Today's Second Rescue-- an "Aggressive" beardie, rescue 186

The second ad I found last night also horrified me! Two in one night was pretty intense. There wasn't a pic, just an ad saying the beardie was "Aggressive." I sent a text request for a pic and got this one:

Crappy, dirty sand. Half closed eyes. NOT good.

I asked about his set up. The answer wasn't *that* bad: a 40 gallon tank, sand, a hide, a plant, and some dishes. Okay, that's doable. What about the lights, I texted back.

The answer horrified me. "I keep him in the sunniest room in my house so he doesn't need lights."

Um? Excuse me?

What about a basking spot?

"We keep our house pretty warm."

Like 100 degrees? I don't think so.

This beardie had NO lights and NO heat and NO UVB. Is anyone really surprised he's "Aggressive??" Without heat, he can't digest properly. Without UVB, he can't metabolize calcium.

The tank was gross. Thin layer of sand, tiny hide, chameleon plant, lots of poop. He was not taken care of well because he was mean. No name either. He's very thin too. :( I paid $70 to bail him out. The beardie was only $40 but for an extra $30 I got the tank so it was a good deal (sorta).

I brought him home and got him into a clean tank with lights. Once he stopped freaking out, he took a very long drink from his clean water bowl.  And once he discovered the heat lamp, he did NOT move from it. :(  He kept his eyes closed and his face pointed towards the heat.

You cannot tell me he was "Fine" with no lights. Look at that face!!

He never was named and I haven't decided yet what to call him. Poor baby needs good nutrition, a blankie, love, and probably a good deworming.



If you'd like to help rebuild my "Blood Money" or "Bail Money" or "Emergency Rescue" funds, please click HERE.

Another post about Sand

If you've read this blog, you've ready *many* posts about the dangers of sand. I'm not going to get in to that. You can click the "Sand" label at the bottom of this post and it will take you to other posts where I rant about how bad sand is. For this post, I want to focus on the aesthetics of sand.

One- sand makes your beardie dirty & stained. Look at the difference between Noel's belly after being on a solid substrate and being on sand. The sand side of the picture shows when his belly started to shed. The solid substrate side shows how clean his leg is until it reaches the old skin that hasn't shed off yet.

Gross, huh?

Two, sand & the even-worse walnut shell STINKS! Hand me a beardie and let me smell him and I can tell you right away if he's on sand or on a solid surface. Sand beardies smell SOOOO BAD! It's hard to keep the sand clean and bug/parasite free and it breeds stinkiness.

So get your beardie on a solid surface (tile, slate, laminate, shelf liner, paper towels) than for no other reason than you want him/her to be prettier and smell better. Their guts & digestion will thank you too.

Taking in New Rescues

Today I took in two beardies and took pics of what I do when I take in a new Beardie. 

When a Beardie comes in with supplies, it usually looks like this in my front room-- like someone threw up supplies! 

These two tanks had walnut shell in them! Yuck!! 

That had to be the first thing to go-- after I picked out the crickets that weren't being eaten. 

I use a small dustpan and scoop the nasty stuff in the trash. I found old poop, cricket parts, weird things I couldn't recognize, pieces of shed, etc. As I breathed it in, I wondered how a Beardie could survive when inhaling all the dust while digging in the walnut shell. 

Once it's clean, I wipe the whole tank down with a lemon antibacterial wipe. I want to kill any and all germs or parasites that bred in the walnut shell. I let the antibacterial wipe dry on its own. Then I wipe the whole thing down a couple times with a clean, wet washcloth. 

I had pieces of linoleum already cut to a 40 gallon tank so I put that in the bottom of the tank. 

When I pulled the first Beardie out, I cut his nails. Oh! They were long!! 

He did not like it! 

Once his nails were trimmed, I let him run around the room while I cleaned. Teddy and Kreature watched. 

I washed off all the logs and branches in the sink to wash off all the dust. Then I repeated the process with the second tank and Beardie. The whole cleaning process took just over an hour. 

Once the two tanks were set up, I moved them farther away from Kreature's tank. He was a little too interested in them. 

Luckily I had just ordered extra UVB bulbs and had brand new ones to put on their tanks. 

Using two zip ties looped around the light fixture and each other, I hang the UVB lights on the back of the tank with two plant hooks. 

I didn't quite get the lights hung because I had to run to the vet to pick up Sunny, but they are at least on top. 

Both beardies had coil UVB lights. The long tubes hanging inside the tank (not being filtered by a screen) are the best way of getting UVB to a Beardie. 

Thankfully, both beardies came with names! :) It's always a relief when I don't have to pick more names. I'll post about them tomorrow. 

PS. I keep my tanks pretty empty. When you have 15 tanks to care for, it's much easier if you keep them plain. These two will probably get a hammock added in and a few more dishes. I just used what they had so there was familiar objects for them.