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new dragon owner with a few questions

F

fiestyjess

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So, we have 3 Dragons, 2 of them are almost 8 weeks, the other is 4 weeks. they get along great. The little one likes to ride around the older ones backs through the tank lol..


my question is, how much greens should they be eating in a day? we give them about 3 tsp's of turnip/collard greens, a tsp of squash, and some carrots or other veggie to munch on through out the day, as well as crickets(will be switching to roaches).. is this too much, because are not eating all of it, it seems like they hardly touch it?
i know their diet is primarily protein right now, so im not sure how many crickets we should be going through either.
the 2 older dragons seem to eat about 15 crickets each a day, where the little one seems to be eating maybe 6 or 7.. is this ok?
 
When they're babies and juveniles, beardies tend not to be too big of fans of veggies. I would offer a little to them every day to get them used to the taste but don't be too shocked if they don't eat too much of it. At their age, when they're in rapid growth, they should be eating upwards of 30 small crickets a day. What size are you feeding them? And do you have all 3 housed in the same tank?
 
yeah they are all together in a 55gallon tank right now, we will be upgrading tanks in a few months.
i have tried increasing their cricket amount, but they don't eat them all, i end up picking out 15 or so at the end of the day that they didn't eat.
the 2 older dragons just did a big shed, the little one is about too. they are getting medium crickets, well, medium and smalls for the little one. about 3/8 i guess is the size.
 
I wanna recommend beardeddragon.org. It's a really good site/forum where you can probably get faster response than here. I would recommed you separate your bearded dragons ASAP, especially the smaller one. Dragons are very unpredictable when housed together, and could be fine one day and the next day you'd end up with a couple of dragons who have missing toes or nipped tails.

What are their lengths right now? If would think that mediums are still too big for the larger dragons. When Darwin was 6"-10" I was feeding no bigger than pinhead and eventually 1/2" crickets. Make sure that the crickets are no bigger than the space between their eyes to minimize the risk of impaction.

Make sure your basking temp is 105ish, measured by a digital thermometer with a probe, and that you have a good source of UVB. They grow fast, Darwin grew from 6" to 16.5" in 4 months. Oh and be sure to take out all crickets at the end of the day, they can and will nibble on your beardies when they're asleep.
 
most of that info you gave Darwin, I got from our breeder, but ty!
my crickets, are no bigger then the space between their eyes, i knew that. We have a mixture of smalls and mediums(probably not that exact size but we confirmed with the breeder the size we purchased was good for the size of dragons we have).
Thor and Batman(my 4 yr old named them lol) are the 2 bigger ones. They just shed yesterday. Batman is 7 3/4 inches long, and Thor is 7 1/2 inches long. Tinkerbell, the smaller one is 2 3/4 inches, however, she is missing half a tail(born that way) so she is probably right at or a little over 3 inches if she had a full tail. her favorite hobby is to ride around on the back of our other 2. we had many discussions with our breeder before putting them all together.

about the basking area, i am having an easy time maintaining 105 in the area, however, their basking rock, the surface temp according to the probe is like 115-120, i have it turned down now so the surface area is about 110 right now, but im not sure if its ok if the surface area is hotter?
 
Well if you decide to house them together, that's ultimately your choice. Just keep an eye on them, you never know when the fickle things might change their minds. Basking temperature is the highest that you want your temperatures to go. 105-100F is generally recommended, any higher and it generally tends to lead to faster dehydration. I normally will take a reading where I think is hottest, and place the probe directly on the basking rock. I'll maintain that at 105. I think if you have it hotter, the beardie will move himself to maintain proper temperatures. I think keeping the 110 you have now would be perfect. I've heard that beardies don't have sensitive bellies, so they'll often times end up burning themselves there, which is why heat rocks are so bad for them.

It's good you did your research. I'm an active member of bd.org and you won't believe the number of people we have who don't consult a breeder or even the "bad" petstore advice they're given and then wonder why their dragon is so sick.
 
i am thankful we had friends who owned beardies several years ago, and i listened well. but we have wonderful local breeder who we spent nearly 2 months preparing for these guys before bringing them home.
We do watch them closely, especially with the size difference of the 2 boys and the little one(who we dubbed Tinkerbell lol). I am thankful they have not had any tiff's!
We just completed building them a new basking rock/area thing. So When we put it in tomorrow I will check the surface on it with the probe as well, since its not rock like what they have now.. :)
Im headed over to bd.com now to join :)
 
i am thankful we had friends who owned beardies several years ago, and i listened well. but we have wonderful local breeder who we spent nearly 2 months preparing for these guys before bringing them home.
We do watch them closely, especially with the size difference of the 2 boys and the little one(who we dubbed Tinkerbell lol). I am thankful they have not had any tiff's!
We just completed building them a new basking rock/area thing. So When we put it in tomorrow I will check the surface on it with the probe as well, since its not rock like what they have now.. :)
Im headed over to bd.com now to join :)
 
Hypo is when the dragons nails are completely clear and het means they carry the genetics to produce off spring with that have that charactoristic like het for hypo means that dragon had a parent with clear nails but doesnt have the clear nails itself but if paired with another hypo or het for hypo will produce some or all offspring with hypo
 
het means they carry the gene but don't show it, hypo means clear nails and lacks the black pigment.

i know your breeder said you could house them together, but its so he could sell you more. you NEED to separate them. whats more important to you, the well being of your animals, or what looks better for you?

do whats right, separate them before one gets hurt or even killed. not to mention the stress from living together in such a small space. imagine sharing your bedroom you spend 24/7 in with someone your whole life. its irritating as hell and like being in prison. do you really want that for them?
 
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