Questions from a noob!

[ksakai]

Hi guys,

I'm a new beardie owner & I have a question about my two year old male:

He always head-bobs at me or whenever he's on his tree branch. His stress marks are awful. It looks like he's a cheetah. ): He's not really eating his veggies or drinking water. He doesn't eat his superworms & will occasionally eat a few crickets a day. I recently put a UVB bulb in a few days ago because his previous owners didn't use one.

I recently adopted him from a family with another female about 2 weeks ago. I separated the female because he would roughly mate with her & chomp her all over her face & the female's stress marks are totally gone! she's relaxed & couldn't be more happier.

Both of them are very tame & they BOTH will allow me to pick them up. When I set them both on the ground, he will flare up with an extremely black throat & mate with her. (I know this is a mating procedure). What I'm concerned about is the male inside his cage; he acts funky. I read up on something called "burmation" but I'm not sure if the male is currently going through this or not. He lives in a 55 gallon tank with the temperature about 85 degrees. He has water, fresh veggies daily, beardie kibble, worms, & crickets. (he just started to head bob & flare up just now, lol).

When I saw him with his previous family, they would arm wave to them & cuddle up with the previous owners. Neither of them have arm waved or wanted to cuddle with me yet. It's been about two weeks.

I'm wondering if something is going on with the male? & are their any tips for me to have them get more comfortable with me?

Not looking for hate, but for advice. We all have to start somewhere! [:

Oh, their cages are across from each other so they can see each other as well.

 

[LLLReptile]

Try moving the cage so he can't see the female. It may be that since he can see his former cage mate, he is stressed that he can't get to her anymore.

I'd also stop letting them out to play together and mate - until you can get him eating and thriving in your care, it's actually potentially stressful for him to constantly be trying to mate with the female. Once there isn't a female to impress and try and mate with, he should hopefully relax and concentrate more on himself. In many animal species, beardies included, males will run themselves ragged trying to impress the ladies and make as many babies as possible.

Brumation is usually indicated by the dragon hiding from the basking light, and trying to sleep all day in the coldest part of the cage. They'll refuse to eat, and pretty much spend their whole day buried in one part of the cage. This sounds more like a male stressed about mating to me. So try moving him so he can't see her anymore, and see if that helps - it should.

-Jen

 

[destiny1998]

Hi. What kind of lights are you using? The name are they colored, coil/compact or tube? The temp is way to cold. The minimum needs to be 98 for him to properly digest. How are you taking temps?

 

[ksakai]

Thanks for responding, guys!!

I moved the female eye distance away from the male. I'll give it a few days for them to settle. Especially the female since I moved her to a new location. I've noticed that neither of them are eating their veggies. ):

About their lighting:

I'm using a generic terrarium sticker thermometer so the temp fluctuates between 82-92F. They both have a 150, 100, 100night, & UVB bulb. They're a screw in kind & they look like normal electrical bulbs. I believe they're made by Zoo Med & Zilla. It's pretty warm in there. A friend of mine who's a herpetologist (as I'm a primatologist - ask me all your primate questions!) checked their terrariums & said that it is a good temp for them to digest & thrive. He told me if it's too hot, it can evaporate their water - that's when I know if the heat needs to be turned down.

I'm not sure if they're not eating because their family of 1 year just gave them to me or if it's because the male wanted to mate & harassed the female for awhile, or even both. Their stools are fine. They will occasionally eat crickets but not a lot. They haven't touched their pellets. The male hasn't touched his water, the female knows where her water is. I also stare at them a lot because they're cool looking. I know with other animals, staring is a sign of aggression.

Other than that, maybe it's because I'm a new owner & it may take weeks to have them warm up to me & I'm just paranoid. I'm hoping separating them from eye distance will help them cool their jets. Any more tips are welcomed!!

