i reckon they should put AHD's back on a R2 licence. i am totally against AHD's being a persons first pet dragon. they are NOT easy to keep. they sulk ALOT, they play dead, even moving 1 fake plant around they could start sulking and refuse food for days even weeks.
Completely agree!!!
I got them as one of my first animals and five died out of nine to get a stable colony and in all truth I could go 1 less
as it shows minimal MBD and is quite skinny. The only people I know who find it relatively easy to keep them are the people who live where they come from and keep them outside. On top of being very heat sensitive they also need a fair space for each individual to live in. As far as sulking I've had to put a sheet over the front of the enclosure to stop this so as you can tell I get to look at them heaps!!!
Now I have nailed everything else about them they are readily breeding for me and here comes a new problem. They prefer incubation temps at about 24*C and can stand spikes up to 29*C for
short times but keeping temps at a steady 24*C also leads to poor incubation rates. More fun!!!
I am far more experienced with them now (3 years later) and keep these for 2 main reasons.
(1) The are gorgeous looking
little dragons with comedic antics (when I can catch a look).
(2) I hate making life easy for myself and enjoy a bit of a semi-scientific endevour so these little buggers keep me on my toes.
Neither of these reasons are good enough in my opinion to keep them as a first animal and risk animal welfare.
We first got Eastern Water Dragons because I think they look the most like Iguanas in Australia and If you can get a male/female pair you will find with handling that the males become quite tame and you can basically let them run free as they wont go to far from their harem or beginings of. If we take ours in public we have a harness for them (and a pocket full of tissues for the ultimate poop coming your way).
Hope this helps and please remember animal welfare combined with the fact that SAHDs are less than 20% the size of an Iguana so looking alike is kind of reduced.
P.S-Do you mean Iguana or Chameleon because IMO SAHDs look more like Pygmy Chameleons than Iguanas!