Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Alright, first of all, let me get this straight, this is NOT aggression. My beardie shows NONE of the signs of aggression, no beard displays, no flattening of the body, nothing. Just wanted to make that clear because whenever I ask this, I get ways to deal with aggressive beardies. Daily I feed my beardie a bowl of veggies and leave it in for him to eat all day whenever he wants, as well as 6-12 crickets, and the occasional meal worm as a treat every now and then. My beardie is probably a good year or two old, and I've had him for just under a year. Thing is, when I first got him, he was skittish from time to time, but would allow me near him. Problem is, he started eyeing my hand as well as anything else that moved. I then found that whenever he see's anything he jumps for it, like he does a cricket. This includes my hand, if I'm hand feeding him, he'll always take the insect, whatever. But if I'm in there empty handed, then he'll go for my hand. Again, there's no beard display or anything, he just watches my hand and follows it, sometimes he'll run over and start watching my hand, if I get close enough he'll stick his tongue out a little and jump at my hand, and sometimes even bite it. This is EXACTLY what he does with crickets and veggies. He'll stand and watch them with his tongue sticking out slightly, then he'll grab them and eat them. The ONLY time he doesn't do this is when I'm wearing yellow dish washing gloves (that I use ONLY for cleaning the animal enclosures, etc). He bit at it at first but stopped after a bit. Lately I've been continuing to hand feed, but have started just now to let him bite my fingers, seeing as he stopped biting the glove after awhile, I'm hoping it'll be the same deal. I know that it's not scent or anything because I've tried washing my hands off with several different things before going near him. Any other advice?

As soon as my dragons started biting my bare hands i went out to petsmart and bought 10inch metal feeding tongs, and i use them to "hand feed" my dragons now.They aren't very expensive, and are very nice quality. They can now be as ravenous as they want and i dont have to wry about them nipping my fingers.

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1.1.0 Bearded Dragons
Quebert & Isis
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www.funnymanreptiles.com

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Edited on January 29, 2005 at 09:43:26 by phwyvern.

No, he's fine with feeding, infact he's never nipped me if I've had food, and he has pretty good aim (managed to pick a kiwi seed from my finger without even touching my finger) It's when I try to handle him that this becomes a problem, as it's only when I'm empty handed that he goes for my hand, even if I've just hand fed him. So yeah, I don't want to find a way to prevent this from hurting, I want to find a way to stop this so I can handle him again

But I think that if your beardie is biting at your hand, that's a sign of aggression. I really don't know you situation. Maybe you never picked him and got him used to being on your hand? Perhaps the answer is to correct his behavior through positive reinforcement? Maybe use the fact that he doesn't bite during feeding to your advantage- pick him up in your arms and feed him?
Just a suggestion. Oh, and try not to react too badly if he DOES bite.

But in using the tongs, your dragon learns that tongs = food and no tongs = no food. Get me? Just your dragon learned that yellow gloves = no food. That's wut worked for me and my BD's.
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1.1.0 Bearded Dragons
Quebert & Isis
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www.funnymanreptiles.com

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sig file

Edited on January 29, 2005 at 09:42:54 by phwyvern.

hmmmm... I see what you're getting at there... although I did use the gloves for feeding a few times... only difference is that I allowed the beardie to chew on the gloves for a bit... So I rolled up my sleeve, closed my eyes and let him do the same to my bare hand, I have a few scratch marks and a couple small cuts... But it seems to have worked... Before I'd have to stuff my beardie full of veggies before I could get anywhere near him without him going after my hand. Although yesterday I managed to pick him up and transfer him into a small temporary enclosure while I changed the substrates in his old one, I was glad to see that even when picked up, there was no flaring of the beard, maybe a bit of flattening out, but either way, he acted pretty good with me... And again today I was able to get close and work near him without any problem. So looks like the problem may be getting better now Thanks all, and I'll keep you updated