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I bought a Bearded Dragon about 2-3 weeks ago he's about 4-5 months old I was told... and I was wondering everytime I try to pick him up to holdhim he just runs around franticly... is there anything i can do to help him get used to me picking him up so rather than him running away he would like jump on my hand or not be afraid of me? Also i was wondering the best way to keep him hydrated... water or veggies....Any replies would be greatly appreciated...Thanks...

As far as getting your beardie used to being held, it takes time, but it will happen. The first few weeks you have him he will be trying to settle down so its normal for him to be more skittish. Instead of just trying to pick him up, let him get used to you buy seeing your hands as you do daily maintence on his cage, and maybe just "pet" him a little, or hand feed him. Hand feeding works really well to get your beardie used to you. Feed him his favorite veggies or kind of work from your fingers and then slowly work on picking him up. YOung beardies are always a little spastic and tend to mellow out as they get older, so it should hopefully only get easier

As far as water, its sort of up to you. Many people house their beardies without water and only rinse the veggies, but some dont even do that. I personally keep a water dish in there because even if my beardie doesn't drink standing water (and some don't) the water dish helps keep the humidity up a little. Beardies of course are not tropical and do not need a high humidity, but keeping the humidity around 30-40% helps keep off respitory infections and is just better for there over all health. Some beardies will not drink standing water, and for those you can just water their veggies and they should have all the water they need.
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0.1 mexican kingsnake
1.0.2 Leopard Gecko's
0.0.1 Rose Hair Tarantula
1.0 BTS
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn
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Thanks for the reply... I just have one more question rearding the veggies he shold eat... He doesn't seem to like a whole lot of veggies and I was wonderin what would be the best vegetable health-wise for my dragon... Also I have read a whole lot of different opinions on feeding him crickets... about quantities and such... Was also wondering how many i should give him per day and how many times a day... Thanks Again....

For veggies, usually a staple of good greens is best (like dandelion and others) with veggies mixed in. There's a really good site for this. I think it's beautifuldragons.com or something of that sort. They have a full listing of beardie foods and which should be fed the most, and which the least.

As far as cricket quantities, your beardie is growing, so let him eat as many as he wants for now, but once he's reached adulthood, you should start to limit the cricket intake to about a dozen twice a week or something of that sort. As adults beardies need a mostly vegetarian diet (I believe around 80% vegetables and 20% live food is good). If they get too much protein (from insects) they can and will develop kidney problems. I went through it with mine about a year ago, and luckily we caught it at the beginning stages. For some reason he just won't eat greens. Lately all he's been eating are red repcal pellets, but I'm pretty sure that's making him a little constipated, so I'm trying like heck to get him onto a better diet. They can be tricky if you don't know how to start switching from a mainly cricket diet to a mainly vegetable diet, and that's where I ran into problems.

www.beautifuldragons.org is a GREAT website on beardie care and most importantly they have an excellent nutrition page
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0.1 Bearded dragon
0.1 mexican kingsnake
1.0.2 Leopard Gecko's
0.0.1 Rose Hair Tarantula
1.0 BTS
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn
0.1 Bullmastiff
4.1 Cats