What should I do when...

[KLB85]

I posted about this earlier, but still have a few unanswered questions, so I'm hoping to hear some advice and personal experiences. My baby beardy is only about 5 inches long and 5-6 weeks old. She is scared of being touched or picked up and I'm so confused because I've read that some people say to keep trying when they run away, and others say to slowly build up trust so they're not scared, and not to force handling. What should I do when she runs away? Should I try to pick her up or should I leave her alone and try later? How many times a day should I try so I'm not stressing her out too much? I'm worried that if I leave her alone, she'll start to associate my hand with being scared. But I'm also worried that if I don't leave her alone, I'll stress her too much. I am trying to feed her from hand and she will eat butternut squash from tweezers, but not from between my fingers yet. Hoping to build up trust with feeding, so she views my hands as a good thing eventually. Please help!

 

[Garrus]

This may not mean much coming from a new dragon dad, but honestly? I would only handle as needed. If you do not have one already, get a separate feeding enclosure. Feed your dragon her the feeder insects in there. This will hopefully build a very obvious association that you mean food. Mine was raised that way by the breeder, and he clearly seems to "get" the connection between the giant hands from the sky and food. Not that he doesn't have his own opinions about being whisked away from his favorite basking spot for it...

 

[kingofnobbys]

Please don't chase her about trying to grab her . All she is seeing a huge looming figure towering over her (terrifying to her) and a five headed snakelike monster chasing her and grabbing her. Put yourself in her position. This will only reinforce her fear of you.

You need to earn her trust , affection will soon follow.

I found with skittish baby skinks and hatchling dragons it was less stressful when it was necessary put them out to change the paper toweling , spot clean or recapture crickets who were hiding that if the little lizard moved to the back of the rearing tub it was less stressful for it if I reach in slowly with long twig , slipped it under their arms and chest , they instinctively grasp the end of it .
I then slowly lift it's end and them and then slowly draw them towards where you can either deposit them on an open up facing hand or slip your hand under their body and all their limbs (at this stage I place my cupped right hand over them and deposit them either in temporary tub or on my tummy or chest with the weight of my left wrist resting on skinny end of their tail (this discourages them from leaping or dashing off and away)).

I kept handing to a minimum for the first month or so , only taking them out/handling them if necessary and for the shortest time. I have a bonding ritual I go through with all my young new pet lizards that involves having a snuggle and a little bit of petting while I handfeed them the first few crickets each day , I do this every day , they soon learn the handfeeding lurk and soon associate being taken out with nice experiences .

I slowly built up the contact time until my gang became perfectly comfortable being picked up and petted and they now seek us out .

I have all my pets in vivs and rearing tubs in our living area and the spend a lot of time studying me (I'm retired) each day and I often speak to them. It's important to let the lizard study you and learn you are not going to harm it.

I found using a separate feeding tub was not very effective (my young lizards all were more interested in getting out than eating) so I resorted to feeding in the rearing tub, if it's crickets I simply deposited a few in the rearing tub were the little lizard could see them ,and kept doing this until each lost interest.
Please , if you have more than one baby lizard / hatchling sharing the same viv , separate them as cohabition of dragons nearly always ends badly . They will each have a much better chance of thriving if housed in separate vivs or rearing tubs.

 

[KLB85]

Thank you for your suggestions! Unfortunately she will not eat in a separate tub, as she just wants to get out and won't focus on the food. I wish she would, because then she could associated being taken out of her tank with food and positivity. She seems to be the hungriest in the morning shortly after her lights turn on, but she takes a lot of time to think about eating a bug. I see videos of people putting babies in tubs and dumping in nymph roaches and they go crazy, eating as many as they can. She will watch them for quite some time before making the decision to get one. She then only eats maybe 1-3 before sitting on her branch and not eating anymore until later in the day. She seems to only eat 4-7 roaches a day, but she's getting bigger, so I hope she's eating enough. I've tried to give her roaches using tweezers, but she will not eat them from the tweezers. She also refuses to each the roaches out of a dish and will only eat them if she can "hunt" them. She will however, eat some butternut squash and greens from the tweezers, so I am going to start trying to feed her her veg from my fingers too. Do you think veg will have the same affect as feeding her bugs from my fingers, trust wise?

