Rankin's cuteness - Rankins Dragons thread

[Irwinshealth]

Yep, Big Chief is my hubby. :mrgreen: And yep we do have 17 reptiles right now

That explains alot...your both crazy! Well crazy in love that is I wish my husband loved my boys as much as me. Then maybe I could sneak a few more into my house. :wink:

I love this getting to know this bunch! That last photo is absolutely adorable but I am telling myself I can't afford another!!!!

 

[sweetiepie9]

Either can I & that pic is adorable, they really are affectionate with each other, it's so fun to watch. I'm waiting to see those "meercat" pics!
Deb

 

[Whirleeq]

Too much cuteness.... I just went and put a deposit on an 11 month old female to join my Cato with Stars Dragons... We are going to name her Clove . My kids are "hunger games" fans.

 

[ShannyBeard]

Too much cuteness.... I just went and put a deposit on an 11 month old female to join my Cato with Stars Dragons... We are going to name her Clove . My kids are "hunger games" fans.

I'm so excited for you. They are super sweet and I know they will gain popularity. If I may ask, what is your basking surface temp? What do you feed him, how often and how much? And how often does he poop?

I'm learning from observing my own dragons, and I'd love to know how other people's Rankins behave and what tips or tricks they have. Environmental factors like temps, diet and cohabitation will affect their behavior so I need to consider the way other people do things and how their dragons react.

I don't know what 'Hunger Games' is (movie or game?) but I absolutely love the name Clove. I think short, punchy names are good for them so they can learn them easily. When we get a new dragon we agonize over the names, lol. The Rankins are Gobi, Sahara and Kalihari. Those are all the names of deserts, and it's kind of funny but we named Kalahari because (s)he was the smallest, and Gobi was the largest of the three. Now Kali is the largest, guess you just never know how they will grow. :dontknow:

When do you get your female???

 

[Trillion]

I'm so excited to find this place! We've had our Rankin, Draco, for two years, and I've always struggled to find care information for him, so have been following bearded dragon guidelines mixed with a little common sense.

As you can see, he is INCREDIBLY fierce...

 

[ShannyBeard]

Trillion! LOL he looks so very fierce! I have noticed there are two Rankins colors: the dark ones and the lighter ones. We have both, and it looks like you have one of the dark ones. Yours looks like our boy, Kalahari.

I'm excited to see another person with Rankins on here. Maybe we can call this the Rankins 'home base' LOL. Do you also have a bearded dragon??

And...what is your basking surface temperature, and what instrument do you measure the temps with? I am going to ask everyone I know with a Rankins that question, as we are all trying to learn and you are right, there is so much info on beardies but not so much on Rankins.

Welcome to bd.org.

 

[Menolly07]

Trillion!!! You have geckos named after Pern dragons??? We MUST be friends now! It is known!

Draco is very handsome. That cricket is... Um.... A very becoming accessory choice. I hear that all the fashionable Rankins are wearing them this season....

 

[sweetiepie9]

That is such a great pic of your Rankin, Trillion, glad you found this site. I only have beardies & a golden gecko, but all your Rankin dragons have captured my heart. I've never seen one around here or ever heard of anyone having one until I discovered Shannon's thread. Glad to see Draco, so very fierce indeed! And you have cresties, I just love cresties, I just don't have any more room, 5 dragons & 1 gecko in a 1 bedroom apartment!

Shannon, I saw your new little beardie, looks alot like Diane's Angeline, are you starting a new thread for the new arrival? Pls let me know!
Deb

 

[ShannyBeard]

Deb, I can't keep up with all the threads! LOL. I have a thread link in my sig for all the other babies and she is in there. She is on page 3 along with Otto's new baby, Lemon Drop. They are just so sweet I can't stand it, but I can tell you I'm feeling the rush of constant dragon slavery. LOL you know how that is.

In a few weeks we are taking a rescue and I'm so excited to get the chance to rehab a needy dragon. It is Smurf's brother who was found in a shed last month after escaping when the kids went to turn them both in at the reptile shop. He has been in the shed since December but thankfully it's Florida and we had a horrible, hot winter - good for him because he didn't freeze to death. We do get temps under 20 here every other year or so. Don't laugh, I know 20 ain't nuthin to you.

Maybe Rankins won't be so rare in your area next year....LOL you know we will have babies. :silent: We just got a 2nd female yesterday and we are hoping for some breeding action soon. Granted, there is not a whole lot of action with the Rankins. :lol: But we are hoping it is happening behind the scenes. :lol:

 

[Trillion]

Shanny, I love your Rankins names! Perfect! I'm very ashamed to say I don't measure temps, he just has a hot side and a cooler side, both with basking spots, hides and shaded areas, and he seems to just move about throughout the day and please himself.

We moved to the US about 7 months ago and before the move he was very depressed, had to be cajoled to eat anything, and I'd take him out of his hide every other day just to give him some light and warmth. We had no idea what else to do to help him. Then we moved, and I don't know if it was the week at a boarding facility, the excitement of the move, or just something that suited him better with his new setup, but his colours brightened, especially the white areas of his face, and he was like a different dragon.

