Fear and Loathing in Balnarring
(with apologies to Hunter S Thomson - may he rest in whatever he determines to be peace)
by Mark Chapple
No, this is not about drugs and Gonzo journalism. Although it is about Gonzo. Gonzo the dragon and how I wanted to stop him hallucinating.
Gonzo was a gift. A young fellow with lots of zip and bit too much nip. He had been too much for his previous owner to bear, chewing the tail off a favourite roommate and being a little out of control, much like his namesake.
A central bearded dragon (pogona vitticeps), Gonzo is an adolescent who had continually attacked his previous owner’s, my nephew, other dragon with some zest and so it was decided that he should go to a good home. Mine.
I was a little un-prepared. I did have an unused terrarium I could use as a temporary home and also an older, larger cage that could be used as a permanent home. The old reptile cage did need some re-working. For example it had a fixed glass front and only opened at the top. It was also a very little plain looking, had no UV light fitting, no basking light and no thermostat, although it did have a functional heat mat. I wanted to put in a sliding glass door as well as the existing top openings and also dress it up a bit. Whilst I know bearded dragons can be fast, the sliding doors offered some degree of access whilst limiting escape.
Gonzo arrived before the cage was ready so I had to place him in the terrarium with a make shift light and some cobbled together shelters and food and drinking trays. I wasn’t worried about a heat mat as at night as I knew Gonzo, being a desert reptile, could cope with reasonably cool nights as the desert gets cold at night.
I decided to paint the old cage inside and out whilst Gonzo resided in the terrarium. The painting turned out to be a real nuisance in the end. I should have just covered the inside of the cage with Contact or something similar. The paint took a week to dry. I didn’t seem to matter how much I heated the cage up, the paint still reeked of volatile fumes. The last thing I wanted was to have Gonzo doing a Hunter S Thomson in the cage and seeing giants bat and other fearsome creatures flying about him whilst thinking he was driving a fast car to Las Vegas.
Gonzo was also clearly out of sorts when we got him. He didn’t feel like eating much. He would not move about his cage. I had to hand feed him initially. Crickets were ignored unless they were within 2 inches and he could get them with little or no effort. He simply turned his nose up at them. Humph! This was a very disgruntled lizard.
Over the next few days he gradually started to move about his cage and began to eat some of the greens offered in his food bowl. By the time he was ready to move into his new abode he was running about chasing the crickets and having a grand old time, feeling much more at home. He is now quite frisky and a great little pet.
The family think the world of him now, with his rather curious personality
and peculiar sleeping habits. When my daughter carries him around on her shoulder
he even falls asleep there. So it with some pride that we can say that Gonzo
is no longer suffering from fear and loathing in Balnarring.
Mark Chapple is the Author of "How to build enclosures
for reptiles"
Find out how to build these cages as well as arboreal cages. Full color pictures,
detailed diagrams and easy to follow, step-by-step instructions.
http://www.reptile-cage-plans.com