Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Draconis hates to chase crix around in his cage, and since he aclimated to me by handfeeding, I do it all the time for him. Today, I was feeding him and he forgot to reach out the tongue like he usually does and *CHOMP!*, right on the end of my finger. Fortunately, he didn't bite very hard, just lightly broke the skin on the pad of my middle finger a bit. Of course I fussed for a minute, then went back to handfeeding him again (When will I learn? LOL). Cool thing was, he was much more careful about it afterwards.

I got my revenge though. After feeding I noticed he had problems with shedding on his tail, so I got out the Vaseline and coated it pretty good. The looks alone are priceless!

(BTW, Vaseline has always been suggested on this board as a means of alleviating difficult sheds. Only use in places where it will not come in direct contact with a beardie's eyes, nose, or mouth, for obvious reasons.)

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Dl

I know how you feel as far as the biting. I was hand feeding mine today, the little pain did this on purpose, she reached around and bit my finger instead of eating her food. I got her back when I stopped feeding her and told her that if she wanted more to go get it herself. My male's never bit me but my female loves to bite and I'm not sure how to break her. I was told to give them a warm bath to help with hard sheds. I did that today because she was having problems shedding and it seemed to work.

>>I know how you feel as far as the biting. I was hand feeding mine today, the little pain did this on purpose, she reached around and bit my finger instead of eating her food. I got her back when I stopped feeding her and told her that if she wanted more to go get it herself. My male's never bit me but my female loves to bite and I'm not sure how to break her. I was told to give them a warm bath to help with hard sheds. I did that today because she was having problems shedding and it seemed to work.

Yeah. Mine doesn't do it on purpose, and after one nip he knows to be more careful. I think the first time ever he tagged me real good I scolded him for it, and ever since then he's real careful. It's hard to be mad when he's just happy getting his way.

I do give Draconis baths all the time, but for some reason it's hard to get that skin loose. Vaseline, however, works great. It'll sit there for a few days and get into the dry skin, then all of a sudden it'll peel off in one whole sheet. He almost lost part of his tail because of shedding problems, but now it's not a problem anymore.

BTW, if you do have problems with biting on purpose (and you can definitely tell by the way they look at you), it's best to back away for a while and try again another time. At least it won't look like you're rewarding them for their actions, and the small amount of isolation will let them know they did something bad. I did that with Draconis once when he whirled around to bite me for helping him shed around his back foot (another bad place for him). I scolded him pretty badly for it and left the room for about 2 hours. When I came back in he couldn't stand not climbing on top of my shoulder and sitting where he usually perches, so naturally I gave in (*sucker!*). So, they do remember stuff.

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Dl

He's so cute. Mine aren't nearly that big yet. I was given mine back in Oct by someone because her daughter wasn't taking care of them. I definatly don't reward her for biting me. I will admit that one time was my own fault because I was feeding her grapes and my hand tasted like grapes so she thought it was a grape. Their first bath today was very interesting because my male was scared to death and my female, the one that bites, was just swimming around or rather her version of swimming because the water wasn't deep enough for her to actually swim. After the bath her shedding skin came right off her toes and back which was the problem skin in the first place and strangly enough she didn't mind me picking it off. I've got a couple of characters but I wouldn't trade them for the world.