Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My Bearded who is about 1 year old has recently taken to rubbing his nose and clawing at one side of his cage only. Sometimes standing on his hind legs and other times rubbing his nose side to side. There is no sign of wear on his snout, but I am worried if he continues that he will hurt himself. My cage is 36" long by 18" deep and 18" tall. He measures about 14" tip of nose to end of tail. He has a rock hiding place and a grapevine climbing structure with several levels and branches. What can be done to discourage this behavior? Or, what am I doing wrong to perhaps unwittingly promote it? Any feed back would be appreciated. Thanks for your time.

Are you 100% positive this dragon is not a female instead of male? This also might be caused by temps in the enclosure. Are you sure the temps are correct, and have not changed any? 103-110 surface basking temp, and 75-80 ambient cool side temp? Is the dragon scratching at the cool or hot side, or one side only? How is feeding going? Have you changed the diet at all? Are you keeping his food on the side that he scratches at? My dragons if they see a cricket they will scratch and try to get at it though their glass. There really could be a lot of reasons for this behavior. Something as simple as dirty substrate, or even something he is interested in in the room. Any other animals in the room? Are you giving him out he cage time? Really go through the list and check things out to rule them out.
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Mystical Dragons

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I will try and answer all your questions here to get a better idea of what may be causing this behavior. I am only assuming male because of the larger "hump" , but I may certainly be incorrect. The temperature is regulated very well and is around 105 at the top basking area in the mid morning and through the day. The temp on the other side remains at 80-85 all day and at night the temp drops to mid 70's. I feed freeze dried crickets and he takes them happily from my hands as well as from his feed dish through the day. I also feed mixed greens (mostly romaine no iceburg) three or so times a week (which he eats voraciously). I occasionally mist him and he gets water from the greens which I drench well. Should he have water every day? This diet has been consistent for many months with no odd behavior until now. His food is on the opposite side from where the scratching occurs. He scratches underneath his basking area and on the hot side. His substrate is Zoo-Med Repti-Sand and has been from the beginning. I clean it every time there is feces present and make sure to get the clumps as well from where the moisture has been. To that end I cleaned everything yesterday. I removed and disenfected everything with a very mild bleach solution (except the grape vine structure which I cleaned with a damp sponge and dried thoroughly). I rinsed everything very well and replaced everything with a slightly different layout on a bed of brand new Repti-Sand. So far he has only exhibited that behavior breifly. He may have been too tired as he was out and being handled/running around while the cleaning was taking place. Today will really be the true test. There are no other animals in the room, just people in and out and a tv. The scratching occurs toward a blank wall away from the door and tv. I will try and take him out more often as it only happens once every 2-3 days. Thanks again and please let me know if you have any more insight given all the information I have given. -Russ

My female had this same behavior right before she laid her infertile eggs. This really catches my attention. You have to find out what you have. Take a look at www.dachiu.com and they show the difference in appearance at the vent. Go to their page and click sexing dragons on the first page. This is the most important thing, finding out if it's a girl. As far as it's enclosure and feeding. Repti-sand or any of that bagged sand in pet stores is known for causing impaction in some dragons if ingested. Some people use washed play sand from home depot without trouble. If you see them lick it or eat it I suggest getting the dragon off it. I don't want to take the chance of impaction with mine though so I don't use sand. One other thing is the greens. If the dragon eats it like a pig 3 times a week offer it daily. Plave some rep-cal pellets in the salad for added nutrients and variety. Most people do, especially for dragons around a year old. Dragons once adult will switch to greens as a major part of their diets. Romaine is ok but is really low in nutrients. WWW.beautifuldragons.com offers a super list of foods for them to eat. They do have a legend. Not all those listed is good for them. Pick one of the ones listed in green as a staple to use mostly, and then use some romaine if needed for variety. If you keep the sand just make sure the salad gets placed on a paper towel or something so if the leaves fall out of the bowl they do not get sandy. All these are suggestions but the most important is to sex your dragon.
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Mystical Dragons

Thanks again for taking the time to respond it is greatly appreciated. I followed your recommendations and I do have a male. The two bumps are quite prominent as well as the hourglass indentation between the two. Thankfully I was correct in my earlier assessment of sex, I would be unhappy to have inadvertently caused a gender identity issue in the poor lad. I also went to beautifuldragons.com and found that list to be incredibly enlightening as to what I can and especially should NOT, feed my dragon. Accordingly I have already made provisions for a diet update and he has grapes with a little romaine now in his enclosure. I will be shopping for a lot more of the "green" items later today. So far today (4 hours ) he has not scratched or rubbed his nose. Perhaps all the changes yesterday corrected what I had done wrong or not done enough of. Perhaps at next cleaning I will change my choice of substrates. What do you use and how often do you clean your enclosures? By the way, I followed the Mystical Dragons link and you have got quite a few very nice friends in those pictures. Thanks again.

Thanks for the compliment on the dragons. Yeah, I have quite few dragons running around here. 9 to be exact. I happen to really love these guys and put a LOT of time into keeping them well. For substrate I use a plastic non slip shelf liner. They sell it at like Walmart in rolls. I cut it to fit inside the enclosures. I have a pic on my link mystical dragons below you can take a look at the cages. I finally found a nice solid green color instead of that white in the pic. I like this because there is nothing to ingest and worry about, clean up is real easy and done daily at feeding time. I just take a spray bottle and paper towels and spot clean daily, and once a week I soak them and put a fresh one in so I can dry out the old ones. With sand when they poop on it and you clean it out there is always a smell and some that does get left behind. Then they have to live on that same sand daily and possibly ingest it. With the liner it's very sanitary, cheap, easy to clean, and safe for them. Like I said I have 9 and if you were blind and walked in my place you would not know I had animals. There is no smell, and the cages always look nice and clean with the liner. Some do use sand without problems. I just don't risk the problems at all. If you do keep the sand, the play sand at home depot would be a better choice. Cheap 5 bucks and it comes in huge 50 lb. bags. Just make sure they eat off of the sand. Since you use the freeze dried crix this should be easy, and just place the salad bowl on a paper towel just in case some does fall out. Some people make half sand, and split the cage with a piece of wood like a barrier and do the other half in a reptile carpet, or paper towels, or the cage liner so the dragon can dig if they wanted too.
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Mystical Dragons

Well, yesterday was great, he only exhibited the behavior once and for only a few seconds. Today is another story. He has done it several times and for several minutes each time. The difference being that he now does it at either end of the enclosure. I have blocked the view on one end with white paper to discourage him, but it does not seem to matter. Could it be the grapes which I have cut up with the greens in his dish? I guess this is gong to be a process of elimination and trial and error. Any insight? Thanks again for all your help.