Times

[sid101]

Hello everybody! So recently I've been trying to keep Sid on a morning breakfast meal, and an afternoon meal at 6:00pm. I feel like this isn't working well though, here is why. So every morning I have Sid's timer to turn on his lights at 9:00am. The problem with that is I have school. I leave officially at 7:00am. What I have been doing is when I wake up in the morning, I refill his water bowl, and put some greens and some baby Beardie vitamin food dusted with calcium. I set that up and hope she will eat it throughout the morning as she awakes and before I return home at 3:00pm. Is this a good way to do it? If not, how? Also, how do some of you work around school and work?

Another question. As you can see with the substrate in this picture that I had taken of Sid, it is a material where crickets and those little live insects can burrow if needed it seems. I haven't seen any of my crickets do that yet, but I don't know what I should do with the cricket situation. I've been hand feeding her cricket by cricket in fear that when it is time for me to clean the rest of the cricket out of the cage if I was to dump a bunch in, some would be buried. What's your advice on this?

Thanks!

 

[luissandoval87]

I think I would probably feed him as soon as you get home from school. The only problem I see with feeding him insects late is that they need heat to properly digest their food. I'm not so sure he would get the much needed heat if you fed him and then soon after turned off his lights. As far as substrate, you'd be better off with papertowels, or newspapers if you don't want to be bothered with spending money. If you've got a little money to spend you can buy shelf lining, I've forgotten how much it costs because I don't buy it anymore, but I know it's definitely less than $10 for a big roll, used to cover my 4X2X2 enclosure with it. Another substrate you can try is ZooMed Excavator clay which is about $20 and again can cover a 4X2X2. I started using it about a year ago with one dragon and now all three of my dragon enclosures have it. I didn't make any cool hides or anything I just laid it flat on the bottom of the enclosure like a substrate. It's pretty awesome because it hardens so as the beardies walk around it their nails get filed and they can use it to dig and it looks pretty cool too. I've never had any problems with it so far, but cleaning isn't all that great.

 

[sid101]

I think I would probably feed him as soon as you get home from school. The only problem I see with feeding him insects late is that they need heat to properly digest their food. I'm not so sure he would get the much needed heat if you fed him and then soon after turned off his lights. As far as substrate, you'd be better off with papertowels, or newspapers if you don't want to be bothered with spending money. If you've got a little money to spend you can buy shelf lining, I've forgotten how much it costs because I don't buy it anymore, but I know it's definitely less than $10 for a big roll, used to cover my 4X2X2 enclosure with it. Another substrate you can try is ZooMed Excavator clay which is about $20 and again can cover a 4X2X2. I started using it about a year ago with one dragon and now all three of my dragon enclosures have it. I didn't make any cool hides or anything I just laid it flat on the bottom of the enclosure like a substrate. It's pretty awesome because it hardens so as the beardies walk around it their nails get filed and they can use it to dig and it looks pretty cool too. I've never had any problems with it so far, but cleaning isn't all that great.

Okay, thank you for that information! I don't know exactly when I could change the substrate because she is still a bit scared to the new surroundings and me, so I can't yet pick her up to move her, I hope I can try to soon though,
Thanks!