HCA: Hermit Crab Association

well I went out and got one and is he fun did alot of research before hand but I'm always interested in any tips you guys can share he's not a baby he's about 3 months old and me and my son named him godzookie I'm not feeding him anything live yet the guy at the pet store said give it 3 or 4 days till he gets settled in well I'm going to go get some greens .....just what I needed something else to spoil thanx

We have a 2 year old BD and she is so pretty. She also laid 24 eggs a few weeks ago they are so gross looking. If you have any questions about your BD one of our members here Jedediah is the best if it wasn't for her our BD would have been gone a long time ago. Do you have any pic's of your BD? I would love to see him/her.Sandra

Bearded dragons are just awesome. My son has two that are almost a year old and he took them with him when he moved out. I learned alot of great info from beardeddragons.org. I don't know how to link it for you.Also, beware of petstore information. They gave us alot of wrong instructions. No sand for substrate (it causes impactions). Mealworms also are not good to feed babies. Silkworms and crickets are the best. No one told us not to feed our babies when we got them home. We bought one from Petco that started having seizures caused by parasites that impacted him and after 3 vet appointments I finally get to bring him home tomorrow. Yes, Petco paid for the vet since I brought him back within the 15 days and now I get to adopt him. He was only about 4 weeks old than, so now he'll be about 2 months now. A 3 month old is a good age to get. He or she should be ready to eat now. We never waited to feed my son's and they ate tons of crickets and salads just no lettuce of any kind, it causes runny poo.You and your son will enjoy your beardie. They have awesome personalities.

No EE for substrate. That will also impact them. I was told on beardeddragon.org that non adhesive shelf paper works great. I used paper towels in Zoey's tank. When they mess, you just replace. Keeps the tank clean. You don't want their poo left in tank for they could get parasites from it. I went and picked Zoey up today. He's now 8 weeks old and is only 5" long at that. But is really active and ate 3 crickets and salad out of my hand. You see I hand fed him for 13 days and he never ate live food during that time. I also get to take his poo back to the vet for a free check. I don't know if Petco does this normally or if it is because the worker that I returned him to knew me and trusted that I indeed force fed him to keep him alive. Anyway, I recommend a fecal exam (which costs $10-20)after you've had him a week so if he tests positive you can tell the petstore where you got him. To bad you don't have a digital camera, I would love to see your new baby. I will try to post a picture of Zoey to show how small he is.

I use play sand for a substrait, I never heard of paper or EE for BD. EE is to humid for a desert animal. Humm I learned some thing new, lolSandra

Hm, I guess you could use dry EE for a dragon, but I really don't see the point. I use playsand, as most other German dragon owners do, and the risk of impaction can be avoided by offering them crushed cuttlebone and a good vitamin/mineral supplement. They only eat their substrate if they lack calcium or minerals. The amount of sand they eat when hunting is really minimal.Here's an awesome website that has great info on vegetables and fruits that can be fed to dragons (iguanas, actually, but anyway):http://www.iguanaden.com/diet/calphosveg.htmIt's okay to feed him live prey now, but it's a very good idea to offer plenty of greens - it's very hard to get them to eat those when they didn't eat them as juveniles. My dragon loves locusts and roaches and he likes basil, probably because of the strong smell.

Jedediah, are you talking about just regular old Basil? Like the leaf?Sandra

Yep, the herb used for cooking. I usually buy a whole plant and feed it to Ruebe, the parakeets and all the mice and jirds.

The ex-bf and I used to have a BD, Iggy... I defs miss him! He ate live crickets as well as wet BD food and greens... I would definitely advise against giving him spinach - not only does it give them crazy-stinky poos, but I believe it's not real good for them either... I sure miss havin the BD - it's the only lizzard my mom's ok with seeing/handling... I definitely plan to get another one some day

Spinach is fine once in a while. It just contains a very high amount of oxalic acids and those prevent the absorption of calcium, so it shouldn't be fed very often. But it's not poisonous or anything.

everything is going real well hes doing so great and i'm real happy to have him he likes to be out with my son and I got the heat right along with getting a good amount of differnt greens and fruit thanks so much for the web site jedediah it helps to have a place to start .thanks too allmichelle

My husband and I had 2 BD's. We got them as tiny babies and had them for 2 years until we had to find them a new home due to a house fire.We used calcisand substrate. We never had a problem with it. They ate so much! Be prepared to feed, feed, feed! Between the two they ate 6 dozen large crickets and lots of greens every week! But they were so much fun. I miss them. Good luck!