A New Arrival!

Well, thank goodness all the eggs aren't going bad now!  After Alpha and Beta hatched, the weather changed and the climate control in our building changed, and we really started having a hard time regulating the temperature and humidity in the incubator.  Our solution was to poke extra holes all around the sides of the tupperware container that the eggs are in, as well as opening the lid and fanning the bed of moist coconut husk once a day.  It seems to have paid off, because after losing three eggs, Charlie has hatched! 

(Beta on the left, Charlie on the right.  The pic doesn't do the size difference justice, but I don't like taking too much flash photography of the little ones so this will have to do.)

I knew that Alpha and Beta have grown over their five weeks of life, but I had no idea how much until I saw how tiny and wobbly Charlie is.  She's much too small to be put in with her sisters, so we've partitioned off their tank so Charlie can live on one side, and the other two on the other side.  Unfortunately, Charlie's twin egg is one of the ones that died, so she wont have company the same age as her like her sisters do.  Hopefully, the next two eggs hatch soon so there isn't too much size difference between them and Charlie and they can go in the same tank with her.

Cricket Crises Solved

So, I've moved the crickets to a cooler locale within the household and they're surviving much longer now.  This means that my dining room table has yet another non-dining-friendly fixture on top of it now, along with the geckos' egg incubator.  I figured it had to be the heat from being stored right above the tanks, and confirmed with Cameron that heat pretty much does the exact opposite as what cold does to crickets.  If you put your crickets in the fridge, their metabolisms slow down and they go dormant as though they were hibernating through the winter.  If they're too warm, though, their metabolisms speed up and they die in a matter days or even hours.  Good to know.

The lizards seem happy about it :)

~Jessica

Such a Ham

Okay, I know I write about Darwin a lot, but he's new to the family and he makes me laugh so much. I just had to post these pics of him being a ham... Teabagging the skull in his tank, and standing against the glass looking like a little old man with his arm resting on his big pot belly!

~J

Meet The Family

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In order of appearance:  Darwin (Super Red/Orange bearded dragon, male, 7 months), Alpha (Calico Leopard Gecko, female?, 2 weeks in pic), Beta (Calico Leopard Gecko, female?, same age as Alpha), Rex (Hypo-Tangerine Leo, male, 1 year), and Buddy (Leucistic Leo, female, 1 1/2 years).

Cricket Concern

(--> Darwin on John's lap)


So, having so many little reptilian mouths to feed has started to become a problem. I buy 50 large crickets, 50 small crickets, and a bunch of superworms... and two days later, all I have left are the superworms! They would last longer, mind you, if so many bloody crickets didn't up and croke on me. What the hell. They get gutload, fruit, veggies and Cricket Drink, so why are they dying so fast? The only thing I can think of is that they're kept on the shelf above the terrarium and it's quite warm up there. I think I'll try storing them somewhere cooler next time I can get out to get some, but until then what do I do about feeding Darwin? Rex and Buddy are full grown and don't need to eat daily, and the babies have the pinheads which are too small for Darwin. What about Darwin?


At 7 months old, Darwin should eat crickets daily. Today he's had two superworms and one cricket (that I stole out of Rex and Buddy's tank... tee hee), and then just his salad. I did give him a little piece of tuna, but he wasn't up for any more of that. I've never read anywhere that tuna is a good thing for beardies, but Cameron said he gives it to his beardies and he's been raising them for years so what the heck? I'm still worried, though, and can't get out to get him crickets until tomorrow afternoon at the soonest. My poor baby's gonna starve for a day, I guess... I just hope it doesn't do him any damage and that this "running out of crickets" thing doesn't happen on any kind of ongoing basis.

Sleeping Beauty

Darwin likes to sleep in some very strange positions that just make me giggle. This one, for instance, is of one of the funniest!

Just to make sure he was okay, though, and he wasn't sleeping against the glass because maybe it's too warm in his tank or something, I decided to google beardie sleeping habits. Well, apparantly sleeping in odd positions is quite normal for beardies, and this particular position seems to be a favourite.

Interesting little buggers.

Shedding Problem?

Okay, so since I helped him along with his shed he's been kinda lethargic. I saw him lying listlessly on his log and picked him up... He didn't react to being picked up at all, which is totally unlike him. He sat still and flat in my hand for about half an hour which had me very worried, so I put him back in his tank and put in a superworm as a treat to see if he'll at least eat, which he did.

I hope he's just tired from shedding. He ate his worm, so at least there's that. I have to leave for work in about 10 minutes, so hopefully when I come home tonight he'll be back to his usual rambunctious self.

Fingers crossed!

Shedding

Darwin is finally moving forward on his shed today. He shed his head about three days ago, and hasn't shed anything since. I tried giving him a little bath to help him along the other night, but he was not down with that at all.

You can see in this pic that his tail still needs to shed, and is a little peeley at the base. His body was all peeley this morning, so I took him out and gently helped him along. I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing to help your beardie shed, but I've seen Cameron gently peel back shed on various lizards at the store, so I imagine it's not such a big deal. I'm going to leave his tail alone, though, cuz it doesn't look as loose as his body skin was and it's not uncommon for a bearded dragon to shed in stages. His tail might not be ready to shed for another couple of days.

