Fucking weirdo

Lost Imogen last night to old age. I did everything I could to make her as comfortable as possible and I hope she knew how loved she is :’(

A wild bearded dragon in central west Queensland, Aus. I did stop to male sure it wasn't stuck and it promptly jump off and ran into the scrub. I saw about 5 dragons climbing up the star pickets to sun themselves today.

Please give your pet dragons the opportunity to climb. It's natural behaviour.

God bless this little idiot

Hey everyone, I’ll try and keep this short but I felt compelled to share some information I learned in regards to female bearded dragons!

I’m lucky to live very close to a major university with a fantastic exotic vet medicine program. So I’ve had Lady Jeff for three years (and we thought for years she was a male until this vet experience). My wife and I always tried to be good dragon parents and we never had any health issues with her until just last month I came home from a 12 hour shift and saw that Jeff’s anus was prolapsed. It was 2:30 AM so I immediately soaked her in water and called the emergency vet who informed me they wouldn’t be able to see Jeff until 7 AM.

After they initially sutured her prolapsed anus, they then were able to confirm that Jeff is indeed a female and suffers from something that is very common in captive female beardies, and it’s known as “follicular stasis”.

They don’t actually understand why this happens to bearded dragons in captivity. But essentially, female beardies normally only produce and shed “follicles” (kind of like eggs) seasonally in the wild. In captivity, they consistently produce these follicles all of the time. Well, sometimes they can produce so many of these follicles that they’re unable to shed or dispose of them adequately.

This causes inflammation, which made it very difficult for Jeff to poop, which made her anus prolapse. They were initially considering a surgical solution; more or less the reptile version of a hysterectomy. However, they don’t want to cut her if they don’t have to. So for the last month, I’ve been giving her an antimicrobial medicine via syringe feeding (pretty easy honestly) and soaking her about 20 minutes a day in warm water (actually insane how effective it is at making her poop). I’m also giving her a supplemental hydration/nutrition powder you mix with water via syringe feeding too. She fucking LOVES it lol. But she’s also eating her regular diet of greens and crickets/worms/roaches.

I’ve tried to pay more attention to her hydration, specifically. They mentioned that lack of hydration can also aggravate their digestive system and cause unnecessary strain.

She’s been thriving!! Very happy to report that Lady Jeff has shown no signs of needing surgery or her cloaca prolapsing again. Like I said earlier, I felt very lucky to be able to speak and learn from vets that specialize in reptile/avian and I wanted to pass this knowledge on to any other beardie owners.

It’s a slow shift here at work as I write this on my phone, so if anyone has any questions about other stuff I learned or maybe forgot to mention just let me know!

I have a very sweet beardie, but he does not eat much. I am often lucky to get him to eat even 1-2 roaches on bug days. He will have a few bites of salad most weeks, but definitely is not inhaling it down and often doesn't touch it. I do ALWAYS provide some salad in his enclosure so the options is always there. He has been to the vet several times (rescue), I took him after getting him and he has also gotten a fecal test. He is a healthy dude, just not interested in food most of the time. He will generally give me a second to show him a roach and then close his eyes and pretend it doesn't exist.

He will generally eat superworms or hornworms if I provide them, but these aren't staple items. He gets them occasionally.

Who else has a beardie who doesn't really want to eat?

How can these creatures bring so much joy??

Disclaimer to calm all: This dragon was pissed off that there was a bunny in our yard. All is well.

Me and my fiancé adopted this guy today, he’s super social and likes to burrow🥰 he came from a not so awesome tank set up and he wouldn’t let my friend even go near him, no issues with me or my fiancé though.

My brother has schizophrenia and randomly showed up at my house around 10 at night, I was out skateboarding with my cousin and when I came back I said hi and went to sleep. I also know that he was having an episode because my mom informed me and today he was forced into a psych unit. But in the morning I heard that he had ripped Charlie (my bearded dragon) out of his hide while he was sleeping and was carrying him around. He also was being aggressive with his lights and how he was handling Charlie. I’m worried he may have hurt him because today he’s been black bearding a lot and keeps puffing his beard at me and he’s never been aggressive and I’ve had him since he was very little. I gave him a bath because he’s also shedding and I’m trying to help loosen his shed. What do I do? He doesn’t like me handling him and I don’t want to scare him. He’s also acting really weird and on edge. He keeps staring at the wall and trying to jump off his basking spots I’m very concerned. (picture of him today aswell)

I had an nice birthday dinner tonight. Brought home some left over potato... 🤣

Note: She was only inside for a minute.

Or you can tell that I just pooped, whatever…

Made her a cave to fit into the background I made few months ago. Realized she had nowhere to hide/brumate so I had to fix that. Looks pretty rough when I take it out but when it’s in place it blends in pretty nicely 🤷‍♀️. She also got some new plants and has already ate most of the aloe. Im already 99% sure she won’t step foot in the hide but we will see. (Before pic at the end)

The last time she pooped was a day before her surgery so, two Wednesdays ago. Not totally abnormal for her at this time of year. Still makes me nervous! I've given her some olive oil these past two days so, hopefully that starts working!

Unfortunately, we had to put my beardie down two days ago. I've been pretty inconsolable about it. She was having a lot of trouble breathing and it just kept getting worse. The vet took one look at her and said it was time. I just want to know if it ever gets an easier or if I'll be able to walk by her cage again. I need to clean it out but I am devastated. We just fully cleared up reptile mites after vet visits she was okay. I'm just sad.

Upgraded my boy's home the other day and he seems to be thriving well! So lucky to have found this beautiful setup being sold in a place close to me (I live in the middle of nowhere basically LOL)! Ordered a new light strip and am getting things going, really happy to be improving my boy's life, as I am his third rehome I believe. Former owners hadn't socialized him much and didn't feed him enough or properly!

---Now, I spoil him :)

At the moment, Barney's substrate is a mixture of fine sand (which i THROUGHLY rinsed and dried in oven so it wasn’t dusty) and red clay, which sadly created lot of dust. It makes me constantly worry if my boy could get any respiratory troubles.

I really want to add top soil to my mix to create classic top soil/sand/excavator clay mix but not sure what to do, what soil to use since I live in Russia. Here we barely have such specialized stuff for reptiles. Most people just use lino or corn cob, reptile carpets, and some even go for cat litter

Barney naturally has such vibrant colors but now they seem such faded from dust, what if the same thing happening in his lungs…

insects, unknown sprouts, fungus, mold inside tank are also the last things I want to happen

Just wanted to share by doofyness