Since then I've explored a lot more in general reptile-keeping and the differences between the UK and US, he has a much more varied diet (he was just on crickets as a staple, with mealworms and sometimes waxworms as a treat) and he now enjoys silkworms, hornworms, dubia, butterworms etc. He loves the hornworms but my usual supplier has been having issues so he hasn't had any for a while. I've noticed he is very colour-oriented, he loves the green hornworms, but is a bit unsure of the pink butterworms initially, and is uninspired by the grey silkworms. I discovered that his favourite colour is yellow when I wore yellow nail varnish while doing some spot-cleaning of his viv and he spent the whole time chasing my fingers and nibbling them. Since then I added yellow peppers, mango and squash to his salads. I'm still not sure he likes salad all that much, but it might be that he eats it when I'm not around, although he does leave a lot.

We don't have any beardies, my hubby wants one, but I'm steering him towards a tegu instead, I love being able to have animals free-roaming about the house. Draco is far too small, but my tortoises love it in the winter

And yes! Pern! I very rarely read fiction, but I loved that series, and having one brown and one golden crestie, it just had to be! We also have one juvenile, two two-week-old hatchlings and 6 eggs, due in stages, two at a time, once a month.

More Draco
Geckos
Tortoises
Snake

 

[ShannyBeard]

Trillion!!! You have geckos named after Pern dragons??? We MUST be friends now! It is known!

Draco is very handsome. That cricket is... Um.... A very becoming accessory choice. I hear that all the fashionable Rankins are wearing them this season....

Is that the Anne McCaffrey books? Pern...rings a bell, but a very old and rusty bell. Been a long time since I read fantasy novels. I seem to remember something about Pern and these threads that rained from the sky that killed people. Wow I am trying to poke the memory part of my brain and failing.

 

[kab]

Hi guys,

i've just joined this forum to gain some knowledge and equally share my experiences.

I bought 2 rankin bearded dragons on saturday (3 months old) and they are adorable (Leigh and George). I have been feeding them small/medium brown crickets about 3 times a day and feed as much as they want to eat. I remove any crickets before bed time. I've tried to get them to eat 'wild rocket salad' which looks like dandelion leaves and is a good staple diet for them. They dont really show much notice though and just love the crickets! I'll keep trying to get them to eat their greens.

I've been gut-loading the crickets on the 'wild rocket' and fish flakes so hopefully this helps. I also add calcium powder to the crickets 5 times a week and vitamins on the other 2 days.

Their basking spot is 110degrees and the cool end is 85degrees. I have an arcadia d3+ 12% uvb flouresscent which runs the length of the viv and the rankins can get really close to. At night the whole viv drops to about 75 degrees

I haven't ever kept bearded dragons or any other lizzard before but these rankins are amazing. Really alert and sociable. They are young so i'm not handling them too much but they love any company.

At night they sleep on the floor but riggle to try and get comfortable before finding a position. I'm using newspaper as a substrate to prevent the risk of impaction and as they get older i will use wood chips or sand.

Which substrate do you use for rankins?

I'll post pictures soon of Leigh and George.

 

[ShannyBeard]

Hi guys,

i've just joined this forum to gain some knowledge and equally share my experiences.

I bought 2 rankin bearded dragons on saturday (3 months old) and they are adorable (Leigh and George). I have been feeding them small/medium brown crickets about 3 times a day and feed as much as they want to eat. I remove any crickets before bed time. I've tried to get them to eat 'wild rocket salad' which looks like dandelion leaves and is a good staple diet for them. They dont really show much notice though and just love the crickets! I'll keep trying to get them to eat their greens.

I've been gut-loading the crickets on the 'wild rocket' and fish flakes so hopefully this helps. I also add calcium powder to the crickets 5 times a week and vitamins on the other 2 days.

Their basking spot is 110degrees and the cool end is 85degrees. I have an arcadia d3+ 12% uvb flouresscent which runs the length of the viv and the rankins can get really close to. At night the
whole viv drops to about 75 degrees

I haven't ever kept bearded dragons or any other lizzard before but these rankins are amazing. Really alert and sociable. They are young so i'm not handling them too much but they love any company.

At night they sleep on the floor but riggle to try and get comfortable before finding a position. I'm
using newspaper as a substrate to prevent the risk of impaction and as they get older i will use wood
chips or sand.

Which substrate do you use for rankins?

I'll post pictures soon of Leigh and George.

Hi and welcome. It is so interesting to see what other people do with their Rankins, as we a all learning.

Certainly wood chips cannot be used with either bearded dragons or Rankins dragons. I am so glad you came here to join our little discussion.

When we bought out first 3 dragons, they pooped out pieces of wood chips bigger than their poor little butts. I was very scared we were going to have to take them to the vet. The person who had them did house them on wood chips. Really, really bad idea. You know what you eat is either digested or must pass through the digestive tract, through the intestines and out the poop chute.

Sand is also not a great idea either. Even though sand grains are small and should be able to be passed, sand can accumulate and clump inside of them and cause them to be impacted. Sand isn't recommended for beardies and they have even bigger bodies than the Rankins.

