JT’s Updates Return!

WOW!!  4 pets now.  It's awesome!

We took Bruce the bobtail to the vet for a check up.  It took a long time to get there.  Dad and I had a nice time together.  We found out that Bruce needs some good feeding.  The vet said that he was ok.  I enjoyed the trip to the vet.

Bruce eats dog food and chicken mince.  He is very shy and quiet.

Lacey is also going well.  We think she is a girl.  She eats baby mice as you all know.  She is so quick when she grabs her food.  Lacey likes to eat her food head first.  I think she squeezes her food so she doesn't have something moving in her stomach.

Here is a picture of me holding Lacey.

I LOVE MY PETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reptile Health Diary–10/07/2011

I’ve renamed weigh in posts from Dragon Diary to Reptile Health Diary, as in the months since the last time I posted one, our reptile family has not only grown in number but in species as well.  We are no longer sharing with only Bearded Dragons, we have a Diamond Python and a Shingleback as well!

Given the events of the past week, I have decided to reinstate weigh in records and general health observations for reference and record keeping.  Probably just monthly at this stage.  I wish I had taken measurements before Lolly and Beau went to sleep for the colder months (mind you it is still the middle of winter), but, I will still have a record of how they fare from here on.  With Bruce joining us and needing to put some weight on, this will be a particularly useful exercise.  Finally, Lacey being so young and along with Bruce a new species to me, I am going to record her progress as well.  Although I do have more detailed records of Lacey’s feeding and health more generally in a spreadsheet that I will look to put up as a page here at some point.

Lolly

Weight: 417 grams
Length: see image
Food: Kingworms
Toilet: not yet
Behaviour:  Lolly seems to have dropped back into her typical bright personality.  She is very keen on food as always and has even coloured up nicely.  I am amazed at her weight.  The last time I weighed her was in what I think was the early stages of being gravid.  Even with a couple of months of no food or water she has put on 80+ grams since then.  So I can only imagine what she weighed before going into brumation.  She had a good drink after I woke her up and had a few kingworms.  No sign of eating any veggies yet or any bowel movement, but, it has only been a couple of days.  I might try giving her a pinkie mouse on the weekend.

Beau

Weight: 280 grams
Length: see image
Food: Kingworms
Toilet: not yet
Behaviour:  Without having any point of reference, my first impressions of Beau are that he is pretty easy going.  Despite having been the one to draw me into waking the Dragons up through his restlessness, he seems to be more happy to laze about.  No veggies for him yet either.  I’ll pop out and pick up some crickets tomorrow if at all possible and see how he goes on them.  He has some good thickness to the base of his tail, but, I am surprised at just how much bigger Lolly is.  That does of course auger well for breeding this year.  I just need to be confident that Beau is in good nick too!

Bruce

Weight: 222 grams
Length: see image (for what it’s worth cheeky)
Food: chicken mince, dog food
Toilet: not yet
Behaviour: Look at the cheecky bugger making it hard to measure him.  It’s also amazing to see his size given that he would be lucky to be half Beau and Lolly’s age.  Bruce is a very nervous little guy.  Although if handled correctly, he seems happy enough.  He put a wonderful display of bluff on after this image was taken.  Mouth open, tongue flared.  Awesome!  When I picked him up shortly after, he was happy enough to be handled again and only plodded rather than rushed away when I returned him to his enclosure.  I have been very very pleased to see evidence without witnessing the act itself, of eating both chicken mince and dog food (the meaty kind).  Both are recommended foods for Shinglebacks, but not as core staple foods.  I need to get Bruce onto his veggies.  I am happy to report he is looking a little brighter already.

Lacey

I will add information about Lacey next month when I can synchronise her weigh and measure schedule.  I have her currently as 32 grams and 54 cms a couple of weeks ago.  She is feeding sensationally well and is actually keen to eat and hunting on the days leading up to when we feed her.  I could not be happier with her progress to this point.

Meet Bruce the Bobtail

We have a new, unexpected arrival in our family.  On Monday I received a PM (private message) on an internet forum that I frequent that is full of very helpful people and a wealth of information about reptile keeping with a strong focus on Bearded Dragons.  If you get a chance, check out the Australian Bearded Dragon Forum.  Follow that link or the one here in the links section.  But I digress.

