too much water?

[TOMTHEDRAGON]

ok to my bearded dragon tom loves water like A LOT so she gets plenty of baths and she does this swimming thing where she puts her whole head in the water and swims like a fish... anyways she grew out of her cage. and decided that since she likes water so much i would put in/on her habitat. tom grew out of her old cage and i was surfing the net when i saw a subject here about owning a bearded dragon free range in a room. so yeah she is living the good life. anyways she love the big water dish she is soaking in it a lot. gonna be honest. since she is free range and not is a in a terrarium the humidity wont get high and cause a respatory infection but i was wondering if she will get one if she soaks all the time? :study:


thanks! please reply as soon as possible.

 

[Esther19]

Hello. I saw your other post and decided to reply here. I'm sorry, but I have been confused by the part where you say, "and decided that since she likes water so much i would put in/on her habitat." I'm not sure what you put on her habitat. Perhaps others were confused, as well, which might explain why nobody posted advice as soon as you would have liked.

In answer to your question about soaking and RI's, the possibility of developing a RI arises when she cannot warm up after bathing. Being "free range" will contribute to respiratory infections and poor digestion. They need to bask 2 hours at 95F or above for proper digestion. Tom also needs around 10 hours of UVB per day for bone health. I don't believe it would be beneficial for her to soak "all the time" since dragons do not do that in their natural habitat. She would be cold, unless you continually warmed the water, and I worry that her skin/scales would be compromised. I would give her one bath a day, which would allow her a nice swim and the opportunity to have a drink.

I hope this helps.

 

[TOMTHEDRAGON]

thanks! yes my basking temps on her basking spot are 110 f i measure with digital thermometre and she has a UBV reptisun 10.0.

also today i would like to clerify that i didnt mean to say she soaks A lot i mean she soaks for short periods around twice a day then goes back to basking. she has been fine with this setup for quite a while.

thanks again for replying, finally someone

 

[Esther19]

110F is a bit high. What type of thermometer are you using to measure temps?

 

[Taterbug]

Soaking can be a response to overheating or discomfort from things like shedding or mites.

10hr off UVB exposure isn't nessisary if you have high output lights (like T5, MVB or MH) but adequate heat will be harder to maintain free range - the thermal gradient from the room to the baskig area will be very steep and require that the lizard shuttle in and it more. Very large enclosures are possible but folks who do so usually provide many large basking sites with various temperatures (I've seen ranges of 90-130 when multiple sites are offered).

 

[TOMTHEDRAGON]

thanks tater!
unfortunatly i am not made of money lol so i cant afford a fecal right now but i will say this: her stools seem totally normal not very runny she poops once a day or two. she has regular white urates.
so i dont think parasites are an issue. she eats regualar dusted crix.

thanks!

PS: i live in a very mild climate. not too cold. and i will try to reduce temps a little bit.

and i use a digital thermometre not sure what brand because the package was gone a long time ago.

 

[TOMTHEDRAGON]

HERE IS SOME PICS OF HER SETUP: http://postimg.org/image/ss09jhyxn/

and: http://postimg.org/image/r7wa1634b/

those are some pics of her current setup.

she is very used to it so i dont really want to move her somewhere else but since i love my beardie i will if i have to.

thanks you as you may notice one of the photos has a tupperware water dish and the other was a little out dated. that log is now, as of today gone now i use a cage lid as a ramp instead. the log was an experiment to see if she could climb it, she found it very hard so yeah that log in picture just think of it as a old cage lid. :|