Fletcher & Floyd

As mentioned in a previous post or two, my aunt gave my husband and I two bearded dragons. It was a stressful gift to receive, I have to admit. Here's the scoop:

My husband and I were boiling sap from our maple trees to make syrup when I received a phone call. My aunt was on her way into town and had lizards (and all the gear) for us. I had to meet her at my grandparents' house when they arrived to take the stuff home and get everything set up. I left my husband to boil the sap by himself and headed to get these two animals that I knew nothing about.

I brought them home. I set everything up. I put the dragons in their new terrarium and waited. They didn't drink their water. They didn't eat their crickets. They didn't move. Did their flight kill them?

They moved, one ate. They were alive. My husband and I started writing a list of all of the things we would need to purchase to keep these dragons alive. We picked up a book and read it cover to cover. We scoured the web. We learned that they shouldn't necessarily live together. But what could we do? It was late in the evening. We left them together, in the one terrarium, with 15 large crickets.

                     Fletcher                                 Floyd









Ahh, the things we have learned since that first night. Bearded Dragons will nibble at each other's toes (especially if they are both male). Poor Fletch. He received the brunt of the toe-nibbling incident. We learned that, while living together, one will make it so the other doesn't get enough "sun" or enough food. Again, poor Fletch. We learned that in no way should either of those two Bearded Dragons have been eating large crickets (rule of thumb: no food bigger than the space between their eyes).

As you can tell, Fletch kind of had a cruddy beginning to his life. Eventually, we realized that we could no longer house both Fletch and Floyd. Fletcher was not growing (he did shed his red color, though). He was hiding and wasn't enjoying life (or so it seemed). I did my research online and came across the Herpetological Society. We decided to give Floyd a new home so that we could care for Fletch. My heart just broke for the little guy (I know. He's a lizard).

Today, we are headed to the pet store to get him a new basking branch. We are also headed up north to meet our puppy (oh crap, we're going to have a zoo) and buy a few needed items for him...