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Zamen the Bearded Dragon

 

I got Zamen (Pronounced like Ramen as in 'Top Ramen' soup.... but with a 'Z') back in May of 2003. When I got him I was told he was just 7 weeks old, which puts his birthday around early March.... I'm just calculating as March 1, 2003.... if I'm off by 1 week... who cares.... it's close enough for me. So, that would make Zamen about 5 months now (Early August). Zamen is about 11 inches long. I say 'about' because it's tough to be completely accurate... he doesn't usually sit straight as a board. He is a good eater but doesn't eat his veggies as much as I wish he would. Sometimes, I will come home from work, and veggies will be scattered everywhere... other times, I get home, they haven't been touched at all. Oh well, he looks and acts healthy, he's a good color, and he has not exhibited any odd behavior, so, I don't let it get me too worried.

 Original Setup For Cage... 160 watt mercury vapor bulb and 150 watt ceramic heater. Also an 18" ZooMed 5.0 UVB light. All wood furniture with sand substrate. Zamen sunning himself  Zamen closeup Zamen sunning some more 
Above are pictures from just after the 4th of July. I went up near Lake Tahoe area and collected a lot of driftwood for his cage. I soaked it in bleach to disinfect it, which turned it very white... I actually thought that gave the cage a 'clean' look.

 Cage with new cave. The cave holds the heat much better than wood. I also removed some wood to keep the clutter down and added two digital thermometers. Water and greens in the rear center.  New digital temp guages from the Bean Farm. They show the temp outside of cage and inside. They also record the min and max temps both in and out of cage. Max temps usually get up to about 103 inside the cage and minimum temps are mid to high 60's.  Zamen showing some color? He does have some orange on his face... and his body is very light color.  Zamen on my arm. I was trying to show his light colors.  Zamen showing his colors. I just wanted to have a picture that shows his color/patern nicely.
These pictures were taken August 4th. I picked up the cave and digital gauges from a reptile convention in Sacramento CA. The cave came from 'The Outback Reptile Co' and the thermometers came from 'The Bean Farm'.

Homemade Supplies

Old sour cream container with 1/8" screening glued in. This works GREAT for sifting through the sand to get rid of all those little veggie pieces and clumpy sand.  Another shot of my homemade strainer. This is how it looks from the bottom.  Rough Neck 10 gallon container converted into a cricket home. Notice all the screening for ventilation.  15 gallon Rough Neck for crickets. I used fiberglass screening and a glue gun for the screen panels. Drilled the 4 corners and used a jigsaw to cut out the 'windows'.

Visuals are always good to help people understand, so I added a couple pics here of homemade supplies I use for cleaning my lizards sand and also keeping crickets in. My recommendation, get a glue gun. I got a 'mini' one from a sewing store and it's worked out pretty well. If I were to do it again I would look for a glue gun or accessory that can be added which would help me get the nozzle into small areas... that is always tough to do.

 

Good Links For Supplies

The Bean Farm ... they have good prices and great stuff for heating (heat panels, infrared bulbs, etc). They also sell antibiotics for treating animals for various parasites (please know what your doing if your going to medicate your herp)

Big Apple Herpetological ... nice stuff and an easy to use web layout. Eventually, I think I want to pick up one of their thermostats. They have one that looks very comparable to the Helix systems, but for a better price.

Petguys.com ... not a whole lot of selection... but I found them to have the best prices on mercury vapor bulbs and ZooMed brooder lamps. They were a little slow shipping, but, the price could not be beat

 

Good Websites For Info

Bearded-Dragons.com ... A site with some links to reptile food sites, classifieds, tips, vet listing, AND a Forum where you can go and ask questions or help other people.

Beautifuldragons.com ... The more I visit this site, the more I like it. An excellent resource for nutritional info and care in general.

Tricia's Chinese Water Dragon Site ... Yep, this is NOT a bearded dragon site, it's Water Dragons. However, keeping them has some requirements which also apply to bearded dragons too. This site has a lot of good herp info, info on food, nail trimming instructions, info on calcium and D3, and Tricia is a nice person too. We used to chat online a lot when I had a Water Dragon.

Herp and Green Iguana Information Collection ... This site is run by Melissa Kaplan. Don't let the title fool ya...just because it says iguana, don't think you won't find a TON of useful info on this site. You could spend days on this site researching UVB and wavelengths. Very good info for any lizard keeper here.

 

Links For Reptile Food

Raising Silkworms ... I am no expert, and I used the guidelines from Mulberry Farms website. However, I thought it may be helpful to create a page with pictures showing my own experience with this. 

Mulberry Farms ... I just ordered some silkworm eggs from here, so, I can't tell ya much more, except that they have silk worms for a better price than any other site I could find

ReptileFood.com ... I've ordered crickets from here 3 times now. Prices are good and shipping is quick. I reccomend this site for crickets

 

 

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