Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Whats the deal with babies tail nipping each other, I caught a baby literally trying to rip off another babies tail yesterday.

I have 2 babies with slight tail tip nip, 1 baby that has bite marks mid tail and a slight tail tip nip, 1 baby that looks like the tail tip is about to come off.

I know now that everyone saying to house babies seperatly wasnt kidding! Its so hard to house each baby seperate because of the 10.0 lighting and basking spots.

Any ideas to making the housing of babies easier?

Make sure they are well fed, try putting greens in the cage at all times, so if hungry they will hopefully eat those not a tail.

sounds like there isnt enough food. i had this problem too. just keep food in at all times and they will be fine.
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Jeff Kearney
Orlando, FL

1.0.0 Egyptian Uromastyx (Dino)
2.7.0 Bearded Dragons (Too many to name)
1.0.0 Mali Uromastyx (Rex)
2.2.0 Ball Python (Ali, Gator, Para, Medic)
0.1.1 Leopard Gecko (Layla, Nubbs, Iggy)
0.2.0 Fat-Tailed Gecko (Penelope, Brownie)
0.0.1 Corn Snake (Not sure yet)
0.0.2 Blue Phase Dumpys Tree Frog (Sticky, Squishy)

babies tail nip often because they mistake tail tips or toes as food. Best way to prevent excessive tail nips and toe nips is to feed babies often....as much as 4-5 times a day. Keeping greens in the cage all day may help as well but most very young dragons won't pay any attention to greens, but some do.

Having a good size cage and plenty of basking spots and hides, helps too. This way the dragons don't all have to fight for basking space with eachother. Seeing them all piled up ontop of eachother may seen cute but it means the bottom on is not getting appropriate heat, UVB rays or likely food.
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PHLdyPayne

Thanks for the info everyone!

9 babies (going on 4 week old) there going through 1000 crickets about every 4 days, there fed about 4-5 times a day, plus I have been giving them greens here and there.

I need to start being more consistant with the greens, all but 1 or 2 of the babies will eat greens but only a small amount.

I dont see how they could be hungrey, but they do have HUGE appetites!!

Right now I have 8 babies, I moved them all into small shoe box plastic tubs (1 in each tub), im trying to figure out a way to supply each tub with a heat/basking light area as well as supply each tub with 10.0 lighting. I think I can do it with out buying a ton more lights (no easy task though)

OR ...... should I just put all 8 of the babies back together in a large aquarium, I have a 75 gallon that I could use, and it would be a lot easier to house all 8 of them together, I just wasnt sure now and started to really freak out after I caught the one baby trying to take the other ones tail.

So which way should I go, house each baby by it self in a shoe box or all babies together in a 75 gallon tank ??

Thanks again!!

id seperate them into groups of 3-4 by size. all big ones with each other and all smaller ones together. when i was breeding i used large rubbermaid containers as rearing bins, lights were mounted over them. make sure temps are all correct as well, i had some massive nippers at one time when i first started due to temps being off. if you notice a single nipper in the group, put it by itself.
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Judson
Beach Beardies

0.1. bearded dragon
1.1. Sugar Gliders
0.2. Felines *queen athena and missy*

if you can keep them apart or as the other poster responded make a few smaller groups by size thast would help, one of my rescues needed a leg amputated after it got bit by another baby and became septic, one with a less serious wound (so we thought at the time) died of sepsis because the wound was worse then we thought and anitbiotics were not enough (these were taken from a pet store due to the neglect and over crouding) so its more then an anoying thing, its SERIOUS!
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hanging out under heat lights burns up my brain cells!!