Help a Daddy Out!!

One last tip this morning- a fun "game" is to put the dragon out on a clear floor in the room, and toss a cricket a few feet away from him and watch him chase it down. Then you can go a little farther away from the dragon each time until he runs across the room to chase down the insect. It is pretty exciting and funny to watch.
 
What a handsome fellow. Congrats!

Note: I buy orchard grass hay as a treat for my dwarf rabbit at the petstore. A 15 oz bag costs around $5 and lasts for awhile for one pet.
 
Here is the care sheet from beardeddragon.org. For diet, juveniles eat mostly bugs while adults eat mostly plant matter. But, each Beardie is different. I leave a bowl of leafy salad in spike's cage, but he will typically only eat it if I hand feed him (what a diva). They don't drink standing water. They stay hydrated through bathing them 1-2 times per week for 15 min in very shallow water supervised. They absorb water directly from their vent.

http://www.beardeddragon.org/articles/caresheet/
 
fluxlizard said:
One last tip this morning- a fun "game" is to put the dragon...
Click to expand...

What the hell?? One last tip?
You can't just drop me like that! ;)

Have you ever thought about putting a book on bd's together? Seriously.


King Beardo has had a slight renovation...wood chips gone (although he did, as you so rightly said, swallow 2 pieces whilst grabbing a black cricket from a spoon, very posh lol ) He wasnt choking or any difficulty in swallowing from what I could see).
He smashed through about 20 crickets!! He loves spinach too. I will check out the iguana salads, as KBs previous owner said he doesnt like tge pellets but will def try them tomorrow
So, newspaper flooring for now til I look into other options...just to be clear, I fed KB the crickets before clearing out the wood chips as I know he has gone over 8 days without any bugs and I had a busy night ahead. Once the evenings chores were done however I got to work on the viv! My son is loving every minute spent with The King too:-)

I also need to research on his surroundings to keep him happy and stimulated.
Someone mentioned a brick to keep nails trim?
So he has settled well and seems very content, inquisitive, alert and very cheeky (seriously).
Tomorrow King Beardo will have the house to himself! We are going to let him roam the house ( he waz very keen to come out of the viv tonight but we had a few guests round and by the time they had left it was time for the kids to hit the hay and I promised little man we would let KB have his first free roam from the viv together).
So far we have stroked him a few times on his head and back. A couple of times he puffed up a little, but no real aggression or attempt to bite etc. He hasnt been held much, if at all really, for about 4 weeks so I want to earn his trust. It has barely been 24 hours lol. I am trying to let KB guide me to some extent, in so much as long as he is happy chilling in his viv, getting used to his new view, eating well etc then I see that as a good start but please feel free to share any opinion on this. Tomorrow, young Son, King Beardo and I will have the house to ourselves for most of the day to spend some quality time!

I will leave you with this quote

"Daddy, we actually have a dragon in our house. He is the best pet ever!"
 
20131031_231946.jpg

Sleepin with the lights off tonight!
 
fluxlizard said:
One last tip this morning- a fun "game" is to put the dragon out on a clear floor in the room, and toss a cricket a few feet away from him and watch him chase it down. Then you can go a little farther away from the dragon each time until he runs across the room to chase down the insect. It is pretty exciting and funny to watch.
Click to expand...

This!!!!!
KB will have a big 'open day' tomorrow with a focus on letting him roam the house to find his fav spots and also a focus on bonding and stroking and holding him (oo-er!) lol
KB is 20131031_080047.jpg slowly taking over our lives and we love it!!
 
KB had a lovely time strolling around the house for a coiple of hours yesterday. We played the game whihc fluxlizrd suggested and let me tell you, I havent seen my son smile so much in ages lol. He was beside himself with pure joy!! Stroking KB and having him out of the viv was just the beginning! Today is bath day!
 
Carlton said:
If someone were to ask me what my beardie was like I would usually say "a little spiny lapdog". I'd normally kept classically solitary antisocial herps, but when I took in this rescue adult male he changed my world. He would follow me around the house, make a point of climbing into my lap for pet sessions (and a warm up), seemed to soak up handling, rode around on my shoulder (on a leash as he'd jump down to greet anyone he saw), was so responsive and friendly I couldn't believe it. We benefit because beardies are semi-colonial in the wild and have more highly developed social behaviors than most other herps.

