The Chronicles of Elliott - 1 YEAR OLD!!!

Hi Everyone,

I have never owned a bearded dragon, Elliott will be my first. I have not even picked him up from the breeder yet. I will pick him up on July 3rd, when he is 8 weeks old and ready to come home. I have everything all set up and can't wait. I used to have an iguana, but he passed away 3 years ago at the ripe old age of 10. I have always wanted another reptile and after reading about the sweet and good-natured beardie I knew I found the right pet for me. In the picture you will see his brothers and sisters still in need of homes. I am so glad I found this wonderful site. I have been looking up all kinds of info already, I know I will be on here quite a bit.

 

[ghr15]

Do you have any pics I can see?

Not any recent ones I have a picture of her younger.

See the grey stripe that starts at the eye and goes down. That slowly over time has been turning orange. She also is developing a orange beard and the spikes down her sides are turning orange. I thin somehow she was part specialty breed because as you can see she was before just an ordinary dragon.

 

[xxdragonflamesxx]

Wow, that's very interesting. I didn't know they could develop color like that over time. It'll be interesting to see if Elliott's color changes any over time.

 

[ghr15]

Wow, that's very interesting. I didn't know they could develop color like that over time. It'll be interesting to see if Elliott's color changes any over time.

They can also the color sadly can dissapear as well. Here is my other beardie larry younger.

Now he has lost almost all his pattern and it just pretty much a light orange color all over. With some yellow spots. So my plain bearde has developed color and my colorful beardie developed to be more plain. to beardie i showed earlier was even more plain then that when I first bought him. When I first bought him and for a long while he was just a regular beardie. But keep in mind though that the beardie I showed that lost color was only half sandfire. The male of the breeding pair is a sandfire the femaile is a regular morph beardie. I actually have seen and even helf both the mother and father of my beardie. I bought Larry the guy in the picture from a breeder. What he lacks in color he more then makes up for in size. He is part german giant which is what the sandfire father was. He is the biggest beardie I have ever had. I wish I knew where my digital camera cord was since he is something to see.

But it is interesting how they can change colour over time. Keep in mind with both as well that the color change was slow. It was not an overnight thing we are talking about it started happening over a year and a half time frame. With Larry it has been over his 2 and a half year lifespan.

Oh and an edit since I just found it here is where the orange just started to come in.

It is hard to see since it is kind of far away. But you can see the stripe on the head starting to come in.

To avoid the confushion the one in my post higher up is Larry the one a bit further down is Legarto. With the lower picture of Legarto you can see the orange and yellow starting to show.

 

[xxdragonflamesxx]

Elliott is almost 7 months old. He is 19.25" and 394 grams. He's now a worms only dragon and he and I couldn't be happier about that. He LOVES his worms. He gets much more excited about them then he ever did about his crickets. Poor boy just finished a shed on his whole head. The colors around his eyes look very bright now as you can see in the pics...his eyes were pretty much done when I took these. I also finally figured out how to get my camera to focus on him better. These picture are a lot nicer than some of the older ones I posted. I wish I would have known how to take a proper picture of him before, but oh well, you live you learn...

See the little black spots on his shed? I swear his was black bearding so much during the shedding process some of it stuck...is this at all possible, or is it just dirt or something?

Trying to look regal, even though he's falling apart :lol:

He was all over the place that day. Such a grumpy crunchy boy!

"Ugh...if...I just...dig...a little of this...tile out of the way..."

"Mom! What happened? I used to be able to fit under this door crack!"

I so badly wanted to help him with his shed, but I resisted!

That's all I got for now but I'm sure I'll have more soon now that I know how to take a decent focused pic! Plus he's all finished shedding now!

