Home Herpetarium

It has always been my intention to breed my bearded dragons. They moved in together last summer and have spent the ensuing months sleeping on top of each other, fighting over crickets, and performing arm-waving and head-bobbing behaviors at each other. This spring they were supposed to go through a period of cooling off for about a month, followed by a period of warming up, which would emulate natural springtime and get them in the mood to breed. But my beardies decided to do things in their own way, and on their own timetable, instead. Last week I had just sat down to dinner with M.P. when he gestured with surprise at the beardie enclosure. I turned to look as well and after a moment realized what I was seeing was two very brightly colored bearded dragons mating with each other. The male’s beard was full black and the area around his eyes had turned a bright orange color. The female was also dark in the beard area, and seemed completely willing to go along with his amorous intentions.

Since the initial mating attempt, the male (Mushu) has tried every day to repeat the experience, but my female (Elliot) has not let him. After doing some research into the habits of breeding bearded dragons, M.P. and I have discovered that she may be denying him because she thinks she is already pregnant. She may also not be entirely in the mood, and it was an accident that mating happened in the first place. We also are not sure entirely why they decided to start breeding now, when nothing about their environment has been changed in months. They have had consistent light, consistent heat, and consistent feeding for the past several months, so it couldn’t have been an environmental change that triggered their mating instincts. Sometimes, it seems, they get in the mood all on their own.

In a few more weeks we will be able to tell if their one successful breeding attempt (that we know of) has resulted in eggs. And then a few weeks after that we may get to start the process of incubating and hatching some baby beardies. That will certainly be an exciting and interesting experience, and I’m looking forward to it - even if we end up with 20 or 30 new additions to the family!

It seems to be shedding season in our Reptile Room right now.  The other day I walked in to check on things and Mittens, our veiled chameleon, looked like a creature right out of a nightmare.  She was a mess of flaky white skin, and in no mood to let anyone try and help her peel it off.  We misted her and that seemed to help a bit, but it still took the rest of the day before she wasn’t quite so creepy looking (and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible.)

While Mittens was doing her thing, our female Ball python Esper was doing her own.  She is the snake that recently got over a respiratory infection, and while she hasn’t been eating since then she seems to be growing just fine.  She began to shed and managed to get crispy old skin off her face, before giving up and letting the rest of her old skin just sit there.  About this time my partner decided to go in and help out.  First he gave her a soak in warm water, and then he began the lengthy process of peeling the softened skin away.  

In the wild reptiles can have problems shedding by themselves, even after soaking in puddles and ponds or scratching themselves against rocks and trees.  They can end up with retained eye caps or layers of hard skin on top of other skin.  So with our captive herps we take extra care to make sure each shed goes as well as possible.  My partner will pick loose skin off the toes of the geckos, and peel it off the backs of the snakes, and sometimes even assist in removing it from eyecaps.  This is the hardest one, as it takes a very skillful hand and either tape (rolling the sticky part gently over the eyecaps to lift them away) or tweezers (though we don’t recommend this as you can accidentally injure them by poking them in the eye.)