Today, my fondness for reptiles is still very much alive. A year ago, my boyfriend and I found a precious baby bearded dragon at a local pet store. At only 8 weeks old, we brought him home and named him Twiggy. Twiggy is now 18 inches long, 3 and a half inches wide (at his widest part,his belly), and had a head span of 2 and a quarter inches. In other words, Twiggy's not very twig-like anymore, he's a big boy! He has a fiery attitude, and is one of the laziest lizards I've ever seen! That is, unless Sydney's around.
Sydney is Twiggy's first attraction and first mate. We bought Sydney while she was already an adult. At the time, our reasoning for getting another pet was simple, We LOVE beardies. Sydney is a gorgeous lemon fire morph with a cool and collected personality. She's full grown and is 17 inches in length. She loves being held, she loves romaine lettuce and she loves Twiggy. Sydney rarely runs or jumps around. She's never acted aggressive or afraid. She's been totally at ease from the moment I first held her. In short, she's the polar opposite of Twiggy. They say opposites attract though.
In October, this year, I scheduled a check up for Sydney. By that time, we had had her for a few months and we agreed that a check up would be good for her. The day I made the appointment I made an off hand comment to my boyfriend, " Does Sydney look fat to you?" When Sydney's appointment rolled around, we had our suspicions that she might be pregnant. We were skeptical though, because we hadn't actually caught Twiggy and Sydney in the act. Sydney was very well behaved at her appointment. The doctor commented on how lovely she was, how great her posture was, and how very very pregnant she was. My boyfriend and I were shocked. We never expected her to get pregnant. In a very naive way, I still thought of Twiggy as a baby and babies can't make babies!
...5 days later...
Sydney laid her eggs! It was exciting, stressful and terrifying all at once. We were so surprised that she was pregnant, and we found out so late, that we struggled to get everything ready for her. Sydney laid 20 perfect eggs in just under 3 hours.
4 weeks, and 2 days later, in November, Sydney laid her second clutch of 23 eggs. This time, we were a little more prepared. We had recognized the signs of her being pregnant and had acted a little more quickly. The second experience was just as exciting and remarkable as the first, just a little less scary.
On November 21st, we finally witnessed the lizards mating. They had been apart for weeks and Twiggy was stressing out over not seeing Sydney. Frankly, I was getting exhausted watching him pace his tank, and display typical bearded dragon mating signs. Needless to say, it was an interesting and horrifying experience. Did you know bearded dragons bite the back of their partners neck when they mate?! Yeah, neither did I. Weird.
On December 13th I checked on our incubating eggs. It was a routine that my boyfriend and I had developed. He was the first up and at em in the mornings, so he checked on them then. Between school work, house work and guild leading, I would check them a couple times during the day and evening. On Tuesday, around 8:00 pm, I noticed a small slit in a deflated egg. Through the slit I could see a tiny nose and mouth, a baby!I text my boyfriend in excitement exclaiming that the babies were coming, one was hatching, and that I could already tell it was going to be cute. It took Baby 1 20 hours to struggle from his egg. Shortly after, the next morning, Baby 2 began hatching. After about an hour, I went to check and see how the little guys progress was coming, and was shocked to see that yet another egg was hatching. Our newest struggling baby was right along side Baby 2, in their journey into our world. Baby 3 wanted out a little more though. He was out of his egg within 3 hours, where it took 8 for our second baby. Since then, we've had 2 babies hatch each day. All of which are adorable. They vary between 4-5 inches in length and they've just stated to eat itty bitty crickets.
December 23rd we bought our 3rd adult dragon who we named Reptar . We wanted another mate for our female, but something a little more unique. We found Reptar at a local pet shop, he's a Red Flame Morph. The clerk told us that he was donated to the shop because the owners didn't realize what they were getting themselves in to. Reptar was priced well and absolutely beautiful. Though he's technically still a juvenile, we're patiently looking forward to the day he becomes ready to breed.