 

[xxdragonflamesxx]

Well, over the Holiday weekend Elliott had his first experience with poking prodding kids. He did really well considering he is used to only gentle adults. It was my 7 year old nephew and my 6 year old niece and they ended up just ADORING Elliott...not so sure the feeling was mutual... :lol:

The first morning they were there as soon as they woke up they started..."When can we feed Elliott?! When is it going to be time?!" Once Elliott was finally warmed up and ready for breakfast I gave them each a silkworm and showed them how to hold it and how gently he takes it and eats it. They both ended up chickening out and neither one actually fed him, but they enjoyed watching me feed him. After we fed him I took him out of his viv and let them each hold him for a little while. They were still a little scared and sat very still and just pet him very gently.

Then comes the second day...now they know how gentle he is and the fear was all gone. They each fed him a couple worms for breakfast and this time when I let them hold him they were a little rougher with the touching and petting. Elliott decided he was over it and tried running away under the couch...something he never does. So I got him out from under there and told the kids to just sit a few feet back and give him some space. That didn't really work out and Elliott ended up getting so stressed I just ended up putting him back. So he didn't do great, but he did really well for being put into a situation that he has never experienced before.

OH yeah, I almost forgot. When I first got the silkworms out my niece decided she wanted to keep one. I was a little worried she would freak out when she saw Elliott eating them so I told her that silkworms turn into big ugly moths and they die in a short time anyways and it would be better off to let Elliott eat them. She finally agreed to it...PHEW!

I'll have more pics soon, just wanted to share that story for now.

 

[xxdragonflamesxx]

Hey! I thought the pictures of the kids feeding Elliott were on my sisters camera and I was going to have to wait for her to get around to sending them to me...but it turns out she was using my camera when she took the pics...so here they are...

This one CRACKS ME UP! Skylar looks so scared! And there's Elliott in the background...."WORMS! Hurry up already, would ya?!"

This one too! :laughhard:

This is how close they were willing to hold the worm to Elliott's mouth. LOL!

Him eating after I gave him some...he was sick of waiting for the kids haha

This is after they got more used to him. They decided they LOVE him! He looks so big being held by Logic.

Oh man I love those pics!

 

[Heisei]

That first pic is GREAT. Whoever took that one should get a pat on the back. That's too funny :lol:

Aaron

 

[Freeie]

Oh thats awsome i just love the pics. Elliott is so preety even tho hes sheading My oldest daughter(19 lol ) is scared to feed them and she always acts like the beardies will bite her or something. My grandson (8 months) wont pet them anymore. He touched them here and there he dosnt like the feel of them to pokey i guess lol

 

[Twobeardieguy]

Awwww great pictures! And cute pooper!

 

[dna14]

Love the pics! My kids won't feed the beardies any live food. There is a neighbor who is 9 who's a pro at it, though!

 

[xxdragonflamesxx]

By the next day they both calmed down and they each fed him a worm. You should have seen the looks on their faces! They were so excited when he took the worms from their hands! Thanks for the compliments everyone!

 

[xxdragonflamesxx]

So, I don't know if this is something to be concerned about or not but Elliott hasn't grown in length for over a month. He was just over 7 months when he stopped. He still has been regularly gaining weight though...and he's still eating his proteins and seems to be filling out on his tail and legs. Is this normal? Could he stop for a while and start up again, or do you think this is it? He's only 19.5" seems kind of on the small side. Those of you with older dragons, let me know of your experiences.

 

[xxdragonflamesxx]

Haha, well Elliott answered my question for me....he grew a half inch the past week. He just hit the big 2-0!!! haha!

 

[VEGASLIZARD]

As for color it is not unusual for them to get color over time. When we got Scorch she only had a tiny bit of color as you can see here

and now she looks like this! With every shed she got more and more orange. I am interested to see if she gets any more this time (getting ready to shed finally!) She is now about 15 months old and It has been several months since her last shed so she is not as bright.

Maybe she and Elliott are similar color morphs.
BTW loved the pics of the visit. It is so much fun to watch relatives squirm over bugs! Sounds like your niece and nephew are good slaves in training maybe next time Elliott will be more interested.

 

[xxdragonflamesxx]

My friend who is a photographer was in town and he really liked Elliott. He got a cool pic of me feeding him so I thought I would share!