Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok, so i have a shaggy, soft, dry moss on my bluberrie bushes. the moss is a olive green. it is really fine. i live in Kent, Washington and its western washington. its spring right now and what could it be? i wanted to use it for my snakes cage and wanted to know what kind of moss it is and is it safe? also, my beardie was like 6 in when i got her and now shes over 11 in and ive had her for like 6 months. is this a normal size for her?

I would be cautious of anything from the great outdoors. it can harbour all sorts of little nasties. If you want to use it, check carefully for mites, ticks... and if you want to be safe, spray it with black knight or something similar to kill the nasties.

11 inches for a 6 month old female seems to me on the small side. She might be a slow grower however. I have a male that was not much bigger at 6 months and now at 10 months is 18" and almost 400g. If you are concerned about her size, post the info of how you take care of her and house her, Food, lighting, suppliments... all that stuff)
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Bennett

Home Of The Florida Orange
www.beardiedragon.com

her is her care information:
FEEDING: every day she gets a salad mix (not every day does she get the same mix) with a couple lettuce speicies, tomatoes, strawberries, carrots, dry pellets(t-rex brand), nature zone wet cube beardie food thingys, and mealies. i sprinkle t-rex VGF powder on them and add a drop of d3 liquid. she also is given crix wen im not out of em.
HEAT/LIGHTING: last time i took the temp of her basking light it was 115 degs. she has a UVB light (she didnt have one for the first several months i had her, those things are soo expensive!)
CAGE: she is currently in a 10G cage, her substrate is vita-sand and she has a drift wood basking thing and those nature zone cement stones
HEALTH: she appears healthy and eats most of her salad and TONS of insects if she gets the chance. when she first came in contact with the UVB light she grew at LEAST a couple inches then her growing slowed down. please tell me what im doing wrong if there is something wrong. i want my beardie to live a happy, healthy, and long life!

hi cillie,
I picked up on three point you may want to consider.

1. at 6 months she should be fed crickets twice a day, and be allowed to eat as many as she wants in 10-15 minutes. dust one feeding with calcium or vitamins everyday. the salad should be available at all times but dont expect her to eat too much because at that age she still needs a good amount of protein. go easy on the mealworms, the chitin exoskeleton is hard to digest on the younger ones.

2. get her off the vita-sand - that stuff is just downright bad. any juvenille dragon should be on non-particulate substrate until at least 10 months. then you may use sand if you wish, but use playsand from Home Depot, not the reptile sands which are overpriced and dangerous - ignore the 'vetinarian approved' crap on the packaging.

3. at 11" she really needs a bigger tank. 10 gal is almost too small for a baby anyhows. by now she should be in a 40 gal breeder or bigger. beardie growth is not stunted by cage size, but it cant help matters either.

her small size is probably due to underfeeding, but dont worry. i was in the very same situation as you about 5 months ago. i upped fuegos feeding and moved her to a larger tank, got her off the walnut bedding and now she's 18" at 11 months. i learnt from my mistakes with help from people here - now its my turn to pay it forward. good luck
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Ross

0.1 Bearded Dragon (Fuego, spent the last 10 months thinking she was a he!)
2.1 Roommates (require more cleaning up after than the dragon)

how bout a 29 gal? thanks for the info.

you're welcome, just ask away

29 gal would be good for now if you had one to hand, but bear in mind she'll need at least a 40 gal breeder by the time she'a an adult (probably around 6 months time). so unless you already have an empty 29 gal, just go straight to a 40, other wise you'll be buying a tank which will be too small in 6 months ( unless you have another dragon to fill it at that point )
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Ross

0.1 Bearded Dragon (Fuego, spent the last 10 months thinking she was a he!)
2.1 Roommates (require more cleaning up after than the dragon)

i have a spair 29 gall tub, also, can uvb be filtered by plastic?

One thing I wanted to add, if you are using the T-Rex suppliments DO NOT use any other suppliments at all. T-Rex has everything your beardie needs. If you use that plus Rep-Cal or Herptivite or d3 liquid you could be over-supplimenting which can be very bad. Go with one or the other.

You are getting good advice from these folks. I agree she definately needs a bigger tank ASAP and more food (mainly crickets.) Paper towels or shelf-liner are much better substrates than Vita-Sand, and cheaper so your parents should like that. If your folks give you a hard time about buying another tank let them know how very serious this is for her well-being. As responsible adults they should help you make your pet, which they allowed you to have and as such are responsible for themselves, comfortable.