I have seen a few cases of leopard geckos getting a kind of contact dermatitis or irritated feet from newspaper substrate. Not sure how widespread that issue is, but for our Leo we used paper towels until I bought a roll of non-adhesive shelf liner and cut it to fit the bottom of the tank. I use that for my dragons and Rankins, too.

Do your Rankins bask directly under the basking light where you got the 110*F reading? Do they gape when they bask, if they do bask there?

Our Rankins wont eat salad either, but we were told the new one does so we shall test that out and see!

We fed 1/2" crickets for our Rankins when they were younger. They can't have anything larger than the space between their eyes. Funny that all of ours pig out on extra small silks, and yours doesn't ca for them. They are all so different. Ours likes roaches, too.

 

[kab]

Thanks for that info, i'm glad i'm not using wood or sand!

I think i'll go for reptile carpet, similar to what you're using. Would prebably be best.

They bask under the lamp for a short time then either stay on the edge of the rock (just out of the main light beam) or head up the java wood and bask under the UV where it is most intense. They haven't opened their mouths whilst basking so i dont think they are too hot. I've linked the basking lamp to a thermostat so if the ambient tank temp gets too high the thermostat would stop the basking lamp and leave only the UV (reducing temp of basking spot and ambient temp for a short spell). This is more of a precaution just incase the tank gets too hot during the summer. I'd then use a bulb with lower wattage as i understand the UVA produced by the basking lamb is very important.

I'll have to try out silk worms and cockroaches, i'm sure they like anything that moves!

Leigh and George are about 7" at the moment and I guess they'll reach 10-12". Do you know hoe long this might take?

 

[ShannyBeard]

Thanks for that info, i'm glad i'm not using wood or sand!

I think i'll go for reptile carpet, similar to what you're using. Would prebably be best.

They bask under the lamp for a short time then either stay on the edge of the rock (just out of the main light beam) or head up the java wood and bask under the UV where it is most intense. They haven't opened their mouths whilst basking so i dont think they are too hot. I've linked the basking lamp to a thermostat so if the ambient tank temp gets too high the thermostat would stop the basking lamp and leave only the UV (reducing temp of basking spot and ambient temp for a short spell). This is more of a precaution just incase the tank gets too hot during the summer. I'd then use a bulb with lower wattage as i understand the UVA produced by the basking lamb is very important.

I'll have to try out silk worms and cockroaches, i'm sure they like anything that moves!

Leigh and George are about 7" at the moment and I guess they'll reach 10-12". Do you know hoe long this might take?

Our Rankins behave just like yours with the basking spot. Sometimes one will be right under it, but only for a very short time and then they move off to the side or into the partial shade they have just under the basking area. I never see them gape when they bask, but our new girl is doing it right now. :shock: She has been basking a lot and seems to want to be under the light where it is hotter. I was thinking that is what she must be used to where she came from!

No prob on the info on sand and wood chips. Seeing big pieces of wood chips in their poo freaked us out. I am sure they were sore down there for a little bit. :?

If you had a ReptiSUN 10.0 linear tube basking lamp, then it would be giving off 10% UVB and 30% UVA, which is what desert lizards require. I'm sure the Arcadia is very similar in its UVA output, as it is a very high quality UVB light. We only just are able to get them in the States recently and I have never used them, but they are highly regarded. I don't think you need to worry about UVA. Then again, if the bulb is older than 6 months, then the UVB and UVA output would likely be weaker than when it was first purchased. We replace our UVBs at 6-8 months. Replacement at 6 months is what the general consensus is on this forum, and the manufacturer says 12 months. When I get a solar meter I will have a better idea when it needs to be replaced.

Really, the basking should stay on while the UVB is on, because the UVB light is harsh and the brightness of the basking bulb constricts their pupils and reduces the risk of eye damage. You can perhaps private message our moderator, Tracie (drache613) and ask her about that and she would be able to advise you. I would be curious to know her response...I have had another person tell me they did that before in a thread, but I can't really remember the circumstances. Then again, if your dragons are fine and are not squinting or having eye problems, then maybe that is fine to do. (There are still some things that I am learning, and I guess I am in that stage of questioning everything, and learning as much as I can).

Hmmm I am not sure how long it takes for them to get 10-12". :?: Our female that we just got is one year old and 10" long. The rest of them are about 9-10" long. I will ask my husband to ask the breeder that question! We have had the other Rankins for about 4-5 months now.

Can you post a picture of your dragons? Do you have the lighter kind or the darker kind?? There appears to be two different colors of Rankins, because we have two of each. It's driving me crazy to know what the difference is, if there is any. LOL Beardies have been bred for color for years now, so there are so many different colors now. I find the lighter Rankins to be a little prettier, but the contrast on the darker ones is nice, too. I have heard of people breeding Rankins and Beardies together, so I wondered if that was the color thing, but the breeder we got Sonora from said they are pure, and she sells both colors. So.... :?: :?: LOL

I'm excited to see pictures of yours.