Why is he so small?

[Hailey1110]

I’ve been posting on here since I got my little guy, and if anyone remembers I probably had a different age each time I talked about him . But at this point I really do believe he’s about a year and one month maybe a year and two. But anyways I feel like he’s just soooo tiny, he is 20 inches long, but he just seems so little to me what do you guys think? (The water bottle is a mini 10 oz one, he ran over to it so I figured that would be a good size reference) I just want to see if maybe he is a little bit of a runt maybe? I feel like all the beardies I see are chubbier and just bigger overall

 

[hdochow]

how much does he weigh? that's a pretty normal length.

 

[Hailey1110]

how much does he weigh? that's a pretty normal length.

I just weighed him to answer your question
He is 465 grams, I know that’s a normal weight, but he just seems so little

 

[hdochow]

oh yeah, that's totally fine. part of the problem is a lot of dragons are actually overfed and bigger than they should be, so when you compare your dragon to them, yours seems small. the way i think of it is, a runt is only the smallest of the litter, or in our case, clutch. when you get a particular animal out of that environment and compare to others, runt no longer applies. your dragon looks great so i think you're a-ok. that's one chonky tail!

 

[Hailey1110]

oh yeah, that's totally fine. part of the problem is a lot of dragons are actually overfed and bigger than they should be, so when you compare your dragon to them, yours seems small. the way i think of it is, a runt is only the smallest of the litter, or in our case, clutch. when you get a particular animal out of that environment and compare to others, runt no longer applies. your dragon looks great so i think you're a-ok. that's one chonky tail!

Thank you so much! I thought that might be the case, it just was so stuck in my head because I have a good bit of friends with beardies and theirs are all big chonkers

 

[hdochow]

they are so gooooooood at getting us stuck in our heads!!! i worry about owners that don't worry.

i had to teach myself to not compare sir henry of scales to other beardies right off the bat. when we rescued him at 6 months old, he was the size of a hatchling, about 8 grams and shorter than my index finger (i have very small hands), full of parasites, and nearly dead. obviously i couldn't compare him to other 6 month olds that had not been maltreated. so the understandable thing to do was to track his progress and compare him to his past. he just turned 3, and is 22 inches and weighed in this morning at 548 grams.

 

[xp29]

I agree with hdo, and he looks very good

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

I concur, he looks perfectly fine, very healthy! He will continue to fill out into his second year.
Plus, they all grow at a little different rate, too.

Tracie