Settled

A lot has changed in the past few weeks. For starters, we moved. And after 2 week of settling, everything's finally unpacked and in the right places. We sold our last baby from Clutch 1 last Saturday, to a young man who I'm sure will provide a good home.

We found a local reptile food store to start ordering our bulk crickets through. We have impeccable timing, as Tim(the owner) had just passed his store inspection and was wanting to begin selling some reptiles. We told him all about our dragons and we arranged for a pick up of a couple, for him to start off with. Today, he came by to see the babies and was pleased to see how well all our dragons look. He started off with buying 10 babies, and once he sells them, will want more. Very exciting. 

Our 3rd clutch of eggs should be hatching within the next 2 weeks. Now that we've cleared up some room, we should have plenty of space for the new babies and we should also have a known buyer for when they become of age. 

Another surprise happened today. We let River (our juvy beardie) out of her tank for a bit, to roam around the room. She immediately ran to Sydney (our adult females) tank and began head bobbing, stomping her feet and blackening her beard. Sydney responded to the display, with a few slow head bobs of her own. Upon further inspection, my boyfriend realized that River is a male and all the head bobbing was a mutual agreement between the two lizards to mate. River's new name is Reptar. Reptar, is a mere 12 inches in length. Sydney is massive in comparison to him. She's about 16-17 inches from nose to tail and she's pleasantly plump. She looks like she could squash him. But, she showed signs of submission and after allowing them to mingle together, we witnessed Reptar trying to mate with Sydney. However, he's simply to small. We're going to wait a few more months and let them try again. 

Next weekend is the Reptile Expo, here in Indianapolis. I think we've decided that we're going to take the kids. It'll be fun. The website shows a plethora of different reptiles to check out, and I think we'll get an idea on how pricey some of the fancier morphs of beardies can be. If we breed Sydney and Chronos, we'll need to know what the market value is for there morphs. They're sure to be beautiful babies. 

This past weekend was a busy one. We got rid of all but one little baby dragon. We had 2 families come and hand pick their pets and it was a good experience. I had hardly any anxiety with seeing them go. I think we did a great job at finding them all good and loving homes! I haven't got as many inquires about the last baby dragon. But he's still doing well, growing quickly and enjoying a tank all to himself.

Last Friday I ordered 1,500 crickets and 500 superworms from FlukerFarms. They arrived Tuesday afternoon via FedEx. To my horror, upon opening the box, I found that they were all Dead. By this point, we're completely out of live food for all our dragons and were depending on the shipment to arrive (alive). According to customer service, due to the cold weather here in Indiana, the critters could arrive "asleep" and need to be warmed up. I started with the box of worms, and opened it up to set it under one of the dragons heat lamps. Within minutes they were trying to escape and I had to transfer them to their container. The crickets bounced back to life too, without the use of a heat lamp. It was MUCH harder to transfer them from their shipment box to the cricket container. MUCH HARDER. It was horrible, to say the least. Firstly, I'm terrified of bugs. Secondly, there were about 7 spiders amongst all the crickets and Lastly, I hate bugs! I ended up feeling as if I had things crawling on me for the rest of the evening. And though I had made sure none escaped into my home, I had to vacuum just to make sure.

Our newest clutch of babies finally finished hatching. Out of 23 eggs we had 22 hatch, and that's really great! It's fun reaching into the newest hatchlings tank and picking up a hand full of babies! They're all really cute, and we have a lot of pretty color markings with this clutch. They're so tiny that it's hard to tell that there's 22 of them, but I think in a few weeks we'll really notice. All the babies are eating well, both crickets and veggies. All the babies have their tail and finger tips and are getting along with each other. Can't wait till they get a little older.

I arranged for our first 7 week old baby to go to a new home today. I said I wasn't attached to any of them but I'm sure going to miss the little guy! It's sad seeing them go. But my house is slowly being overrun by beardie babies! We have another 2 babies leaving us tomorrow. :(

The rest of the newest clutch and the other 7 week olds are doing great. We currently have 15 hatched new borns, 1 in the process of hatching and 6 that we're still waiting on.

