makes me feel sick :@

Just need to have a rant..
Someone i know owns 2 gorgeous bearded dragons, they are so lovely and friendly and make me laugh when they eat worms (i can hear them crunch lol) but until the other day i found out why these two innocent creatures behave so well around people..
the male one bites the female because she wont mate with him, so for punishment the male is put in a freezing cold box with nothing in it.. The person says that he leaves him in there for about 10-30mins, but i've gone to the house to find the poor thing laying there absolutly freezing its bum off, it is normally left there over night sometimes because he 'forgets' to put him back in the cage. I think this is a horrible way of teaching an animal not to bite..
Luckily after me constantly moaning at him that the treatment of the lizard was horrible he has now gotten round to finally setting up a new tank and the female is going in there. But i still think that was so horrible and i never tell him anything about my gecko now -_-

There is no way to teach them not to bite. The biting is part of the mating ritual and the male is just doing what his natural instinct is telling him to do. This is NO way to treat an animal and I am glad you have said something and gotten him to make a change.

When it comes to exotics, you can actually NEVER "train" them. They will not roll over, on cue; ever. They come to tolerate humans, and the hand that feeds but they will never be a puppy.

Honestly? This guy could've one day killed the dragon by getting it too cold.

What a moron. I'd be reporting him to the local animal cruelty authorities. Like has been said... the dragon can't put A and B together and rationalize hey, I bite the female so I go in the freezer... he is soooo lucky the animal didn't turn into a dragon-cycle. Stupidity strikes again and the animal suffers for it... now maybe others will understand the value of (and why I preach it so vehemently) not housing NON-COMMUNAL animals together and forcing them to accept what goes against every natural instinct, then punishing them for doing what DOES comes natural when you mix opposite sexed animals together. Males are always ready and willing to maet, females... not so much.

Just a sidenote hon, since this is a "rant" I'm going to move it to the rant section. It helps find things better when using the foruim search feature when things are in the proper forums

Glad other people understand my view, it's horrible, thank god my friend changed everything so now they are happy dragons, although the male is extremely skinny and won't eat, he is 9 and apparently that is old for one of these?

Badasprog wrote:Glad other people understand my view, it's horrible, thank god my friend changed everything so now they are happy dragons, although the male is extremely skinny and won't eat, he is 9 and apparently that is old for one of these?

what do you mean too old? Like too old to be skinny? Beardies can live up to 20 years and TBH can survive being skinny for most of those years (as long as temperature and lighting is correct and they get enough calcium). I've seen some pretty skinny beardies before :/ I dont understand because my beardie is FAT (tail is fat not stomach) and I barely feed him as much as some others I know- (hes about 6yrs).

No i ment i was told he is old. and he is extremely skinny, like i can see his collar bone, the owner has a fat one aswell and she hasn't lost any weight, so im guessing that its an age thing? unless what your saying about them living for 20 year is true :S i know nothing about these lizards lol