Well I hit the ground running with my winter heating plans today. On the way home from work, I ducked into Reptiles inc. and bought myself a new light fitting to add to the existing one. So now there are two light fittings side by side. One has the standard light bulb to emit heat and light for the day time. The second one now has the ceramic bulb in it. This bulb emits no light, just heat. So it is great for the night time when the Dragons are sleeping. It is important to maintain a day night cycle for the Dragons, so this option will keep the enclosure warm enough through the cold Canberra nights, without disturbing their sleep. Win win!
As part of the installation, I put Lolly and Booster into the tote tray together and set JT to supervise them in another room. We got away with only a short excursion onto the computer desk and a nice time for JT to hold Lolly after that :-). It also meant that I took absolutely everything out of the enclosure and gave it all a good going over. The whole thing looks better now. Particularly as there was a fair bit of Lolly's sloughed skin around. By the time I had finished all this, it was too late to feed the Dragons and they were a little cool and stressed to eat anyway I feel. I am getting up early tomorrow so will put in some veggies and spray them then. Also, I will make sure there are plenty of crickets available. Interestingly, when I was cleaning out the enclosure, there was only 1 cricket (alive) in there. I put several in every day for Booster while Lolly is getting fed in the tote tray. There were no dead ones either. So someone has been sneaking in a few crickets on the side ;-).
Lolly
Food: none
Toilet: I think so
Behaviour: Seemed her usual happy self. Surprisingly she is showing submissive displays of hand waving to Booster despite being quite a bit bigger at the moment. I saw her rubbing the sides of her head on things tonight. She must be trying to shed some skin from those areas. I have been watching her feet and cannot see any skin loose or sticking, so that's good.
Booster
Food: None
Toilet: not sure
Behaviour: Booster looks like he has been eating as his tummy is looking fuller than it has in the last week or so. Given that there was only 1 cricket alive or dead in the enclosure when I cleaned it out today I am taking it that he has been doing well on crickets that have passed him by.
Very interestingly, he has been sending dominant signals to Lolly and even had a bit of a go at her tonight. He is considerably smaller in weight at least. Yet, he is definitely top dog as it were at the moment. It is still very early in their lives and it should not present too big an issue unless they are both males and not until they are 12-18 months old. Quite fascinating to watch it all unfold though.
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