Updates on the new kids....

[Kevin Coy]

here are the latest pics, This site has given me a bunch of great info to read through. these are our first bearded dragons, and I have to say I was wrong. I have always had very aggressive monitors and such, and still do love them, my oldest monitor was a savannah at 9 years, he was 3 1/2 ft without tail and was like a dog, never eaten live food only dead, so he lost that "kill" instict. anyway I always thought beardies were boring, till the kids wanted some, and since I was lizardless I fell for the please dad... pics of them as babies(3 weeks) were in the other thread, but now they are 3 months old and the new pics are in....

 

[Jp]

The good thing is, ur not lizardless anymore & your dragons look great. Thanx 4 the update.

 

[Brett]

The look fat and healthy

 

[Fliehigh]

Hey Kevin

You little ones look great.

2 questions for you:

1) are they housed together
2)are they still on sand?

Remeber, unlike other reptiles they are solitary animals when it comes to other reptiles and especially othe dragons. Two dragons (no matter what the sex) can get along fine, but will still always show signs of dominance, and then one day one will hurt or kill the other.
Also with sand, dragons have a habit of tasting everything and end up ingesting the sand which then causes impacting that can sometimes kill them as well.

So far I think the two little ones look great though, so just some things to think about when it comes to dragons.

 

[Kevin Coy]

yes, they are housed together, in process of building 2 seperate enclosures. I got them knowing that in a few months they would need seperated, and now I am within a week or so of having it done. as for the sand, my local breeder recommended it, it actually is the finely crushed walnut. I do not feed them in this cage except for the dish of greens they get. all the roaches, worms, and crickets are fed in a seperate enclosure.

 

[Fliehigh]

Particle (sand, cocnut husk, Crushed walnut, calcisand) substrates (Bottom coverings) can be very dangerous to bearded dragons. You may have noticed that dragon licks everything, well they lick the substarte as well and when they eat they can sometimes ingest it. This becoames a problem as the particles can and will get lumped together in their intestine causing a blockage (know as Impaction).

In the wild dragons live on VERY hard packed soil, not sand, which most people assume due to the fact they come fromt he deserts in Austrailia. The closest thing we can provide them as ground covering would be a textured tile of some type. I personally use ceramic tile that has a textured top and it works great.

Alot of people use eaither Tile, shelf liner or reptile carpit. I went with the tile becasue it also helps wear down their claws (which they need or you will have to manually cut them). I also recommend never gluing or grouting them in to you VIV as you will want to take them out to clean.

Old methods (husbandry) for keep dragons was to keep them on sand or other particle substrates but when we looked at why some dragons were dieing at early ages, it was found that some where due to impaction from substrate. Most owners now use Non-Particle coverings. Below is dragon that died from Cali-sand (once thought to be digestable) impaction and no matter what, the ground/crushed shell substrates CANNOT be digested easily by dragons.

Now saying all of this, I do know experienced dragon owners that keep them on sand. Like your self they do feed them in the VIV and they do a complete clean of teh VIV every week at least. Think of the particles on the bottom as a Dragon litter box, even if you take out the hard stuff there will still be fluids and bacteria that don't get when you spot clean after a bowl movement.

I am not trying to preach or tell you not to use what you are, I just want to inform you of somethings you may not have considered so your two new additions get to live a long happy, healthy life.

 

[Brett]

Good post Fliehigh

 

[Bill]

Great Post Fliehigh

 

[Kevin Coy]

cool, thanx for the info, and will take it into consideration. especially the tiles keeping nails filed down, that is a serious bonus.

 

[Fliehigh]

NP at all.