I received a message with a request for help.  It was in relation to a young Shingleback Lizard (Tiliqua rugosa) in the care of someone on the forum who was not in a position to give it the required attention once its original owner had moved overseas and passed it on to him.  He’d had it for about 4 days and it had arrived to him obviously in need of some TLC as it looked under fed and was quite irritable, most likely through a long period of less than ideal care.  He asked if I could take and care for the lizard as he did not feel like he could give it the attention it needed to come back to proper health.

I was very pleased to be asked and also just very pleased to help!  Yesterday, I met Dylan , or Fractal man as he is known on the forum who, with the care of the animal in mind had contacted me.  We spoke briefly about the beautiful looking Shingleback and then I brought him home.  These fantastic creatures are also sometimes called Bobtails amongst other nicknames and are a species of blue-tongued lizard.  Blue-tongues are actually skinks, but are grouped into the lizards.  After a brief discussion amongst the family, he is now affectionately known as Bruce the Bobtail.  You can see him here on the right with his tongue just on the way back into his mouth.  I just missed it!

I am pleased to report that Bruce had a really good drink yesterday.  The moment I put him into what has now become the hospital tank again, he ran straight for the hide and disappeared for several hours.  Late in the day, I pulled out the hide and started dropping water on his head, which, he started taking straight away.  After a few minutes of him licking water off the glass side of the enclosure, I put in the big water dish that you see in the picture and placed his front half in.  Shortly after he began one of several long drinks and then moved off to bask a little under the light\heat source, not before coming over to poke his nose out of the front of the open enclosure to check me out and offer a look as if to say ‘Thanks’.

Today, I put in some chicken mince to go with the veggies that I left in there for him yesterday.  Whilst Bruce did not take any from the food dish, he did take 3 pieces from outside the door of the hide.  Small, but pleasing progress.  I also took Bruce to a wonderful local vet to get a health check and I am exceptionally pleased to report that besides needing some TLC, sustained attention to his eating and putting on weight, Bruce is in good health.  No mites or other parasites or respiratory infection that can be quite common in the species.

So there you have it.  That is the story of how Bruce the Bobtail came to be with us.  I am not sure how long he will be here.  It will hopefully be at least as long as it takes to ensure he is in tip top condition.  The hospital tank is not a suitable long term home for him as it is not big enough.  He is appears to be less than a year old and most likely from this season’s litter.  All going to plan he will regain good health and be ready for something bigger in the coming months.  In between now and then I will have to build something more suitable for him, or find a welcoming home.  Although I am not sure I will be able to give him up at that point!

It saddens me somewhat to think that his original ‘owner’ could lose interest in something so beautiful in such a short time as it would have taken for Bruce, given his age, to go from new and fascinating pet, to discarded and malnourished burden.  Thankfully someone like Dylan had care enough for Bruce to ask for help even if it meant giving up such a wonderful creature so new to him.  For now, Bruce has a home for as long as he needs and has already won the hearts of his new adopted family.

Read All About It!

A while ago I subscribed to Scales & Tails magazine to help with my general knowledge of all things keeping reptiles.  I also wrote them a letter about my experiences with our Beardies.  When my most recent copy of the magazine arrived last week, I was thrilled to see that my letter and the photos that I sent in had been published as the ‘Publishers Pick’!  Below is the letter that I wrote along with a scan of the page that it appeared on in the magazine.  I’ll see if I can get a better scan this week.  But, as you can see, they even published a couple of my pictures as well!

Howdy Scales & Tails,

I thought it might be interesting to share the experiences of someone relatively new to the hobby, who has just lived through their first year of reptile keeping.

We live in the ACT and have very limited options when it comes to entering into the hobby of reptile keeping.  This time last year we brought home our first reptiles, a pair of Bearded Dragons, one of only 4 species available to first time keepers in Canberra.  They were not our first species of choice, but, we have since been converted to fantastic nature and personalities of Beardies.

Without knowing for sure, we were fortunate enough to acquire a male and female, which was confirmed during this year's breeding season.  Our young pair produced 24 beautiful eggs that we chose to incubate at home as a family project.  23 of these porcelain like gems hatched for us a couple of months later, and I was able to capture a few photos that I thought were worth sharing.

The experience of keeping, breeding and generally enjoying our Dragons has been something irreplaceable.  My kids have seen, touched and experienced first hand, what they would have otherwise had to view on a screen or still images on a page.  I am someone that enjoys sharing with people when I am on to a good thing and this has been no exception.  I am happy to say that I have started opening the eyes of my friends and colleagues to world of keeping reptiles and along with dispelling some myths, a few have even begun on the journey themselves.

Thank you for the opportunity to continue to share my enthusiasm.

 

Cool huh!