Strange arm movement (not arm waving) in front of heater

[Moneypenny]

Ok, this is just baffling me, so I had to come here and ask.

I have 2 Beardies. One a year and a half and a juvie. The older one is currently bruminating. The juvie or course is not.

Because it's winter and a bit colder than normal in our house, I put a small space heater in my room where I keep my lizards. When I've taken Misha (my juvie) out the last couple of days, I've sat with her in front of the space heater to give her a moment of extra heat. EVERY time I do this, her right arm starts to make strange motions...that I can only perhaps describe as 'digging'. She is not arm waving, as I know what that looks like, and she's not near my other Beardie whom she would do that around. It's a rapid , forward clawing, and only with her right arm.

Anybody have any insight as to why she is doing this? Something about the heat of the space heater making her want to 'dig'? But she never does this under basking lamp, which has got to be as hot or hotter than the heater. It's obviously not a major issue or anything, I'm just really curious!

 

[bmmst1]

YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS ABOUT THE SPACE HEATER AND YOUR BEARDIE!!!! PLEASE DONT USE THE SPACE HEATER....I WOULDNT TAKE ANY CHANCES AFTER WATCHING THIS!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0-W3s1GrrY

 

[peera]

I can't really say about the arm movements... Is she making any effort to get out of the warmth? How warm is the surface she's on? She might be trying to "dig" to a cooler spot on your leg.

However, about the space heater... It should be fine as long as it's on rather low and you're keeping an eye on the temps, but space heaters should never be left on unattended. We go so far as to unplug ours when we leave the room because they really are a fire hazard. The guy in the linked video even admits what he did was stupid, but if you take a bit of care, there's no reason it's automatically dangerous.

 

[Moneypenny]

Wow...that's horrible. Thank you for the link!

Well, the only reason I have it in there is because the room was FREEZING before without it. Our furnace is broken, and without the furnace, which keeps the room at a normal temp, the room gets, very, very cold right now in the winter. The space heater only brings the room up to a 'normal' temp. But I do understand the danger of this. I will try and move the heater out of the room for awhile and see....I'm just afraid that it will be too cold then..........

And just to clarify, Misha only does the weird arm thing when she's right in front of it...which I only allow her to do for a few seconds before I move quickly her away from it. I never leave my Beardies out unsupervised, I completely understand how dangerous that can be.

Thank you for the warning! I hope everyone heeds this poor guy's advice!

Peeva, no she's doesn't try and get away from it. She'll be sitting on my arm, and can easily squirm away (as juvies tend to do) if she was uncomfortable. She just sits there, facing it, doing the arm thing. Like I said though, I move her away from it quickly regardless. Yes, the 'digging' because it's warm is the only explanation I can come up with too.

Yes, agreed about leaving the space heater unattended. Thankfully somebody is at our house (my boyfriend works from home) pretty much all day, so that hasn't been too much of an issue so far.

Obviously this is a sign I really need to get the furnace fixed.

 

[peera]

Oh, and another thing, still not related to the arm digging, but since space heaters tend to dry out air very quickly, are you remembering to give lots of baths? Even the sleepy guy needs those to help stay hydrated.

 

[Moneypenny]

Oh yes, for sure. I'm big on baths, always have been. And I've been particularly paranoid about it with Rawley bruminating. I will however up the bathing to every other day for the moment. Our furnace just broke only a few days ago, so the space heater is only filling in the gap before we can get it fixed, this is definitely not a long term thing, thankfully!