# New owner of a rankins dragon



## Peanut123 (Apr 22, 2015)

Hi,

I have a new rankins dragon called Peanut she's about 7 months old. I'm new to owning a rankins dragon so I just wanted to double check I'm doing everything right. I've had her for a week now. 

Vivairum is 3FT 
I use reptile carpet for substrate 
Cool side is 75-80F
Hot side 90-95F
I use a 50w heat bulb 
And I have a 10% UVB bulb right the way across the viv
I use a thermostat to help control the heat
I have the lights on for 12hrs and lights off for 12hrs

I have nutrobal calcium dust and I'm not sure how often I should dust her food?? Any ideas??? It contains D3 so I know I've gotta be careful not to over do it as she gets D3 from her lighting 

For the first 5 days she was eating between 10-15 live foods a day but for the past 2 days she's had 5 live foods a day?? Is this okay??? 

She poops everyday sometimes twice a day 

I give her a bowl of veggies everyday, parsley, cucumber, red& yellow pepper 

Any ideas if I'm doing everything okay or any advice?


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## kbonnington (Mar 15, 2015)

too many bugs mate class them as treats. once twice a week, too many even if it was a insectivore 4 or five is a better amount, 15 wow. make sure they're appropriately size same even applies to the adults 

that veg isn't the best need to do some more research on that, its weeds and things that you want. there is no point feeding cucumber at all there's nothing of use in it other than water. you can buy seed packets for the weeds that are specific to the animal have a look on ebay, i know you can for beardies and tortoise. probably go for the beardie one if it was me. research it there is plenty of better stuff that you can get from the shop. avoid cabbage and brusle sprouts too often there is a few others that are the same that retard metabolic rate.

enclosure sounds fine you need to make sure that youve got:
hot end air temp
cool end air temp
and the basking area this is the point directly under the buld where he will sit this is seperate to the hot end temp. this is what the branch or whatever is under the bulbs surface temp is. it usually right when the the air temps right. get a lazer thermometer from ebay or a temp gun there about £6 for the basking area or get a probe. or stick a dial right where it is.
find out the temps with research and observing it if he sits there all day and dosent move too cold and the opposite if its hot.
the most important part is that you keep that cool end cool or else youll have dead animals.


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## Peanut123 (Apr 22, 2015)

she does she does move around and sit in different places in the viv quite a lot but the majority she is under the basking lamp 

Every website I've been on have told me the same things for the veg really but nowhere has ever suggested weeds 

I use a probe for both cool end and under the basking light and I use a thermostat too 

I will deffinetly try getting a temp tho


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## kbonnington (Mar 15, 2015)

im not talking all weeds but they bulk up their diet with roughage. obviously use other things, but its for fiber and stuff, they do have other vitamins and minerals that they need too. really its just the bugs mate she dont need that many the weed packets was a suggestion, it acts as enrichment as well shes got to pull them up and things.


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## Peanut123 (Apr 22, 2015)

Okay dude cool thanks for your help


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## Peanut123 (Apr 22, 2015)

Oh btw do u have any idea what she should be weighing at this age? She's about 7-8 months


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## kbonnington (Mar 15, 2015)

not 100% on that one can differ from a lot of different factors, can probably find out online. 
i would just check the weight visually, you want meat on the tail but not on the belly, thats pretty much it, compare with others online but be careful with that lots of people are killing their animals with kindness if you know what i mean. unless you can see that its over or under weight dramatically not to worry.


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## GavinMc (Jan 9, 2013)

kbonnington said:


> too many bugs mate class them as treats.


I'm not going to really say much as I don't have experience with Agamas so I'll let others answer, but are you sure about this statement? I have seen a ratio of around 60:40 ( veg, etc:insects ) being thrown around by most keepers. 

Also the amount of food you give really does depend on how old your lizard is. I don't know when a Rankin's would top out but if it is still growing I think 4-10 crickets, locust, roaches, etc is a tad on the low side surely?



Peanut123 said:


> Oh btw do u have any idea what she should be weighing at this age? She's about 7-8 months


Weight, as the above has mentioned, isn't something to worry about. The way the animal looks is. If it looks healthy but is quite small and light it may just be a slow grower if it's the opposite and a fast grower then again it isn't a problem unless it's fat. Keeping track of the weight can be a good thing but making sure the dragon looks healthy is more important than the weight. As with us they grow at different rates and need different levels of food to do so.



Gavin.


