Frilly doing swan dives????

[Matt74]

G'day all,

Ok, so I ended up getting a hatchy frill neck after months of searching. Unfortunately for the first two weeks he stressed out and wouldn't eat so I covered the front of the enclosure with a towel and gave him some privacy. Now it's eating like a trooper, good news.

I came home from work last Thursday to find that it's shedding, so it's eating, pooing and shedding. More good news!. However, I've noticed in the last day or two some unusual behavior, I have lifted the towel up slightly from the bottom of the enclosure in an attempt to gradually introduce the lizard to the outside world, it's still eating fine but I've noticed the frill neck every now and then dropping from it's branch high up in the enclosure onto the floor. A fall of about 1.2 metres. Is this normal behavior??.

The frilly did this atleast five times that i noticed throughout today alone. I have placed the fake plants I have in the enclosure under the branches to soften the fall as I'm worried that the little fella might hurt itself. Should I be worried about this?

 

[Erebos]

Mine do it from about 5 feet all the time. Haha it's normal. Who'd you get it off.


Cheers Brenton

 

[Eddie2257]

never hered of this happening with frillies but my black soil dragons will jump off anything give them the chance.

 

[Matt74]

G'day Brenton,

Got him off James haberfield about 5 weeks ago, really happy with the little fella, just had a fortnight of dramas trying to get it to feed, now it's eating like there's no tomorrow. It's the first frilly I've owned so it's still a learning process I guess, glad to hear the 'swan dives' are normal!.

Matt

Yeah Eddie, it was a bit of a surprise I guess, I thought it might be because it's been shedding the last few days. It has been using the rough surface of the branches to rub against, thought it might be losing it's footing in the process of doing so. Like I said, I can only see into the bottom part of the enclosure because of the towel so this is just a guess, so i actually haven't seen it 'jump' as such. Just see it landing into the fake plants below. This happened at least five times that I saw today.

Matt

 

[Erebos]

Good James is one of the best frilly ppl around I got a few of mine off him and there all eating machines.

the last one was when I first got a couple of him. Haha the jump around all the time so don't stress if you have any questions ring James. He's the best person to speak to.


Cheers Brenton

 

[Matt74]

Yeah, got to agree with you there, James is definitely great to deal with, just didn't want to bug him with this question, so I thought I'd ask on here instead.

Your frillies look unreal mate, I haven't got a photo of mine that is worth putting up here for you to see at the moment as I've only got a few crappy ones I've taken on my phone. I've been meaning to dust off my DSLR camera and get some good shots of the enclosure and frilly but haven't gotten around to it as yet.
Yours have definitely got a bit more weight on them than mine, it's a little skinny after his two weeks of not eating, but by the way it's been 'hoovering' up the roaches in the last couple of weeks it should be back to normal weight pretty soon.

Thanks for the replies mate

Matt

 

[Erebos]

To easy mate I'm feeding the little ones on large roaches and I feed them everyday. As much as the eat in 15 min. How old was it when you got it.


Cheers Brenton

 

[Matt74]

It would've been at least twelve weeks old, it's a long story, basically I was working away from home when I purchased it and James was good enough to hold on to it for eight weeks for me until I finished the job and got back home. I never ended up asking him it's exact age. I feed it small to medium dusted roaches at the moment, as may as it will eat which is up to 30 in a feed. Tried the dog food, lettuce, roach mix but it showed no interest.

Matt

 

[Erebos]

Not at this age they won't a insect diet is alot better for them. When there this young.


Cheers Brenton

 

[Matt74]

Yeah, I think I'm going to stick to the roaches and the odd cricket or two, its alot less mess and preparation than the dog food option. Just saw it on the caresheet on the herpshop website and thought I'd give it a try, the caresheet authors state that they feed their hatchy/juveniles the dog food.

Matt