 

[Oriheme]

I still have babies (kinda) but I believe the temps are too low. I think it needs to be 95 for proper digestion. I keep both my cages at 105 and both them are perfectly fine. Give it time they'll warm up to you moving is stressful! No matter what species you are

 

[destiny1998]

I hate to say this but those stick on thermometers are crap. They are usually off by 20 degrees. Also no lights on or heat needed at night its important for them to be able to cool down at night and have complete darkness to sleep. If your house does not get below 65 at night they'll be fine. However if it gets colder then you need a che. If your uvb is a coil which it sounds like it is those burn their eyes, cause a lack of appetite and basically do way more harm than good. You need a reptisun 10.0 Tube mounted in the tank. Make sure you give them baths for hydration as beardies do not drink from standing water. Infact take out the water dish as it raises the humidity and can give them respiratory infections.

 

[Drache613]

Moved by Moderator from General to Health

 

[LLLReptile]

It's hard to say for sure about the temperature, as like others have mentioned, the stick on ones aren't very accurate. They are good for gauging ambient temps, but useless for basking. You may want to pick up an infrared temp gun, or even just a simple digital thermometer with a probe.

I don't see anywhere in any of your posts you mentioning the actual basking temperature (which would be what it where the beardie can sit closest to the light - and which you can't measure with that stick on thermometer), so it's impossible to say if it's too cold or too hot. I would not worry about the water evaporating; in a shallow dish, it'll evaporate eventually even at 80, which is a suitable ambient temp for the cool side.

100 watt bulbs on a 55 gallon tank are usually enough heat to create a suitable basking spot. You may want to try rearranging the items under the light so your beardies can get nice and close to em - I prefer the hottest basking spot to be about 6 to 8" directly under the light, and having a secondary basking spot about 2 to 4" lower.

Full, content beardies that are getting regular feedings of insects often will refuse to eat greens, pellets, or other food considered less palatable. I'd suggest picking up a more accurate thermometer to check basking spots - think of it like this: with a primate, if they start acting unwell, one of the things you'd use to check their health would be to check for a fever, right? Reptiles don't have a stable body temp to check, so instead you have to rely on behavior in relation to temperatures within the cage. One of the very first things used to figure out a possible cause of a potential health issue is to check temperatures; for an animal that has to utilize their environment to control their body temps, you can't know how well they're really doing unless you're able to check the environmental temps.

Make sense? Give it a couple days, check what temps they're really living at, and go from there. How many crickets are they eating each day, roughly? Have you tried worms or anything else?

-Jen

 

[ksakai]

About their basking temperature, I came home to find the male basking!! Yay!!! His mouth is a little open & he's just sitting there soaking up the heat! Hooray! The male's tree stump is about 6 inches from the heat bulb, a 150 watt. I think he likes it's there too much. He doesn't get down to eat the crickets unless I grab him & put him down, but before leaving for work, I dropped about 10 large crickets & now they're all gone! I'm not going to play with him for a bit because I want him to settle down now that the female is out of his view. This is the first time I saw him bask so I'm hoping things will get better! He was shedding when I first got him & I think the shedding plus the presence of the female made him go kinda crazy. He's not head bobbing as much, maybe when he wakes up & goes to his favorite stump in the morning, but other than that, he's much more relaxed than before.

The female is totally relaxed. She gets really excited when I drop crickets into her pen & she goes nuts over superworms. I tried dropping a few worms into her shallow salad bowl, but she hasn't touched her veggies. She eats about 15 large crickets a day. She also drinks water from her bowl. She seems much more relaxed now that the male isn't forced-copulating with her. I will still give her a few days to adjust since I did move her across the room. She has a little rock-hut that she sits & basks on each day that is pretty close to her 100 watt bulb. I have a better gauge on her terrarium that says it's about 100F. My place does get chilly at night since I live in the snowy mountains of Washington so I leave a night bulb on which gets their terrariums (both female & male) to about 78-80F. As soon as the heat/day bulbs turn off, they pass out. It's pretty cute.

Next thing I'll buy is that long, tube-like heat bulbs. I believe people call them the 10.0 or something like that. Also, a better thermometer. I might buy a non-pet one because the ones made by generic pet stores don't look that great. Hence the sticker bar I have. :silent:

btw, I'm super happy about the tips everyone is giving me!