Important Beardie Question

[Argentra]

Hey all, we are considering getting another BD for Ari (I really want to get him a pet for his birthday - BD or a box turtle) and I have an important question for all you keepers:

Is their poo always REALLY stinky?

Here's why I ask - we had a male BD a few years back that we got as a hatchling. We got him up to 1yr old before we decided to trade him for two reasons. 1- He never calmed down and would always run, struggle, and try to bite no matter what we did, and 2- his poo smelled awful! You could smell it from across the apartment.
We really like BDs, but don't want that smell again. So I ask - is BD poo normally really smelly or did our guy have a problem with digestion or bad food? We fed him crickets and a pre-made gel food for veggies since he refused fresh.

Ari would love to have a BD of his own...but first we have to find out about that smell. Thanks!

[wafisherman]

Bad smelling poo is often a sign of stress and or parasites. So no, it is not normal.

Not that normal healty poo smells like roses....


Stay away from the gels. Crickets are not my fav either as they can harbor said parasites...

I like a combo of dubias, pheonix worms, super worms (not for baby beardies), and silk worms. A variety is key. Dubias are my main staple though with supers offered to mix things up.

For veggies, just get a spring mix from the grocery store. Chop up a small bit and offer daily. Just leave it there for the day and replace with fresh the next day. Offer just a little so you don't waste much. Eventually they'll start eating more and more and you can start putting more out. A baby beardie needs mostly protien, but an adult should be eating more veggies and less protien. I like collard greens, spring mix salads, mustard greens, and finely grated\shredded squash.

Most beardies are pretty calm and will sit fairly still while holding. Biting and flipping out is pretty extreme. I've never been bitten or even threatened by a beardie...

Oh, and box turtles are great. But they don't do as well indoors as they do out doors in a protected pen close to their natural habitat. I have 3 kept outdoors. They should not be kept in a glass tank. A turtle\tort table is much better. Check out this site for more info: http://aboxturtle.com/

[icygirl]

My beardie's poo always smelled pretty bad - and he was perfectly healthy and fed a gourmet diet of silkworms, superworms, and a variety of healthy vegetables (staples being collard greens and mustard greens). I used sand for awhile, which helped a ton with the smell, but when I switched to paper towels, I'd get home to a room that reeked. To be honest, if I owned another *adult* beardie I'd put him on sand. I don't think sand is very dangerous for adult beardies as long as they are fed their insects outside the enclosure, and you use a veggie bowl with a high lip so they don't get sand in it. Also, I didn't use a water bowl because I would give my beardie his water out of an eyedropper, and also during baths.

That's my opinion of course; some people have said that sand causes a breeding ground for bacteria, because you are mostly spot cleaning it and doing full cleans is very difficult. However, I don't see how it can be more dangerous than spot cleaning any particulate substrate, especially if you use heat lamps and low humidity environments.

But yeah... if you use a substrate like paper towels/newspaper... pretty much always going to smell IMHO.

[Argentra]

Thanks for the replies so far.

If we get a BD, I would build him a nice 4'x18" cage (I would go to 2', but that would be too wide in this apt.).
If a box turtle, since we live in an apt. I would get him a nice big trough tub or really large rubbermaid tub. I used to have a handmade pen outside (8'x4'x6' hardware cloth/wood buried 4' deep with a hinged lid) that I kept 3 in back in ElPaso, and I wish I could do that here.

I would be more able to give a BD a nice variety now, since I have a BTS and a Leo gecko. The Leo eats a nice mix of worms and bugs, and the skink eats the bugs as well as spring mix greens, fruits, and meats (currently cat food, but I'm weaning him off of it - he lived 5 yrs on only kitten food). A BD or a box turtle would fit into that feeding range nicely.

We both love BDs, but Ari doesn't want that horrible smell in the apt. again. That's why we have animals that don't have odors.

So, any other input on this? Does anyone else have a dragon that stinks?