And again I will direct you to the nutrition content section of this website. Please do read it. Lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes are all terrible food choices for a beardie salad.
www.beautifuldragons.com/

Good luck with her.
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2.0 bearded dragons (Ocho / Domo-kun)
0.1 kingsnake (Rio)
1.0 ferret (Playstation)
1.0 cat (Wally)
0.1 dog (Tima)

i forgot, i also feed my squealgeum dandelion greens/flowers. PLEASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSE answer my moss question

I don't know the answer.

Again, if you are unsure and have to ask, better just leave it alone. Stick to what is tried and true, experiementing with unknowns is asking for trouble. Anything you bring in from outside, whether it be for food or substrate or whatever, poses many risks of parasites and other nasties. I believe Bennett already covered that for you.
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2.0 bearded dragons (Ocho / Domo-kun)
0.1 kingsnake (Rio)
1.0 ferret (Playstation)
1.0 cat (Wally)
0.1 dog (Tima)

so i have to change my beardies feeding, cage matters, and pretty much everything? im a bad beardie owner!

No, you're a new beardie owner looking for information. A "bad
beardie owner" would be one who chose not to make the necessary changes for the optimum health and safety of the animal.

Best,
michele
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3.2 Bearded Dragons (Rescues)
1.0 Corn snake (Rescue)
0.1 California King
4.5 Royal (Ball) Pythons (3 rescues)
1.1 Dogs (Rescues)
2.0 Cats (Rescues)
2.2 Humans
No, it's NOT a big house

A few suggestions : Ixnay the meal worms. Too much chitin (hard outer shell), hard to digest and not overly nutritious. Ditto for the vita-sand and for similar reasons--difficult (okay, impossible) on the digestion, even possibly fatal. Besides, newpaper/paper towels or shelf liner are way cheaper and way easier to keep clean. My dragons do have little sandboxes in their cages to satisfy digging urges. You're gonna need a bigger home *very* soon, for spacial reasons and because a hot basking light can over-heat a 10 gal very easily, making it difficult to thermoregulate. And a timer. Cheap enough at any hardware store and helps with accurate, consistent regulation of light cycles.
Hope this is all useful.

Best,
michele
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3.2 Bearded Dragons (Rescues)
1.0 Corn snake (Rescue)
0.1 California King
4.5 Royal (Ball) Pythons (3 rescues)
1.1 Dogs (Rescues)
2.0 Cats (Rescues)
2.2 Humans
No, it's NOT a big house

Lettuce is the least nutritious food. use greens-collards, mustard, dandelion... go easy on carrots as they can block calcium absorption if given to much.

The VGF works well as do the T-rex pellets. Don’t know about the others. DO NOT SUPPLIMENT when using these products especially with liquid D3 (that stuff is very strong). You can oversuppliment, just as bad as not enough.

UV lights need to be changed every 6 months unless you buy a meter to check it. Brand does make a big difference. What brand do you use?

Did you say 10 gallon????? You should have at the very least a 30 breeder for that size BD and a 40 breeder of bigger for an adult!!! you need a gradient in temps. 80 on the cool side 105-115 basking.

Dump the vita sand, get plain old play sand at home depot $3 50 lbs bag. If crix are hiding in the wood and not being eaten, lose the log too. The stress of uneaten crix is not good not to mention those crix can do some real damage to your BD.

How many insects does she eat a day? What type, size? do you dust them?

When is the last time you got a fecal done on her?
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Bennett

Home Of The Florida Orange
www.beardiedragon.com

i dust several fairly heavy a day with that rep-cal multi vitamins, today i witnessed her eat at least twenty mealies within like at most 2 mins. she has never had a fecal and she is eating mostly mealies cuz im out of crix. (dont think i dont want to take her to a vet or get her crix, i do! my parents just dont want to "waist" money.

also, how many mosses are deadly for corn snakes?

im using an esu slimline 7.0

buying the food required for your dragon, and paying for basic vets bills for fecals etc is not a waste of money - its neccessary expense that comes with the responsibility of ownership of a pet. if you cant afford to give your dragon basic care then she will suffer accordingly. she is already underfed and in too small of an exclosure. please do something ASAP to make her quality of life better. we're here to help, but we can only do that if your willing to accept our advice.

buying crix online is much cheaper than mealworms, and much healthier for your dragon. you can get 1000 crix for as little as 10.00 plus delivery if you search around. 1000 crix should last you about 2 weeks at this stage. i forget the exact web addresses but you can google it. try grooms crickets, wormman cricket farm, flukers and any other you find out there.

as regards your plastic tub question in the other half of this post, it will do for now, but do bear in mind that plastic and glass both filter out UV rays.
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Ross

0.1 Bearded Dragon (Fuego, spent the last 10 months thinking she was a he!)
2.1 Roommates (require more cleaning up after than the dragon)