Nippy babies

[cinnamongirl]

How do you stop these guys from nipping eachother. I know I am feeding them enough, but they still continue to nip eachother. In two days I have six out of 14 with tail nips.

 

[TheWolfmanTom]

When I get nippers I seperate the drgons out as much as possible. Nips happen but sometimes its a matter of 1 dragon per bin.

 

[Twobeardieguy]

I agree with Tom. We usually try to have 4-5 poopers per bin.

 

[cinnamongirl]

I have seperated all of the nipped babies into one bin. So I have 4 in 1 bin, 4 in another, and the six nipped babies in the other. I wish there were an economical way to seperate them from one another all together. I don't know who is doing the nipping, but I know there are at least two of them. If I knew who they were, they would be in their own ten gallon by themselves

 

[Twobeardieguy]

You just have to keep an eye on them and see who is the more dominate pooper.

 

[koiboydavid]

Curious as to how much you are feeding them? What color morph are they? Certain lines of citrus seem to be more prone to nipping. I had a lot more nips last year than this year. This year I can count on one hand the # of nips and I have produced more than double the number of dragons. I thought I was feeding enough last year but now I know I wasnt. I stock the same per bin too.

Good luck and I hope you find the guilty parties. It can be quite frustrating.

 

[cinnamongirl]

They are devouring a good 1000 crickets every couple of days, fresh chopped greens, and small freshley moulted meal worms (the white ones with no chitin). They are being fed the crickets 3 times a day on a schedule like clock work. I sat and watched them for an hour today and no biting, they were to busy looking at me like I was going to eat them. They are red, orange, citrus crosses. I didn't know that, but that explains why I have had problems with this females clutches and not the other.

 

[cinnamongirl]

So I went in to check on the babies tonight after the lights were out and low and behold I think I found my culprits. I had these rock decorations in the cage that had small holes in the bottom, which apparently allowed crickets to hide. I walked in and caught two crickets knawing on one of the babies tails. I immediately removed the decorations and the babies, doctored the tail of the baby that was being gnawed on, and cleaned all of the cages thoroughly. I put a piece of drift wood and rocks in the other cages where crickets could not hide. I will from now on feed the babies in a seperate container just to be sure. I feel awful right now.

 

[spyder79]

So I went in to check on the babies tonight after the lights were out and low and behold I think I found my culprits. I had these rock decorations in the cage that had small holes in the bottom, which apparently allowed crickets to hide. I walked in and caught two crickets knawing on one of the babies tails. I immediately removed the decorations and the babies, doctored the tail of the baby that was being gnawed on, and cleaned all of the cages thoroughly. I put a piece of drift wood and rocks in the other cages where crickets could not hide. I will from now on feed the babies in a seperate container just to be sure. I feel awful right now.

Best remedy for this is to take a hot glue gun and fill in the holes. No more hiding spots then.

 

[GemstoneDragons]

I take my babies out of the tanks at night and either put them into a sperate viv or a tub inside a viv depending on size - easier than chasing every cricket still in the viv at bedtime!

 

[browneyes49]

I have discovered that my babies totally hate being put into a bin to be fed, they just won't eat. So I "borrowed" my nephew's bug sucker gun and I suck up all the crickets with that. The best part is that I can save the uneaten crickets and put them back in the bin.

 

[EclpsPrinc]

What's a bug sucker gun? I need one of those!

 

[spyder79]

What's a bug sucker gun? I need one of those!

Fairly certain they are talking about a Dust buster.

 

[EclpsPrinc]

Actually I googled it... There really is a bug sucker gun! I'm definitely getting one! Beats hand catching crickets out of 25+ cages nightly!

 

[spyder79]

Actually I googled it... There really is a bug sucker gun! I'm definitely getting one! Beats hand catching crickets out of 25+ cages nightly!

yep I looked it up to it is basically the same thing as a dust buster lol. Which is what I use (but only cause we already had one), mine has a nozzle I can flip down on the end that makes it almost identical to that thing.

But I typically do not have too many bugs in their tanks because I feed in trays (long ziploc containers) long as you put a few greens in very few crix get out. I also use them with roaches I just add a small lip of vaseline and get zero escapees.