Weight 50 grams. Total Length 10 1/2 inches.
Nov21, 2011 Weight 62 grams.
Nov30, 2011 Weight 84 grams. | Total Length 11 1/2 inches.
Dec20, 2011 Weight 140 grams. | Total Length 14 inches. Wow!!
Jan24, 2012 Weight 264 grams. Total Length 17 inches. She's almost doubled weight in a month! New pics to go with this pg10




So here is Nikka.



I had to document his tiny foot.


I'm a photographer part time. So I thought it would be fun to incorporate my lenses into documenting his growth. He ran to my favorite lens.


Full length view


More to come...

 

[reptilegyrl]

soon she will grow too big for her stuffed animal and u will have to give her a new one! lol I just now got Cupid to bask on a bigger log...she was hanging off both side of her old tiny one!
How is Nikka's appetite? whats on the menu?

 

[zooeymama]

soon she will grow too big for her stuffed animal and u will have to give her a new one! lol I just now got Cupid to bask on a bigger log...she was hanging off both side of her old tiny one!
How is Nikka's appetite? whats on the menu?

Nikka is now a big eater. I still buy small dubias and she probably eats about 20-40 per meal (twice a day). Plus at supper (after she had her dubias) I offer her a couple butterworms and she will usually nibble 2 or 3. Once a week I offer her 2 meals of crickets (pet store crickets. i refuse to keep those stinky things in my house longer than a day). And daily for breakfast she eats her greens- dandelion, collards, mustards, turnips, escarole...sometimes just once kind. Sometimes a mix. I shred carrot or raw zucchini on top. A couple times a week I offer her chopped up raspberries but she will only eat these from my hand for some odd reason. She won't eat butternut squash yet. :| Once a day (or a couple times a week but only 1 or 2 in a day. it's not a set in stone thing. i just happen to have some.) I offer 1 or 2 waxworms as a treat.

Breakfast: her salad
Brunch: dubias
Supper: dubias, a couple butters + maybe a tad more salad if I think to offer it. but i have to offer by hand or she will ignore it.

What's Cupid into? I feel like Nikka's diet is boring. But that might be just a human's mentality.

 

[reptilegyrl]

soon she will grow too big for her stuffed animal and u will have to give her a new one! lol I just now got Cupid to bask on a bigger log...she was hanging off both side of her old tiny one!
How is Nikka's appetite? whats on the menu?

Nikka is now a big eater. I still buy small dubias and she probably eats about 20-40 per meal (twice a day). Plus at supper (after she had her dubias) I offer her a couple butterworms and she will usually nibble 2 or 3. Once a week I offer her 2 meals of crickets (pet store crickets. i refuse to keep those stinky things in my house longer than a day). And daily for breakfast she eats her greens- dandelion, collards, mustards, turnips, escarole...sometimes just once kind. Sometimes a mix. I shred carrot or raw zucchini on top. A couple times a week I offer her chopped up raspberries but she will only eat these from my hand for some odd reason. She won't eat butternut squash yet. :| Once a day (or a couple times a week but only 1 or 2 in a day. it's not a set in stone thing. i just happen to have some.) I offer 1 or 2 waxworms as a treat.

Breakfast: her salad
Brunch: dubias
Supper: dubias, a couple butters + maybe a tad more salad if I think to offer it. but i have to offer by hand or she will ignore it.

What's Cupid into? I feel like Nikka's diet is boring. But that might be just a human's mentality.

What a good eater Nikka is becoming!
Cupid usually has salad for breakfast...though a lot of the times she ignores it til it gets crunchy by afternoon then eats it :roll: . Her salads are mostly different combos of boc choi, mustard greens, kale, endive with buttersquash or acorn squash grated on top. sometimes i will add fruit (apple, blueberries, rasberries, plum.)
her protein is varied. she likes silk worms, butter worms, and hornworms. i vary it up depending on the size of the worms and what i have on hand. I order all three kinds of worms about once per moth from MulberryFarms.
She eats crickets (dusted a few times a week) that i buy from the pet store. If i feed her worms, she will only eat 8-10 crickets in a day. But if we have no worms, she will chow 20 crickets per feeding twice per day.
Thisafternoon when her worms came she had 15 crickets and 5 butterworms. :mrgreen: the silk worms and horn worms are still mostly pretty small so i will let them grow a few days prob.
Do you cook Nikka's squash or grate it raw? i have heard its better for them raw, but some beardies wont eat it unless it is cooked to be softened a bit.

 

[zooeymama]

soon she will grow too big for her stuffed animal and u will have to give her a new one! lol I just now got Cupid to bask on a bigger log...she was hanging off both side of her old tiny one!
How is Nikka's appetite? whats on the menu?

Nikka is now a big eater. I still buy small dubias and she probably eats about 20-40 per meal (twice a day). Plus at supper (after she had her dubias) I offer her a couple butterworms and she will usually nibble 2 or 3. Once a week I offer her 2 meals of crickets (pet store crickets. i refuse to keep those stinky things in my house longer than a day). And daily for breakfast she eats her greens- dandelion, collards, mustards, turnips, escarole...sometimes just once kind. Sometimes a mix. I shred carrot or raw zucchini on top. A couple times a week I offer her chopped up raspberries but she will only eat these from my hand for some odd reason. She won't eat butternut squash yet. :| Once a day (or a couple times a week but only 1 or 2 in a day. it's not a set in stone thing. i just happen to have some.) I offer 1 or 2 waxworms as a treat.

Breakfast: her salad
Brunch: dubias
Supper: dubias, a couple butters + maybe a tad more salad if I think to offer it. but i have to offer by hand or she will ignore it.