I think your suggestion of putting her on a branch and then placing her on my open palm is a great idea. She has some grape branches and absolutely loves them, so I'm sure she would instinctively jump onto a branch. I'm concerned she's too small and frightened at this stage to take her out of her viv and bring her to my chest, I'm worried if she made a sudden get away, she might get hurt or it could be a frightening experience for the both of us if I can to chase her around the room to retrieve her.

Yesterday we had to remove her from her tank to clean it. We found the easiest way was to remove her branches and herd her to a corner. From there, she of course starts trying to climb the walls to escape, so my boyfriend slowly put his hand under her and got her on his hand. Once on his hand she seemed to sit still..I'm not sure if it was out of fear or not, but he then slowly covered his other hand over her to lift her into the holding bin.

She's going through a shed right now and is miserably cranky, so I'm leaving her be until she's done. Do you think I should try the branch to hand method every day to get her used to my hand? My one concern, is that to "catch" her onto the branch, I will have to remove the stuff from her tank everytime, as it's too hard to get to her around everything. Will this be too stressful for her?

 

[kingofnobbys]

..
. . She also refuses to each the roaches out of a dish and will only eat them if she can "hunt" them. She will however, eat some butternut squash and greens from the tweezers, so I am going to start trying to feed her her veg from my fingers too. Do you think veg will have the same affect as feeding her bugs from my fingers, trust wise?

<<< I never use tweezers to hand feed my gang.

I simply use crickets (of appropriate size which are gutloaded and dusted). These I take 2 or 3 from the dusting tub, I squash their heads , this disables and blinds them , and I pull off the biggest (hind) legs.
I refer to the legs are drumsticks (ala chicken drumsticks) , I position little lizard on my chest with it's head facing me and my left hand cupped over the lizard and my left wrist resting on lizards tail (the end of it - this tends to discourage the lizard from dashing off) .
Timing is everything.

Take a drumstick and slip it thick end first into the side of the lizard's mouth , a little bit pressure might be required , while lizard chews the drumstick , position the gooy end of the cricket (head) against the side of the mouth , hungry lizard will taste the cricket's inards and eat it (watch your finger tips here, if enthusiastic it's not uncommon to get an accidential nip on the finger tips)..
Repeat.

This worked for me for baby bluetongue skinks, a water skink, and my beardies when they were young.

Everyone who handfeeds their pet lizards has their own approach , here's one of many utube clips to show how to do it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYVe79z5wEM , i'm a bit gentler than this guy , but I pull down on the lower lip enough to get the mouth open enough to slip one end of the bug in.
Here's another approach by someone else : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbhjaFS0eBA




She's going through a shed right now and is miserably cranky, so I'm leaving her be until she's done. Do you think I should try the branch to hand method every day to get her used to my hand? My one concern, is that to "catch" her onto the branch, I will have to remove the stuff from her tank everytime, as it's too hard to get to her around everything. Will this be too stressful for her?

they can be grumpy when in shed....

 

[KLB85]

Okay so good news! She turned uber grumpy from shedding, so I haven't been trying to pick her up lately. But she's had a piece of back shed stuck on her for a few days, so I thought I should give her her first bath. I actually put a glass dish inside of her tank with lukewarm water, as not to make the transition too stressful for her, and I attempted to pick her up. It went better than ever!! She was on the end of her stick in an awkward position, so the only way I could get to her was to reach my hand over and gently put my fingers under her to fully support her body and legs. For the first time, she didn't try to run, she just sort of ducked her head, winced her eyes, lol, and let me pick her up. She squirmed, but I gently moved her to her bath. She jumped out at first and I picked her up again and put her back in. She relaxed and I was even able to pet her back! Such a great step forward Some of her back shed came off, but she's still shedding all down her legs and top of her tail, so I'll probably try the same thing in the next day or two. Near the end of the bath when she seemed to want out, she went to the side of the dish and she sort of put her head underwater a few times, like she was trying to look under the water or out the sides of the dish. Is that normal? I didn't know, so I took her out, and she got nice and warm in her basking spot.