Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here is the story of this baby beardie(Mikey.) First of all, I work at a pet shop. We got these babies from a local breeder and they all were healthy (there were six in all.) We sold most of them pretty quickly, and then there were 2 left.

So it was Mikey and his brother that was left, his brother was a bit larger than he was, but we still kept them together in the same cage since we didnt have any other open sections to put him in at the time. But then we noticed that the bigger beardie had been nibbling on the little one. So we took him out of there immediately.

It all seemed to go downhill from there. The small one wasn't eating and slept all of the time. I volunteered to take him to my house to try and save him. I didn't know much about beardies but I was determined to save him! It was sad to see him in that state... when he moved, he threw his head all over the place and fell over at times.

I fed him some baby food with a plastic syringe, and over the period of about a week and a half he started eating more. Finally one day, I put a cricket in his cage just to see how he would react. He looked interested in it, so the next day I bought some crickets that would be more manageable(sp?) for him to eat, and sure enough, he ate one! And just tonight he ate 3!(which he hunted down.)

I am sooo happy that he is doing better. I never thought that I would have a bearded dragon, and now, I have decided that I am going to keep this little guy

I do have a question though out of all of this:

Is there anyhting I can do to help fatten him up even more? I know he needs some fresh dark greens, so, do I just put them on a little plate and leave him to eat it?

He is only 4 1/2-5 inches long still (head to tail) and he is probably around 3 months old. I know this is small for his age. Should I be worried about this?

His cage mate bit on the end of his tail, and chomped off a couple of his back toes (those parts are black and dead now.) Will they fall off? Should I cut the bad part of the tail off? Should I be worrying about this?

- I'll post a pic of him when I can.

Thanks guys!

Ok, first lets go over some basics, check www.diamond-gems.com for my caresheet in more detail.
Temps - 110 basking surface, 85 cool end
Food - crix no larger than the space between his eyes 3-5 times daily as much as he'll eat in 15 minutes. Also offer a salad of finely chopped greens daily although it may be a while before he actually eats any. Dust everything with calcium with d3 everytime and multivitamin once a day.
UVB light
You should probably keep him on paper towels for now.
Mist him 3-5 times per day also. A bath every now and then is also a good idea.

Sean

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Heart Mountain Herps

setup right now:

10g
paper towels on bottom
heating pad underneath
heat lamp on one side (100w)
basking side is at about 100
cool end gets down to 80 I believe
UV light on during the day
a 'hut' for him to go in on the cool side
Milk cap filled with drinking water on the cool side (which has been de-chlorinated)
I mist him twice a day right now, but I will mist 3-5 times like you suggest.
I have been bathing him in warm water every night.
he eats crickets that are about a 1/2 and inch

Here he is:

Sounds like you've got it pretty well covered. Watch for infection on that foot and tail, I'd also use a little bit of neosporin on them. The black necrotic parts should fall off but if they get infected or start to spread get to a vet asap for some baytril. Good luck.
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Heart Mountain Herps