Terri Sommella Fire and Ice Dragons -- Nightmare

Stephanie,

If the breeder who hatched and raised them, has not prepared them for changes, you need to do it slowly. First you need to find out how the breeder kept them. Some are in glass tanks, some are in reptariums, some are kept in non see through white bins and these are the ones that have the hardest time adjusting to a new home... especially if they are fed in them, which means they are not handled much usually.

I did not know for sure how Terri kept hers, she has never displayed any photo's on her site of babies for sell or their set ups. We thought from the high stress rate of them, it was in the bins, then in November she posted on another website "We solved the original problem of paper towels with hatchlings by removing the paper towel before feeding. Once the babies have eaten, the bin is spot cleaned and a fresh paper towel set in place". ...... so that told us they were bin raised and fed in the same bin.

Babies raised like that do not see people coming, have little contact or see people during the course of the day, they rarely see people at all. When fed, crickets are dropped into the tanks by a scoop or hand.....naturally when they go to a new home with 4 glass walls and seeing people all the time, they are terrified and stressed out really bad... all day, everyday. Suddenly there is this huge world outside their enclosure.

When someone buys a baby raised like this, you need to follow what was done with them prior, as much as possible(like covering with paper all sides of the tank) and slowly change things for them till they trust you, the best time to do that is when you feed them. A healthy baby loves to eat and chase crickets, try them in a different feeding areas, like a reptarium, another covered glass tank, a plastic Rubbermaid tub. You have to pick them up then and put them in another place for the good stuff. They learn to associate your hands and being held with something they like and that when you have them, something good is going to happen. At first, once they have eaten, place them back in the enclose that was like they were raised in. After a week you can start spending more time with them after they eat. Wrapping them in a hand towel or washrag gives them a feeling of security, but they can see you... Slowly you open back up their enclosure area, once they trust you, one side at a time... eventually the babies will want to stay with you and you know you are over the rough time.

Its sad that they have spend the first 2-3 months like this, but some breeders do it as they just do not have the time to spend with ones when they are producing a lot of babies. babies raised in reptariums or glass enclosures always see people, so they do not know to fear something different.. its the norm for them and those usually have little problem adjusting in a new home.

Ours are raised in mesh reptariums during the day since we are in Florida and they go outside during most days, but when they come in late afternoon, they are fed their second round of cricks in a glass tank with carpet on the floor while we clean their mesh enclosures. When cold or they are several weeks old, they go into glass enclosures and then are fed in the mesh reptariums.. so they are use to both. We also prep them for the 48 hours before shipping for the trip, rare is the time any do not come out of the shipping box to their new homes ready to eat, curious and relaxed.

Instead of screaming at new owners to cover up the sides or leave the dragons alone (which is hard when you have to try and feed/hydrate stressed out babies and then have to medicate them too)... its better if the breeder preps them for changes, MUCH better for the dragons too!

Good luck with your babies, if you need any additional help, please contact me, I was going to email this to you, but thought other breeder, new owners or future ones might like to see it also.

She is posting on Kingsnake, WITH PICTURES, selling babies at a reasonable price, so maybe she will change her ways? She does have some very nice dragons, and I think she could be a very important part of the bearded dragon selling scene again..I hope to give her, at some point, some trust that she has grown and learned, Once she has made things right, with the people she has wronged..

I am glad us " in the know" have choices of whom we buy from. I hope this thread will serve as a reference base for newbies looking to buy. There are so many other breeders that are honest, provide excellent customer service, with OUTSTANDING dragons at a reasonable cost. Gotta show off my new female from Brandon at Dragons by Nature. She will be 6 months old soon and 250 grams. She pounds roaches and silkworm like no tomorrow..Thanks,B for everything...

