Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,
I have recently adopted a WD that came from some pretty nasty conditions. They bearly fed her and she was kept in a 20 gallon tank--she's just about full grown. Just to give everyone an idea of what I'm dealing with. I don't think I even need to say it but her nose is rubbed pretty bad. Now my dilema is I am very limited on space until my boyfriend and I can buy a house so I can't build her the size house she needs yet. I was curious how safe it is to let her run loose in my bed room. Are there ways to lizard-proof a room to make it ok to do this? I want her to be comfortable but I also want to be 100% sure she'll be safe. If her situation wasn't as bad as it was I would have waited to take her but I couldn't let her stay like that. Now she's eating ( like a pig I might add :0) ) and we're finishing up her temporary cage. Any input on making my little princess more comfortable would be greatly appreciated.

One more question...sorry I know this is long...at her previous house all she ate was crickets...is there any way I can get her to eat food that's not alive...like veggies and stuff. Anything that moves she gobbles right up but anything else forget it.

Thanks again.

Kudos to you for your rescue. I've had 2 of my own for almost 4 years now. It's delightful to watch them get better ) As far as veggies, yeah, I tricked my female into eating some fig one time and never again haha. Good luck. There's a good list of what's ok and what isn't on Tricia's site I think and I've also heard of people feeding canned meat, like cat and dog food (though mine eat pinkies).

They WILL eat non moving stuff, it just depends what. I feed mine with tweezers and kind of wiggle it too...Good luck.

BTW I think free roaming is a bad idea unattended or for long periods of time. Mine go dark after an hour or so from the cold and I wouldn't imagine they would hang out under the UV in a large open space....Let us know how things progress.

Thanks for your input-I'm still working on getting her to eat veggies and things other than crickets...she ate her first fish the other day-it was so cute. When she bit into it her whole face lit up, you could tell she loved it. I'll keep you updated on her progress. She seems very happy to be in a house bigger than what she had and I know she's enjoying the menu change. I, of course also love having her around. What a great little critter!!!

Mine never ate veggies, they really are mainly carnivorous. Fish are great, mine also enjoyed earthworms and mice. There are people that have done the free roam dragon thing successfully. Mine actually had their own room for awhile, but I heated and lit the entire room. My electric bill was amazing, lol. It might work well for the summer tho, you would never be able to use your air conditioning, which could make you very uncomfortable, since dragons like sauna-like conditions.
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Hi, I have kept mine free roaming for almost 16 years, you have to have a large filtered water source for them to deficate and drink from. Also lots of live plants and ficus trees. if there is not enough greenery around they will not stay out in the open. As far as heat is concerned, they are tolarant of ambient temperatures in the range of 70-80 degrees as long as they have a heat source to warm up to. I use a 60 watt spot light suspended from the ceiling. You'll find that if you live in state with a relatively high humidity rate that the combination of the large water source and lamp in an enclosed room can raise the temperature 10-20 degrees above the rest of the house. I live in Maryland and I have to keep their window open in the summer or it gets into the 90's. Free roaming is the perfered way to keep these animals, in my opinion they are much happier and live longer, provided you have properly secured the room and eliminated any unwanted hiding places.

As far as feeding is concerned, you can get them to eat a commercially available can food or cat or dog food, but this not a good diet. The commercially available lizard foods have a lot of fillers requiring that the eat more and produce more waste. The cat and dog foods are too high in certain vitamin like A and D. If you don't want to feed live, your best bet is to start with live pinkie or fuzzy mice and then switch to thawed frozen pinkie/fuzzies that they will take right from your hand. Fuzzies are the staple food for my waterdragon I pefer them because you can reduce feedings to once a week rather then daily as is the case with the less nutritious insect fare.

hi everyone...thanks again for all of your input...i think until we have the space to give her her own room we're going to keep her in her cage, and whenever we're home to watch her we let her out so she can exercise. As far as getting her to eat veggies I think we're going to give up on that...I have no problem at all feeding her live I just thought feeding her veggies and fruits would make her diet more well rounded and a little healthier for her. Whenever I try to give her veggies she looks at me like "what am I supposed to do with that?"
If anyone has any other ways that they feel makes their dragons a little happier feel free to share...my poor girl has had a rough past and I want her to be as happy and healthy as I possibly can.

Thanks so much, you guys are great!!

They love superworms(zoophobas), mine eat them up like they were candy. don't bother with crickets they are not very nutritious and you would have to feed them a great deal. Horned worms, silkworm and hissing roaches are all generally well accepted. The best way to get your waterdragon to eat veggies is in the stomach of their feeder insects. If you raise some superworms on shave carrots and collared greens you'll see the difference in the color of your waterdragon as these vegitables have pigments that transfer. Yellow squash, beets, basically any vegitables with dark green, yellow or red.