First off, I have two beardies. One is about six months old, 11.5 inches long, male, and basically everything I've been told is good in a bearded dragon. He's fantastic and seems perfectly healthy.
My friend gave me a three year old female, about 16 inches. She's definitely got a calcium problem, and rarely eats her fruits and veggies. Though, currently, it may be due to the shut down beardies are supposed to have during winter time, from what I've read, but my younger one isn't doing it.
This is about strange behavior I've noticed in her.
Due to her calcium problem (I want to take her to a vet when I have enough money for the closest one, but for now I'm doing my best to improve her health and she is seemingly getting better.) I don't want them to mate, and I keep them in separate terrariums. They are nearby on separate tables, and they tend to run at the glass towards each other, obviously wanting to get out and interact somehow. Combining that, his head bobbing, and her arm waving, they probably want to mate. My friend never mentioned this about her behavior, so I'm guessing it could be something that they do when they want to mate as well.
She tends to scuffle in her cage a lot and tear at her newspaper (I use newspaper as substrate, because I've yet to find a reliable form of loose substrate) and she tends to do that all night until about 3 or 4 in the morning, and then she'll finally go to sleep. She's also a light sleeper, and tends to wake up if I go in or out of the room. I only have to change the male's substrate when he poops, which is usually every day or two. However, the female will tear her newspaper to shreds and basically have it in pieces every where on her wood and rock, and walk around on glass. She also likes to sleep under newspaper. Often times during the day, she will shove her nose into a crease and just sit there scratching at the ground, whether there's newspaper there or not. And she has a rock that has a small opening, and is probably big enough for her to fit all the way in with her tail sticking out, but she'd be snug. I assumed she'd just play on it, but she likes to crawl in to right above her back legs and then scratch with them, even though she can get herself out easily, I've seen it. I tend to take her out when she does that, though.
If this is important, she has a red light on all day and night for heat, while my male has a white heat light during the day and a lower heat level black night light at night. Both have the exact same UV-B light, which is at a 10.0 emission level. And for some reason, my male's claws stay at a reasonable, normal length, while my female's have been really long and starting to curl under since before I got her. I'm assuming once I get her to a vet, they have tools to clip them, or is there something else I can do to fix that, and could it be part of why she scratches so much?
Has anyone had similar behavior? Have any idea why she does this or if it's something bad at all?
Oh, and I feel like when there are two beardies of different sexes, it's weird and confusing to describe things using their names, so I chose to refer to the as my male and my female. The male's name is Atreyu and the female's name is Butters. I'm still pretty new at caring for beardies, so I may have just not been told about this kind of behavior yet if it's normal, especially since most of the instruction I got was intended for the male I got initially, and when my friend gave me the female, she clearly didn't have as much information as she should, considering she went three years using the wrong UV-B and a calcium/phosphorus mix powder. :/
Help would be greatly appreciated!
My friend gave me a three year old female, about 16 inches. She's definitely got a calcium problem, and rarely eats her fruits and veggies. Though, currently, it may be due to the shut down beardies are supposed to have during winter time, from what I've read, but my younger one isn't doing it.
This is about strange behavior I've noticed in her.
Due to her calcium problem (I want to take her to a vet when I have enough money for the closest one, but for now I'm doing my best to improve her health and she is seemingly getting better.) I don't want them to mate, and I keep them in separate terrariums. They are nearby on separate tables, and they tend to run at the glass towards each other, obviously wanting to get out and interact somehow. Combining that, his head bobbing, and her arm waving, they probably want to mate. My friend never mentioned this about her behavior, so I'm guessing it could be something that they do when they want to mate as well.
She tends to scuffle in her cage a lot and tear at her newspaper (I use newspaper as substrate, because I've yet to find a reliable form of loose substrate) and she tends to do that all night until about 3 or 4 in the morning, and then she'll finally go to sleep. She's also a light sleeper, and tends to wake up if I go in or out of the room. I only have to change the male's substrate when he poops, which is usually every day or two. However, the female will tear her newspaper to shreds and basically have it in pieces every where on her wood and rock, and walk around on glass. She also likes to sleep under newspaper. Often times during the day, she will shove her nose into a crease and just sit there scratching at the ground, whether there's newspaper there or not. And she has a rock that has a small opening, and is probably big enough for her to fit all the way in with her tail sticking out, but she'd be snug. I assumed she'd just play on it, but she likes to crawl in to right above her back legs and then scratch with them, even though she can get herself out easily, I've seen it. I tend to take her out when she does that, though.
If this is important, she has a red light on all day and night for heat, while my male has a white heat light during the day and a lower heat level black night light at night. Both have the exact same UV-B light, which is at a 10.0 emission level. And for some reason, my male's claws stay at a reasonable, normal length, while my female's have been really long and starting to curl under since before I got her. I'm assuming once I get her to a vet, they have tools to clip them, or is there something else I can do to fix that, and could it be part of why she scratches so much?
Has anyone had similar behavior? Have any idea why she does this or if it's something bad at all?
Oh, and I feel like when there are two beardies of different sexes, it's weird and confusing to describe things using their names, so I chose to refer to the as my male and my female. The male's name is Atreyu and the female's name is Butters. I'm still pretty new at caring for beardies, so I may have just not been told about this kind of behavior yet if it's normal, especially since most of the instruction I got was intended for the male I got initially, and when my friend gave me the female, she clearly didn't have as much information as she should, considering she went three years using the wrong UV-B and a calcium/phosphorus mix powder. :/
Help would be greatly appreciated!