It seems silly to respond this now but I thought I would share my experience with Fire and Ice. I had never bought animal before purchaing form Terri. I am a vet tech and all of my animals have come to me as rescues. I had just lost my rescue Dragon of 8 years and I was missing him so I decided to buy one. I had seen their ad in Reptiles and took a look at their website. They ahe some really beautiful animals and I fell in love with the "Citrus" line. I emailed Terri and explained what I was looking for. She said she would send me Citrus "holdback" (of course). I told her I was not willing to pay anymore than $250 for a dragon (which for someone who has never bought an animal was a LOT of money, but I wanted a nice dragon.) My rescue was a wonderful beardie and a great pet but very deformed due to his previous home and bout with MBD, so I was looking for a "pretty" and healthy dragon. There were no pictures on teh website of the babies and I was so new to purchasing animals I didn't even know to expect one so no picture was offered. AFTER she shipped him to me she told me that she decided to send me a Red Flame male instead. Well, he was on his way and Terri had my money so I went with it. I didn't care about breeding, but I was a little disappointed that I was not getting what we had originally agreed on, a Citrus. When Fuego (his name now) arrived he was fat and healthy and beautiful (I now know, he was not $250 beautiful, but pretty none the less). It took him about a week to eat and 10 days to eat normally. I took him to the vet on day 2 because I work for a vet and I wanted to make sure he was parasite-free and healthy. He had a low level of coccidia and pinworms which he was dewormed for. I did not have any health probelms him at all. He is an awesome dragon and I wouldn't trade him fo the world, but I definitely think I was taken advantage of. Terri was very hard ro get a hold of and several times during the transaction I was left wondering if we were going to have a deal at all. She has nice dragons, as I have said I love Fuego and couldn't be happier with him, but I have since purchased from other breeders like Dragons By Nature and had a very different and much better experience. I hope Terri sees this as the constructive criticism it is meant to be and changes how she does business. Here is a picture of Fuego taken this summer. He was 8 months old at the time>. He is much more yellow/orange than red, but such as mellow awesome pal I don't care that he isn't the color he is supposed to be.

A breeder takes it upon herself to just send you something different.

Terri has the best scam going in the business!

Originally Posted by mikey

She does have some very nice dragons

What are you basing that assessment on?

Some of her dragons are nice colours, yes, but after reading everything here and looking over her site, I'm not so sure about the *health* of her lines. A number of her dragons are very small for their age, moody, and barren. She talks a lot about "tracing healthy genetic lines" but won't discuss the lineage of her dragons when you contact her as a potential seller, which makes me highly suspicious.

I really suspect that her dragons are of inferior genetic stock due to how many people have spoken up about sickly dragons, and how small the majority of her stock seems to be.

So, I personally do not consider her dragons to be "nice". You can even find better colour morphs than what she offers, and for a much more reasonable price. Even better, however, I know of colour morph breeders who are only too happy to get out their charts and prove that inbreeding does not occur within their lines.

Just to be fair. Fuego has always been healthy and he's 19 1/2 inches and 400 grams at 16 months old.

Stacey Rader

Stacey, I guess you are one of the lucky ones. Did you not say that your dragon had coccidia & pinworms? You are very lucky that these parasites did not go out of control like mine did. I followed every direction she gave me and still we are dealing with resistant coccidia. I took her off the Albon about 3 weeks agao and she is finally eating better on her own. Jill is 6 1/2 months old and only weighs 127 grams. But I do have to say she has very pretty coloring.

Also, When I bought the dragon from Terri, she did inform me about the registry, and that this was included with the price of the dragon. Jill is now registered CMPR. If that makes a difference, I don't know.

I do wish Terri luck in her buisness. Hopefully she will now post pics of her dragons and stand by her guanantee. I just have alot of anger torwards her for sending me a sick dragon from the start. All the money I have spent so far on vet & med bills, the worry and tears I've cried, all adds up. When I seen this post I had to let people know what I have been through.

Pic of Jilly:

Sorry, I have been trying to respond to this thread for days now and I keep having problems doing so. I'm going to try and send a pic again.

One more try. The Pic is not that good, but you'll get the jist. She is part of the lemon citrus line.