Jerry, Samantha, and Spike
Bearded Dragons
Jerry was our first Bearded Dragon and of the common breed. He grew up fast
and ate
 TONS
of crickets. We couldn't believe just how many bugs this guy could devour.
We had read that they would eat a lot but DAMN! Often we'd find Jerry on top
of his cork bark and leaping towards the glass wall. Luckily his water bowl
was just below that and he'd fall and make a splash. Personally we think he
just enjoyed cannonballing into his water bowl.
 When
we bought Samantha (AKA Sam, who is a partial snow beardie), Jerry took
quick notice even though she was 6 months younger than him. We introduced
him to her a few times but he would always flare and make his beard black,
and then charge
 at
her. We were worried that he might hurt her, but kept trying to introduce
them so that maybe he would calm down. Things weren't any better that he
could see her tank from his, and
 would
often flare his beard and head bob at her. He would then also dive off his
cork bark in her direction which was not towards the water bowl. Sam didn't
seem to care though. She just ate her crickets and appeared to mock him
occasionally knowing that we were protecting her from him.
Then for some reason (possibly his desperation to get to Sam), Jerry stopped
eating
 crickets
and mealworms. We let it go for a few days figuring that it'll pass and his
appetite will conquer him. No such luck. We took Jerry to a vet who said he
had calcium deficiency which is known to be a very common problem among
Bearded Dragons. It was rather hard to believe that since his crickets have
always had proper calcium powders and gut loading. But we took the doctors
advice and kept trying to get him to eat crickets. And when that didn't work
we took on the second idea; to mix Ensure with calcium powder and blend in
crickets. This was disgusting and required us to buy a blender just for him.
I fed him for months on this Ensure diet, and always first offered him
crickets, mealworms, wax worms, and even tried pinky mice. I also fed him a
spoon full of banana baby food twice a week. He flat out refused to hunt or
accept food that wasn't in the syringe. This went on for over a year and the
vet still didn't know what was wrong with him, except that now he's used to
being hand fed. He's still alive as of this writing although I'm baffled as
to how, since he's been refusing to even eat from the syringe for over two
months now.
Sam's grown up to full adult size and had her first clutch of 16
unfertilized eggs in February of 2005. She still eats a ton of bugs and will
eat most of the greens we give her. She also will settle for the dragon
pellets we purchased occasionally. She spends her time under the heat lamp
basking or sitting by her water bowl.
Just like Jerry and Sam, we purchased Spike at the
Unique Animal Expo in
Hillsboro, Oregon. Spike came with a sister for an extra $10. The owners
were looking to get ride of
 their
3 remaining beardies from the clutch and sold us on one, but we didn't
really want a second one, at least not for the asking price. They talked us
into taking her for the extra $10 since she'd most likely be a bright orange
like Spike. However she didn't look nearly as healthy as Spike. Within a
week we found her dead. We were sad that she didn't make it, but managed to
get past it since we knew she wasn't doing too well in the first place.
Spike is of an Orange Sandfire breed. You can guess that he is quite Orange
and in some places a nice shade of red. He's still a
 juvenile,
but he's growing quick and showing beautiful colors. Most recently he's been
showing off his black beard which is missing just a little bit of black
under the tip of his chin. It is so cute. He loves to eat his greens unlike
Sam, and Jerry never cared for them himself either. He will also accept the
dragon pellets if no other food is offered right away. Often we will see him
staring at us on the couch when we watch a movie, and gesture that we would
like to be fed now. He'll also sit in the corner of his tank and watch the
TV when it's on. It's pretty funny. I'm not sure yet whether or not I will
allow Spike to meet Samantha, after what happened to Jerry. So far they have
been completely separate. Charlotte would like to mate them when Spike is
old enough, and raise the babies. The babies would mostly be for selling,
but we'd also just like to see how their offspring would turn out.
|