I can't wait until my baby is all growed up!

The New Neighbor Downstairs

Our two adult leopard geckos are named Rex and Buddy. Rex (above) is a male Hypo-Tangerine, and Buddy is a female Leucistic. The reason Buddy seems to have such a masculine name is simply because she was our very first lizard and we thought she was a he when we first brought her home. By the time we realized that she was female, the name was stuck.

Rex and Buddy live in a terrarrium on the top shelf of a unit that up until this week had no bottom neighbor. We just used the bottom shelf to hold all their "stuff", like crickets, mealworms, spray bottle, etc. When we brought Darwin home and set him up on the bottom shelf we quickly realized that the geckos no longer need their heat lamps because the sun lamps below their tank keep the sand directly above at a toasty 85-90 degrees. So... we spent close to $70 on lighting for Darwin, only to end up having extra lighting available because the geckos no longer need it. Go figure.

At first I thought that maybe we should return the $70 worth of lighting, but we've come to realize that once Rex and Buddy's babies are all hatched and ready, some of them are going to be moving into their parents' tank (or, rather, their mother's tank as Rex will be going to live with our friend Rob once the babies are ready to be integrated... John and I both take issue with letting the daddy breed with his daughters. It's not a big deal in the lizard world, but it creeps us out). At that point we might just put Darwin on top, and the geckos below and then we'll need those extra lights again. Also, you just never know when extra lighting will come in handy. Our first two baby geckos hatched just over a month ago, but we lost the second two eggs to mould. The next ones aren't due to hatch for another month or so and by then, Alpha* and Beta* might be too big to have in the same tank with the little ones.

*We're holding off on officially naming the babies because we aren't keeping all of them. We will keep the first two or three females and the rest will go to breeders and friends, but we wont know which ones are males and females for a awhile yet. The first female we keep will be Godzilla, because we promised Talon :D.

Darwin's Arrival

This is Darwin, a Super Orange/Red Bearded Dragon. He is about 7 months old, and is the newest addition to my fiance's and my reptile menagerie.

I only adopted him this week, on October 13th, so I am still learning all about beardies and their care. Up until now John and I have been keeping and breeding leopard geckos, but Darwin is my first foray into a slightly higher maintenance lizard. He's especially special to me because he's my lizard, whereas the geckos are more or less John's.

I can't tell you how paranoid and over-protective I've been about Darwin. Because I wasn't completely sure how old he was when I brought him home I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to do anything that could hurt him. Man, when you read about beardie care online you find a LOT of stuff that scares the bajeebus out of you. For instance, I read that if he ate a cricket that was too big for him, it might block his intestinal tract or it could even rupture his spinal column! Imagine my horror when I came home from work yesterday to have John tell me that he found a giant cricket in with the little ones and decided to give it to Darwin! I was worried about the little guy all night, until he finally took a nice huge poop and I realized he was just fine.

Today I went back to see Cameron at Aquarium Services to ask some vital questions about my new baby. I found out that Darwin is actually closer to 7 or 8 months old, not 4 or 5 like I thought, and that large crickets wont be a problem for him. I also picked up some Rep-Cal Herptivite multivitamin powder to mix with my Fluker's calcium powder, and some stuff to gutload my crickets called Zilla Cricket Drink. I guess this stuff isn't all necessary... I mean, you can just gutload crickets with whatever fruits or veggies you're feeding your beardie, but I want the healthiest little bearded dragon I can have! I also picked up some Zilla fortified bearded dragon food pellets to mix with his salad. This is not really necessary either, except that if I can get him used to eating this now, then I can leave him with just the pellets if we go away for a couple days without having to worry about having someone to go to the house and give him fresh crickets every day or two.

Every visit to Aquarium Services is dangerous for me, as my whole fascination with beardies came from a chance encounter with one there while we were shopping for gecko supplies. While John and Cameron chit-chatted for about an hour, I walked around the store with a big adult beardie clinging to my shirt and just chillin with me. I fell in love with the breed that day, and started researching and planning for one of my own. That was less than two months ago and I'm now the proud mommy of a 7 month old beardie! Today's visit was equally dangerous, as I got to interact with the sweetest, funniest little frilled lizard you ever met! John's youngest son, Talon, wants a frilled lizard so we asked Cameron to take one out of it's tank to show him. This lizard was such a character that now John and I are both brainstorming ways to fit a frilled lizard into our family. It wont be until after we buy a house now, as there simply is no more room for any more terrarriums, and we just quite frankly don't have the income right now to support another reptillian mouth to feed.

One day, though, we'll have a home full of happy reptiles! John's oldest son, Drake, wants a Chinese Water Dragon, although I've never met a very personable one. I like lizards that interact well with people... If you can't hold it, it's not worth it as far as I'm concerned. Take Darwin, for instance: He's been chillin on my arm the whole time I've been typing this. I think he likes watching the words move across the screen. :)