What's Cupid into? I feel like Nikka's diet is boring. But that might be just a human's mentality.

What a good eater Nikka is becoming!
Cupid usually has salad for breakfast...though a lot of the times she ignores it til it gets crunchy by afternoon then eats it :roll: . Her salads are mostly different combos of boc choi, mustard greens, kale, endive with buttersquash or acorn squash grated on top. sometimes i will add fruit (apple, blueberries, rasberries, plum.)
her protein is varied. she likes silk worms, butter worms, and hornworms. i vary it up depending on the size of the worms and what i have on hand. I order all three kinds of worms about once per moth from MulberryFarms.
She eats crickets (dusted a few times a week) that i buy from the pet store. If i feed her worms, she will only eat 8-10 crickets in a day. But if we have no worms, she will chow 20 crickets per feeding twice per day.
Thisafternoon when her worms came she had 15 crickets and 5 butterworms. :mrgreen: the silk worms and horn worms are still mostly pretty small so i will let them grow a few days prob.
Do you cook Nikka's squash or grate it raw? i have heard its better for them raw, but some beardies wont eat it unless it is cooked to be softened a bit.

I think she is about at a size that I can technically offer her larger prey. I haven't measured the space between her eyes yet to see how big I can go. I have fed her bigger dubias (we have mixed sizes but I order smalls and some of them have time to get bigger before we get there). I haven't tried hornworms but I want to! For the size on those (worms) is it width or length you have to worry about. I see pictures of people feeding worms def longer than the space between their eyes (a 3 to 4 inch hornworm is really long and beardies eye spaces don't usually get that big right? lol). It's about time for me to order some more wormies and I'd love to give the horns a try!

 

[reptilegyrl]

I have been told since the hornworms are soft it is ok to feed them larger sizes. i have seen some up to 4 in long. if they get longer than 3 in or so my husband cuts them into pieces... ew!!! cuz im paranoid they would be too big :roll: but the roaches and crickets i know for sure should be smaller since they are harder especially. i once gave cupid a cricket too large for her by accident and she grabbed it before i could get it out! she chewed like normal swallowed...then gagged it up and chewed it again!

 

[reptilegyrl]

forgot to tell you i have bought worms from pet stores and they can be $16 or more! now i order from http://www.mulberryfarms.com/ they are awesome! and they are having a special right now $5 per cup and the worms come pretty small so you could start Nikko on some small hornworms! i recently ordered 25 butterworms, and a cup each of silk and horn worms... including shipping it was just over $30 and it will last a few weeks for Cupid!

 

[zooeymama]

Wow a lot happens in a month I guess! here is a recap on Miss Nikka's growth:

Nikko's Growth:
Aug20, 2011 Weight 12 grams | Total Length 7 inches
Aug31, 2011 Weight ? grams | Total Length 7 inches
Sept16, 2011 Weight 16 grams | Total Length 8 inches
Oct8, 2011 Weight 20 grams | Total Length ? inches
Oct22, 2011 Weight 28 grams | Nose to Vent 3 1/2 inches | Vent to Tail Tip 5 1/2 inches | Total Length 9 inches
Oct27, 2011 Found out he is a she and is now called Nikka instead of Nikko.. Weight 30 grams. Length is the same.
Nov14, 2011 Weight 50 grams. Total Length 10 1/2 inches.
Nov21, 2011 Weight 62 grams.
Nov30, 2011 Weight 84 grams. | Total Length 11 1/2 inches.
Dec20, 2011 Weight 140 grams. | Total Length 14 inches. Wow!!
Jan24, 2012 Weight 264 grams. Total Length 17 inches. She's almost doubled weight in a month! She is 7 months old.

She eats a TON of Dubias. I still buy small/mediums and she gets the occasional right sized large one. She can now eat one inch prey. Woot! A milestone! She eats her salad but going through another shed so her appetite has waned a bit this week. I can't find anyone who has hornworms in stock right now so I did order her some butters and teeny supers to serve with her Dubias for a little more variety. She is no longer too fond of crickets so if I run out of Dubias and have to give her Crickets- she eats soooo poorly. :|

Here are a few iPhone pics:







I also post her on Instagram, lmbo.

I'll be back in a few minutes to add some recents of her from my Instagram.

 

[zooeymama]

Ok some recents from my Instagram account haha. (she gets a lot of camera time!) And just an fyi- I never ever EVER leave her alone outside her viv. EVER. I know you see kitties but I am always there and they are never allowed to do more than sniff her and if she beards (she hasn't yet) they are removed. They actually sniff one another and sorta act like "meh". But my white kitty loves to hang out with us while Nikka gets her baths. She literally just hangs overboard staring. funny. Anyhoo!











Ahhh I just LOVE her to bits!

 

[zooeymama]

forgot to tell you i have bought worms from pet stores and they can be $16 or more! now i order from http://www.mulberryfarms.com/ they are awesome! and they are having a special right now $5 per cup and the worms come pretty small so you could start Nikko on some small hornworms! i recently ordered 25 butterworms, and a cup each of silk and horn worms... including shipping it was just over $30 and it will last a few weeks for Cupid!

They were totally out of hornworms by the time I got there. I was soooo sad. I got some butters and little supers for now (my alligator lizards like the supers too) to offer in addition to her Dubia meals. I can't wait to offer her some hornworms now though. She is getting SO big!

 

[Beardednoob]

As always great pictures!
Nikka is looking great too, keep up the awesome work. Beautiful dragon. :wink:

 

[Halister]

Oh my Nikka is growing like a weed..what a cutie.

 

[FranktheTank]

Aww she's so pretty, and she's getting so big!

-Kaleen

 

[Halister]

Going through some of my threads. Where did Nikka go? :dontknow: