Zed & Terra

[ZARADOZIA]

Zed & Terra:
Italian Leatherback Bearded Dragons
Born September 5th, 2011
Purchased Oct 8th, 2011 for $30.00 each.


Terra is a vivacious eater and is the most dominate, & comical of the two so far. She was named after my best friend Tara, who named her dog after me. They had their first bath on Oct 12th (pics below). The water was about 2-3 inches deep, temp 95 degrees (stuck probe in water before I put them in – I love that thing!). Terra decided she wanted to jump in the water from her log and began vigorous swimming. After 30 seconds she blows up like a balloon and completely stops moving. It was so cute. I scooped out of the water and caressed her until she relaxed and started breathing normally again, then placed her back on the log. I drained the water to 1 inch so she wouldn’t scare herself again if she jumped off the log.

Zed is the problem eater and most laid-back of the two. I have to coax Zed into eating by squishing the pinhead cricket heads, hold them with tweezers far enough from his face so he can get a good look, and then hold it in front of his mouth before he will eat. He has eaten unassisted only once; on October 12th, but refused to eat before that and yesterday. This morning I had to coax him into eating again, but he did eat 5 crickets.

Zed watched Terra swim and balloon up and waited until I drained some of the water before he went for a swim. They both seemed to enjoy the water. Total bath time was about 10 minutes.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i25/Vandacross/Dragons%20Zed%20-n-%20Terra/ZedTerraDifferencecopy.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i25/Vandacross/Dragons%20Zed%20-n-%20Terra/100_1958.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i25/Vandacross/Dragons%20Zed%20-n-%20Terra/100_1964.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i25/Vandacross/Dragons%20Zed%20-n-%20Terra/100_1972.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i25/Vandacross/Dragons%20Zed%20-n-%20Terra/100_1983.jpg

[Valvaren]

If you want to solve your eating problems separate them. You already just explained what is happening yourself :

Terra is a vivacious eater and is the most dominate

She is dominating him, this is why dragons are better off in separate cages, they are not social creatures, sometime people are lucky to get them to house together without stress but most are not and you aren't. Zed will continue to get worse if you don't and if you don't believe me search around especially on bearddragon.org 85% of the posts are from people asking what is wrong and 80% of those are caused by housing together. And before you can say babies wont do anything to each other, look around for that too, missing limbs, missing toes, missing tails, death. And just because you are feeding the younger one doesn't mean it will survive, the dominance is not just physical i.e laying on each other, but its mental. Imagine being stuck in a box with someone who beats you down and prevents you from doing things you need to do, someone who wont let you eat. He isn't not eating because he is lazy or sick, he isn't eating because he is submissive.

Some of you might disagree, and as i've stated some people are lucky housing them together but i've seen more mutilation and death (a good deal from hatchlings) that I personally believe it is our duty to these animals and all animals we keep to provide the best for them and housing together is not the best, and no they don't do this in the wild they are solitary.

Please, even if you don't believe me, try it, just try it, separate them for a month (to account to relocation stress and enough time for him to adjust to being alone) and see the difference.

[vendettaseve]

Im going to have to agree with Valvaren on this one. They need to be separated asap, You should never keep male/female bearded dragons together. Your lucky they are young still, if they were older theres a good chance you would only have one right now.

Thoes people who do keep them together almost always keep Female/Female pairs/groups. everything else just doesnt work.

[ZARADOZIA]

Thank you both for your advice and concern. It is duly noted. However, they are not fed together but separately. It is also normal for the runts of the liter to have issues eating at which point they must be hand fed and coaxed into eating. Trust me, I do more research in one day than most people do in their lifetimes. I am well aware that some hatchlings fight, i.e., biting each others’ tails off among other violent behavior to assert domination.

Here is a well documented case study which was done correctly, it is filled with scientific facts:
Bearded Dragon Research (http://mrskingsbioweb.com/Dragon.htm)

Again, I thank you both for your concern but my main thought was to share the beauty of these babies and the beginning of their lives.

And Zed ate 10 more crickets all by himself 2 hours ago!

[youngster]

Nice pair, but adding on to Valvaren's warning if they ever breed leatherback x leatherback makes silkbacks which are very delicate. Just remember sometimes they die unexpectedly because of their incredibly soft back.

[Lankyrob]

Are you intending to breed them? If not you will need separate enclosures at some point anyways

[ZARADOZIA]

Breeding yes, Not together, Bad genetics, and no time soon. They are from the same parents and I don't need recessive genes becoming dominate. Genetics & DNA is a big deal in this house.

We did buy the leatherback with future intentions of breeding Silkies and Smoothies, but not before we get a couple of more pairs so we have a strong gene pool to work with. Plus I don’t want to start until the female is at least 2 yrs old. Early breeding can be detrimental to their health. They are my babies before they are breeders.

Right now they are only 5 weeks old and this weekend I will have a second enclosure (previously mentioned in "When life is good"). I have to wait about 2 more weeks before moving either of them to a different enclosure due to the stress they are already under. They really need time to adjust to the massive changes they have gone through in the past 5 weeks of their lives. Neither of them will be sexually mature for at least another 4 months (and that’s worst case scenario), which is more than enough time to ensure both are well establish in their own enclosures.

(Yes, I always plan ahead.)

[ZARADOZIA]

Here is another excellent read from the University of Miami. One that every Beardie owner should have.

http://www.bio.miami.edu/ktosney/file/Caresheet.pdf