The moral conflict

[zimbabwepegasus]

I'm not sure if this belongs here or in off topic...

A friend of a friend who I've met once have a beardie. Looking at the beardie, I'm guessing he's around 5 months.
So my friend, who is not reptile savvy, is watching her friends' lizard while they are out of town.
He's got gorgeous color.
Now the Q.
Their set up is awful. They have a book and I've perused it- it looks pretty decent. They just haven't paid attention to it or got bad info from the pet store. If they got him at the store near their house where they apparently get crix.. no good! They've got an anole, a house gecko & a day gecko in the same tank! They have the same UVB light over a beardie and a day gecko... not cool.
But their beardie is on walnut shell, doesn't have UVB, veg is just carrot & zuch., thermometers aren't located properly and is on a red "night" light.

I'm trying to decide what to do here. I don't even have these peoples' phone number, let alone really know enough to interfere...
Anybody got ideas on how I can tactfully do this one?

 

[Catalyst]

Perhaps you could write a respectful note with suggestions to the people to get passed on by your friend. Your friend could vouch for your knowledge, care and concern for dragons (may make it more likely that the people will read and take your advice). As for the letter itself, you could start it off by telling them that there's a lot of misinformation floating around out there, sadly much of it coming from the petstores, and that you'd like to share some of the things you've learned in your research because their dragon is such an awesome little guy you'd like to see him in the best environment possible (or something to that effect - making it clear that you're doing it out of concern for the animal and placing no blame on them). Then address the issues - dragons are sun loving animals naturally and need proper UVB lighting in order to grow and flourish, and you can give them the link for the UVB lighting study done on the various bulbs to back up the fact that there are only some bulbs that are good for a dragon (reptisun 10.0, reptisun 5.0, reptiglo 8.0 and then the MVBs from megaray and t-rex). Because they are naturally in bright sunlight during the day, they also need a heat light during the day that puts off bright, clear (not red) light to mimic the sunlight and stimulate the best/natural behaviour and development in the dragon. A red light at night can disrupt a dragon's sleep, but some dragons sleep just fine with them on and there's nothing inherently harmful in the light as long as the dragon can sleep. You could print off the food list from beautifuldragons.com and add it in as something that has really helped you to give your dragon the variety that he needs, perhaps highlighting the staple foods on it to help draw their attention to the types of things he should be offered. You could also point them to this forum as a great place to learn more and get tips related to the care and keeping of dragons. Keep it respectful and reletively light, so they don't get the feeling that you're lecturing or judging them. They'll either read and follow it or not, but you'll at least have done what you could to help without getting in their face about it.

Just my two cents

 

[ashesc212]

I think what Catalyst said is a great idea and also maybe provide a "shopping list" after all of that in case they are confused still. It can either be all the stuff one needs for a beardie or all the stuff that they are missing.

 

[fresnowitte]

Invite them to join us at BD.org!

 

[ashesc212]

Invite them to join us at BD.org!

That is also a fantastic idea!