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## kbonnington (Mar 15, 2015)

totally agree with the condition comments

rankins are only small they dont get very big and when i said appropriately sized the width of their head im sure 4-5 of anything would be best.

add in 2-3 starve days with the bugs twice a week, and veg on the others and there is plenty of food. im sure depending on the size you could do 3 times, i dont think feeding ten bugs even to an insectivor is healthy. alternating from two to three days a week would give you about 60-40%


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## GavinMc (Jan 9, 2013)

kbonnington said:


> totally agree with the condition comments
> 
> rankins are only small they dont get very big and when i said appropriately sized the width of their head im sure 4-5 of anything would be best.
> 
> add in 2-3 starve days with the bugs twice a week, and veg on the others and there is plenty of food. im sure depending on the size you could do 3 times, i dont think feeding ten bugs even to an insectivor is healthy. alternating from two to three days a week would give you about 60-40%


For an adult maybe, I still think 4 days of eating is still a tad low, but I'm not an Agama person so I won't argue. For a growing lizard - and we still haven't identified whether it is or not - it's surely not enough. 


Just out of interest, what do you mean by "sized the width of their head"? The length of the insect is the width of the lizard's head or the width of the insect is the width of the lizard's head? 



Gavin.


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## Peanut123 (Apr 22, 2015)

I'm only doing one starve day since she is still only young and is growing so that starve day is only so she will definitely eat her veg that day other than that she gets offered as much food as she will eat which is usually between 5 and 25 a day. 

Everywhere I look online has said to feed live bugs daily but do a starve day to get her to eat her veg if she doesn't already which I tried this and it worked perfectly. Since this is the first time I've been told to starve 2-3 times a week I'm going to look into that more before I take that advice. 

I've attached a picture of her and her viv.

I keep the bugs the size of the width of her head like you said.


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## kbonnington (Mar 15, 2015)

gavgav04 said:


> For an adult maybe, I still think 4 days of eating is still a tad low, but I'm not an Agama person so I won't argue. For a growing lizard - and we still haven't identified whether it is or not - it's surely not enough.
> 
> 
> Just out of interest, what do you mean by "sized the width of their head"? The length of the insect is the width of the lizard's head or the width of the insect is the width of the lizard's head?
> ...


length of the insect is the width of the lizards head. im not saying extra feeds and things like that cant be added if its clearly hungry, but they are from arid areas where food is scarce i think replicating that in captivity is the best for them. what i don't think is a good idea is giving them the opportunity to have food all the time. for a baby calories should be a bit higher i do agree, just seen the pics he is small i would probably only do two starve days a week and 2-3 feeds of the bugs but i still think 4-5 bugs is ample ten is alot for a small stomach and you need to factor in that you want it to eat the veg. bugs taste nicer.

i think with these you do the width between the eyes? i will have to check that


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## kbonnington (Mar 15, 2015)

just seen your setup look awesome lovely animal, 25 bugs that s a lot i have bosc monitors of a similar size that i dont feed half that in a feed. if your scatter feeding i would add a few more in for the tank because it probably wont catch them all, take them out the morning after and replace them. look i would do your own research and do it by your own speculation my experiences will not be the same as yours, all i will say is that s a lot, if your putting them in there and all of them are gone in the morning add some more next time and make sure its eating its veg.


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## GavinMc (Jan 9, 2013)

OK, as I say I'm not an Agama keeper as such and was just a bit curious about your first statement. 

For some it may seem like I'm trying to 'hound' you on a few threads but that isn't the case it just so happens we have slightly differing opinions on a few things.



Peanut123 said:


> I keep the bugs the size of the width of her head like you said.





kbonnington said:


> i think with these you do the width between the eyes? i will have to check that


I don't really stick to those 'rules' but it is a 'safe' way to go about things.


Peanut you don't need to worry about the weight of that little guy. He looks healthy enough. Everything looks to be in proportion.



Gavin.


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## kbonnington (Mar 15, 2015)

you know i do actually have the same opinion i dont stick to those rules but as you said to a new owner its best to just stick to that.

my argument to it is that if they saw a bug that was slightly larger than its head in the wild would they leave it? NO. i think its just a guide to new owners. ive heard its because larger bugs are harder to digest and i suppose with overfeeding it will play havoc on their systems. 
what i do is try to imagine the size of their stomach and aim to fill it, give time off and wing it really.


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## Peanut123 (Apr 22, 2015)

I was advised by the petshop owner to just keep feeding her until she starts to ignore the food and that's what I do apart from Sunday's when I don't feed her live food at all and only feed her veg. when I first got her I took his advise and she ended up eating 24 live bugs before she ignored the food so I rang the petshop and asked if that was normal and the owner laughed and said "she has her greedy days" haha and he was right! But now on average she eats 5-15 bugs a day, she basically binge eats, for example if one day she has had 15 bugs for a few days she will only eat 5/6 meal worms.
I feed her on my bed by keep placing the bugs at Either end of the bed so she has to run up and down to catch them, basically just so she gets excercise

Since I put the parsley plant in I do notice her eating it a lot as she didn't take notice to the parsley if I cut it up and put it in a bowl 

I've started to weigh her and measure her length weekly so I can keep track of how quickly she's growing 

She's a greedy girl but she gets a lot of exercise so I suppose even if she is eating to much she's burning it off on her daily exercises round the house 

I don't ever notice her drinking out her water dish so I bathe her daily as she will drink her bath water and she enjoys a little swim round too, think that's okay? Daily bathing?


