The Life and Times of Helen Hawking, dbnr

I first noticed Helen Hawking in a classifieds ad, looking for a fellow companion in a lonely world. Her piece sang to me and one picture in particular caught my eye.

I felt that I had found a kindred spirit, someone with the same zest and zeal for life that I possessed. We spoke at first through an intermediary before finally deciding to meet. She came to me in a rather unorthodox fashion- boxed up and restrained.

But we quickly found common ground and chatted a bit over a light meal.

Something I said must have disturbed her however, because she cut our talk short and scuttled over to a corner, seeking solitude in an unfamiliar environment and leaving me to clean up what was left of her lunch.

 

[Tonja]

i am gonna give you a tip. When you make up the salads, use a huge sealable bowl and put a layer of paper towel in the bottom of the bowl. Make up one salad for the entire week to save yourself some time and its ready to dole out each day. This is what I do and it stays fresh for the week for my two. The salad I make for mine is of turnip, collard, and mustard greens, endive hearts, bok choy, squash, red pepper, a bit of carrot, apple and a bit of cucumber. finely diced green bean and finely chopped snow peas. There is also enough that every morning I can make them a veggie slurry with calcium added and chicken baby food with a few dubia or crickets throw in..they get their moisture and all the nutrients they need in the slurry..so it serves a two fold purpose, just a salad every day of the week and a slurry every morning of the week.

 

[randommonks]

Lol I wish I could do that every morning. I have just enough time to shred some leaves of collard for Darwin and dump in some dubia for HH before running out the door. I personally prefer solid foods for my dragons and I can only imagine the mess they'd make with a slurry if I weren't there to supervise it :lol:

 

[Tonja]

LOL thats what mine get for breakfast, consists of greens, carnivore care, calcium or vitamins, baby chicken food, sweet potato baby food and I feed thru syringe. Was just suggesting making one huge salad on a weekend and dole it out over the week then you dont have to worry about tearing up greens and stuff in the mornings, its already done.

 

[randommonks]

Lol yeah I think I'm going to start doing that from now on. I have basically one day a week where I can just sit and chill so I can tear down a thing of collards that day and distribute in the mornings. Great idea!

 

[Tonja]

Its a time saver and I think you would like not having to mess with it when rushed. I love doing doing the salads this way.

 

[randommonks]

I've noticed a little stuck shed on her back which had started to turn grey. I poked at it a little bit while she was soaking in the bath today and it did peel away with a little work to reveal clean skin underneath. I know you're not supposed to help them shed or anything like that, but is there anything I can do to get rid of the stuck shed?

 

[randommonks]

Well HH has gotten quite the little belly on her. It's exciting to think I've almost had her for a month! Here's an action shot of her trying to eat:

Quite unorthadox but it normally works for her. She stopped eating immediately after she noticed the paparazzi on her and glared. She's a great collards and beardie bites eater as well! Darwin hated the beardie bites I bought so they had been feeding the roaches, but I found out that she loves 3 or 4 every day

Here she is today.

Not quite the same growth I've seen when Darwin was her age, but understandable considering her condition. She's still eating like a pig- today she had 10 small dubia. The retained shed has gone after a couple of baths and a little dab of lotion but seems to have left a little patch of pale scales on her normally brown spine. Not sure if that's to be expected after retained shed but I'll see if it's back to normal today.

Had a long morning at the vet yesterday morning. My cat was still losing weight after being put on the special Science Diet y/d for her hypothyroidism so the vet put her on meds instead. We'll see how that adventure goes!

 

[TheWerewolf]

Aww, she is so cute! I love how special she looks, a real gem. My Nim been having a retained shed problem for a while. Of course the shed goes away after a while, but then another spot is retained. I bathe him normally, his humidity is perfect, LOL, I don't know what's wrong. Once the shed comes off the tip of the scale looks gray. Really weird, I think it goes away after the next shed though. HH really is adorable. If I had the money I'd take her in a minute.

 

[randommonks]

:mrgreen: Well she's definitely not for sale mister (ma'am if you're a girl)! But HH thanks you for being awesome

Yeah I'm not sure what caused her retained shed since I didn't notice her back shedding at all. It just appeared one day :? I'm not sure if it has something to do with the leatherback, but I'll definitely keep an eye on it!

 

[TheWerewolf]

That's ma'am, and I know she's not for sale, LOL. I wouldn't take her from you either. Besides, I have my hands full with Nim. Nim's retained shed parts confuse me. I thought the shed was retained where it is the hardest to come off, like tail tips or toes. No, he has had some on his head, base of his tail, weird places like that. But it does come off in about a week or two. If you do nothing for it.

 

[randommonks]

Nah I'm just playin with ya!

Yeah have you tried something like cocoa butter? I'm still trying to find the stick that I bought for Darwin. I do even have some Shedding Aid so I wonder if it would be worth it to spray some of that when i notice her back shedding. I have seen some beardies with retained shed on their heads and I'm pretty confused as to how they get that too.

 

[TheWerewolf]

Yeah, I know.

We do have a bit of shea and cocoa butter lotion left. Nim doesn't have any retained shed yet, but I'll try it next time he does. The first time I saw the shed on his head I was really confused. I had a leo who was a very bad shedder. Each shed was really bad, it was stuck on her toes and she even lost some. I thought Nim was going to be a good shedder. It only started when he turned 3 or 4 months of age. Very strange. I haven't seen any shedding aid in pet stores. I'll look next time, any specific brand I need to get?

 

[diamc]

She looks SO proud and SO happy, bless her and you for giving her an amazing home.

 

[randommonks]

It's called ZooMed Repti Shedding Aid. I'm not sure it did a lot for Darwin. I bought it when he was being stubborn about a tail shed as well as applying the straight cocoa butter stick. It shed on its own several days later :roll: so I'm not sure what good it did do...I figured it couldn't hurt though and wasn't too expensive.

 

[randommonks]

She looks SO proud and SO happy, bless her and you for giving her an amazing home.

Thanks Diane! She's an absolute darling (even if she does hate her baths with a passion) and a true testament to the quality of Tom's animals!