I've been arranging for new homes for our 7 week old babies. As much as I adore them, and no matter how stinkin' cute they are, I have to let them go. I've spent the last 7 weeks taking care of the babies. I wake up every morning and feed them, clean their tank and hold them. I'm not attached to any one in particular, but I do care for them, and I want them to have healthy and fulfilling lives. A lot of the calls that I've got about the babies scare me. A few people don't seem to have any idea what they're doing and I get nervous about letting them go home with them. What if they don't take proper care of them? What if something bad happens? I understand being new to the reptile fan club. I was new once, and I had to do A LOT of research to figure this crap out. I still do research, I still get things wrong and have to learn as I go. But, when I get a call about a baby, and it's clear the person is oblivious, it raises a lot of questions. I've had a few people ask for advice, which makes me think much better of them. I've also had a few people act as if my asking if they're knowledgeable in the care of Beardies, is an insult. I just want to do what's best for the babies.I feel responsible for finding them great homes to go to, because they were my pets first. They deserve to have owners that care about their well being, and will go out of their way to provide for them, because sometimes reptiles and exotics need special care.

 I've found one family who would like to make a pet out of a baby or two and I'm very excited to meet them, they sound wonderful. The gentleman has been very honest and has even asked for advice. I think his family will make fantastic owners to my babies, because he's went above and beyond to be completely prepared for the moment that the baby goes home with them. I hope I find more people like this family. It'll make me sleep better at night if I know they're going to a good home.

The second clutch of eggs are still hatching. We have 13 babies hatched and 10 that we're still waiting on. There's been a bit of a break between hatching, it's been 2 days since a new baby and 6 days since the first began hatching. I'm hoping to see the rest of the little guys soon.

As for the 13 that have hatched, they're so CUTE! I sortof forgot how small they are when they're first born. Our 7 week old babies have grown soooo much, and I didn't realize it because I see them every day. What really made me notice how small they were, and how much the 7 week old babies have grown was this past weekend. My 6 year old step son LOVES holding the babies. They're "kid sized" and they aren't nearly as intimidating as our adults. He's allowed to hold them, but I prefer if we're around to watch him. The little guys can be fast, and they don't know well enough not to dive out of your hands. Anyways, this weekend, I came into my office, where the babies are kept also. I was looking at the new born's and noticed that one was huge in comparison. This didn't surprise me, because one of the 7 week old babies is a lot bigger then the rest too. I mentioned to my boyfriend that it was ironic that we had 1 big baby in each clutch. He gave a look of disbelief and did a head count for our 7 week olds, and noticed one was missing. Bryston had been holding the babies while we weren't around and had mixed them up. This wasn't a big deal, except the 7 week old looked absolutely terrified in the new born tank. There's a lot of babies to deal with, and they were stammering all over him. He was sort of curled up in the corner and he had turned his skin really dark  (an indication that he was not having fun). We had to explain to Bryston that mixing them up wasn't a good idea. The bigger babies could accidentally hurt the little babies, and clearly the bigger babies are big babies and get scared with all the commotion around them. It was kind of a cute little mishap. 

This past week has been SUPER busy for me. The spring 2012 semester started back, and I've piled on 2 extra classes, so I've been bombarded with school work.

Our first clutch of hatchlings are growing rapidly. As it gets closer to the 6 week mark, we're starting to see some interest from potential buyers. I think that we've decided to keep one baby, since it's the first clutch we've ever bred. I can't decide on which one I want, they're all SO adorable!

Today, we checked the incubator, where we have 2 other clutches growing. Our 2nd clutch of eggs has started to hatch, with 2 babies already fully out of their shells and 2 with little noses peaking out. These eggs were different when Sydney laid them. They're MUCH bigger then all the other clutches and they're perfectly white. Like, they didn't get dirty from the soil when she laid them. Hatching has already begun differently too. They're hatching a lot faster then the first clutch. We've been checking them multiple times a day, because we knew the due date was getting close. Nothing had happened as of 3 o' clock this morning, when I settled down for bed. I can't wait to see all of them. This clutch has a lot more babies to be expected, 23 eggs total.

Now that the holidays are over, I'm finally able to get this up to speed. A few things have changed since I last updated. Most importantly, Sydney laid her 3rd clutch of eggs. She had 24 fertile eggs.

We currently have 47 incubating eggs and 7 babies that're growing pretty quickly. 

We also added ANOTHER beardie to our collection of adults. We named him Reptar.

The Babies are 3 weeks old now. We were surprised to see that they've started eating their greens too. Normally babies don't pick up on eating greens until later on in life, but we gave them the option and they took it. Only 3 or so more weeks until we find the babies new homes. :(