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## Peanut123 (Apr 22, 2015)

It's rare she has 24/25 bugs but it does happen sometimes


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## kbonnington (Mar 15, 2015)

binge eating advise is crap, i wouldnt. i wouldnt do what the pet shops tell you research yourself like your doing now. im not saying im an expert, i most certainly wouldnt tell you to feed like that. think of it from a mammalian prospective, if you ate every time until you were full it would make you fat undoubtedly. same applies man as i said before gauge your own feeding plan. i like the exercise thing but she dont need that much and she aint burning that off running up and down your bed. that petshops told you how to power feed and nacker its organs. do your research look at them in the wild and things to gauge the ratio of bugs to veg and amounts, start small and build up supporting all this with behavior. just remember its not a naturally tame animal like a dog it should be going nuts for its food it doent necessarily mean its hungry but fed properly. not only that they are opportunistic they will have a go at eating every time because their innate behavior is to eat every time, in the wild if it passed up a meal it could not have another one for a week. thats the reason why it ate 24 crickets it wasnt being greedy, anthropomorphism wont get you far with it and most certainly wont get you a healthy animal.

the bathing thing if the humidity in the enclosure is right and they have access to water there shouldn't be any reason to, i have to ask does it go limp when you put it in the water or still? this again is anthropomorphism its not chilled, its frightened, do they swim in the wild you need to find that out before you do things like that. its called a freezing commonly misinterpreted. animal behaviour differs from one to the next and if you think its not frightened and its enriching go for it i dont want to put you off. i most certainly dont want to prevent the animal from doing something it enjoys. all im saying is research the animal top to bottom behaviour (fear, aggression, submission, stress) and anything else that you feel is applicable.


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## GavinMc (Jan 9, 2013)

Peanut123 said:


> I don't ever notice her drinking out her water dish so I bathe her daily as she will drink her bath water and she enjoys a little swim round too, think that's okay? Daily bathing?


Don't agree with bathing anything to be honest. If they need to bathe they should have an appropriate area in their vivarium, but again this is a debated subject. Many do use bathing as a way to increase hydration, but I feel this probably does more damage than good. I would have thought it would stress the animal. 

Again as I don't keep these I can't comment on how to look after them but I will tell you how I keep animals from similar climates/areas. Now I will just point out that Rankin's and beardies don't actually come from as arid a region as first catered for. I give a reasonably dry set-up and offer an area of standing water just incase they do drink it, most won't. I also lightly spray down the cool end every other night and lightly spray the whole vivarium every morning focusing on rocky areas. This usually gets a better response from lizards needing a drink. Some will take the droplets of the rock and other solid surfaces ad others will lick it off of themselves. I also other a deepish substrate which gets wetter the deeper it goes. This allows the lizards to dig a small burrow to an appropriate level. There can be problems with set-ups like these but if done well it really benefits your lizard.

A bio-active vivarium may be something for you consider. A quick forum search and you will find a few good threads on the subject.



Gavin.


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## kbonnington (Mar 15, 2015)

i do the bio active thing for most of my setups and if they will burrow its the best way to keep them hydrated. thumbs up on that soil and sand


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## Peanut123 (Apr 22, 2015)

Yeah I understand what you mean about the food, thanks for that advice.

I've researched about the bathing and a lot of people say some rankins like it and some don't 

Ive got a big plastic container in and what I do is I fill it up about a inch deep and I put a rock in it and then I place her on the rock where no water reaches her and then she chooses to climb down into the water and swim around and then when she's finished she just crawls back into the Rock and climbs out onto me


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## Peanut123 (Apr 22, 2015)

And I must disagree with the eat every time comment, she most deffinetly doesn't eat every time. She does ignore her food once she's done she won't just eat it for the sake of it


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## kbonnington (Mar 15, 2015)

sounds good to me actively choosing the water over safety.

they are opportunistic i know you might disagree from the observations of her behavior that you have done but it is innate, instinctive its something that is genetic that they all have as a survival strategy. the thing that will cause them to not be like this is being overfed, having access to food all the time. although it is instinctive, learnt behavior can override this for example learning that they have access to food all the time. you should be aiming to make her like that, not turning down food, its more normal than turning down food. 

they arent domesticated they haven't genetically adapted their behavior to domestication yet, if you think of dogs for example they dont get hungry and then go out for a hunt they moan at you. this is an adaptation of their behaviour unlike wolves or foxes that they came from to a changing environment ie humans removing the stress of needing to find food. what i mean by this that turning down food is going against their very makeup and should be classified as irregular in the same way as a dog going out and hunting the neighborhood cat.


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