Really, for most kids this is by far the better choice. They still need the correct temps and lighting chams do (so the techy side of designing their cage is still intriguing), but their diets are easier and better understood. They are also produced widely and you might be able to get an older juvenile (hatchlings will be fragile for a while) or adult from a herp humane society or rescue group who may know their animals' individual personalities enough to ensure a good match with your son.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, it has got me thinking. The cham was supposed to be my
Oldest sons pet but has largely become mine because of the husbandry/location/interest. My youngest son has shown that he could handle one but wants to get him out of the cage all the time. I'm thinking about getting them their own dragons for Xmas now...
 
He is sooo cute! Your pictures are making me want one, so I can't come back to this thread...lol. I think you made a great decision, and KB is lucky to have such a great new home. :)
 
MelissaB said:
He is sooo cute! Your pictures are making me want one, so I can't come back to this thread...lol. I think you made a great decision, and KB is lucky to have such a great new home. :)
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Thanks MelissaB! He is such an amzing creature with a brilliant personality! Even when he is grumpy lol
 
Hey guys!! Hope all is well with everyone.
KB is dong fine and well and everyday is a new experience with him, literally!

I am having a slight problem with feeding at the moment....

black cricket and locusts are all being readily consumed by KB, and when we first got him, baby spinach and rocket leaves were being gulped down.... Then I read that Spinach binds calcium...so I got some Kale and Carrot ....and he really doesn't want to know! I have tried this for the last two days and he just ignores his food......any suggestions???
 
The thing to consider is that most things, even spinach, are fine in moderation and most things have negatives attached as well, but the calcium binders get a disproportionate amount of bad press. Unfairly I think at times- the total diet needs to be considered and everything is a balancing game. But what happens often is a little bit of knowledge ends up being focused on rather than the whole picture, so you get lots of hobbyiests saying "spinach is bad, collard greens are good" Therefore never feed spinach, feed lots of collards. It's a little more complex than that in reality. For example calcium binders can have their negatives cancelled out simply by offering more items higher in calcium.

Which is why feeding mainly rep-cal pellets with the other stuff as side items for variety makes things a little easier especially as you start to get rolling.

OK, so lets say your dragon likes spinach but not carrots, and not collard greens. shred a little spinach, shred some carrots, shred some collards and use collards as your base, with a bit less carrots and even less spinach. Chop it up like coleslaw (do that have that in the UK? LOL) and then mix it all together so if the lizard wants his naughty spinach, he's going to get carrots and collards along with. The next feeding use 3 other ingredients, 1 might be a little fruit sometimes. you can add mealworms or similar wormy creatures deep into the salad so it wriggles and he wants mealworms so he grabs salad with them at first until he gets a taste for it.

You can also play with the amounts- lots of spinach at first and small amounts of carrots, gradually decreasing over time to little bit of spinach and lots of carrots for example.

With the salad- try not to feed too much of any one thing if you are going pellet free. I used to feed no single ingredient more than a couple times a week, 3 ingredients every feeding and naughty stuff like spinach as a single ingredient only (no spinach and cabbage in same meal for example) and only a couple times per week as well- there are benefits the naughty stuff has so don't omit it entirely. Come to think of it, I'm partial to use equal amounts of 3 ingredients and just limit the total by limiting how often I offer it as one of the 3 ingredients. So if spinach is a fav, don't be afraid to use it as 1 ingredient now and again.

The negatives are the same for humans too by the way and we still get on fine when using it as part of a variety.
 
Fluxlizard, many thanks again for the invaluable advice!
I added some chopped sugar snap peas last night and they went down a treat!

Off to the grocery store this evening to get a mixture of fruit and veg for KB.

Oh and yes, we do have Coleslaw over here LOL!
Mmmmmmmmmmmm....Coleslaw! :)
 
hello friends! how goes it?
I hope you are your reptiles are al well and good.
Just a quick note to let you all know that owning a beardie, especially one as awesome as King Beardo!

My son adores him! It really has been an amazing first month getting to know the little critter!
 
Glad to hear that everything is going great 1 month in. Responses may be a little slow today since we're all in turkey comas on this side of the pond :D
 
Mike we have recently received our Nosy Be and Luke Skywalker (his Sire was Vader) has won everybody over in the first 24 hours. He had his first shed yesterday and is looking quite handsome today. My family had never experienced reptiles like I did growing up, but they now as in love with him as I am.

King Beardo is such a great name. Glad you all have the fever. It never goes away.
 
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