We acquired Poppy in 2021 from Facebook Marketplace. She came with a male beardie, Salazar. The previous owner was unsure of their age and had very little information about them. Sadly, they were being housed together, which should only be done temporarily when you are breeding bearded dragons as they are typically solitary animals. When we got them, Poppy was very beaten up from being dominated by Salazar. We immediately separated them into their own enclosures. After that, they both development their own unique personalities. Poppy is currently happy and thriving! Unfortunately, Salazar passed away peacefully in June 2024.

Queens & Abe came to us in 2022. We got them from an individual who did not have the time or means to take care of them anymore. She knew they deserved more, so she decided to rehome them. Queenie had a lot of stuck shed when we first got her, which resulted in her losing a few toes. She’s a little on the heavy side, so we monitor her food intake a little more closely than the others. Abernathy came to us in excellent shape. His only issue was and still is that he is a little on the feisty side. He has gotten a lot more handleable since he’s been with us, but still loves to show us his sassiness!

We adopted Luna when she was 3 months old. Within a week of having her, we noticed she was army crawling instead of walking, had a kink in her tail and her back was a bit arched. We immediately brought her to the vet, who did x-rays and blood work. As we suspected, Luna had severe Metabolic Bone Disease. MBD is common in the reptile world when proper care is not given to the animal. A lot of people ask why we didn’t bring her back to the breeder to get our money back, which is a valid question. We both had already grown attached to her in this short time. After finding out that she was going to have lifelong issues, we didn’t trust anyone to give her the proper care that she desperately needed. So instead, we took on the challenge to make sure that her enclosure and diet were correct in order to stop the progression of her MBD. However, since her MBD happened at such a young age, she has bones and joints that never developed properly including her front limbs, jaw, tail and spine. The vet explained to us that we would be able to manage her MBD, but she was never going to be “normal.” So you can imagine our surprise when we realized that Luna was able to run, jump and climb all over her enclosure like nothing is wrong at all. She is definitely our little trooper!

Grindie came from a chain pet store. As with most reptiles that are at chain pet stores, he was a wild caught iguana. Grindie had been at the store for a while before we acquired him. He was said to be at least 6 months old, but was still very small. After discussing his issues with the vet, we came to the conclusion he was suffering from “failure to thrive.” This usually means that there is an underlying complication or illness that we are unable to determine causing them to not grow and adapt to life properly. There were a few times we thought we were going to lose him, but we did everything we could to get him better. Although he is extremely stunted in size, he has been in great health for at least a year and has recently begun getting a little bigger.

We got Flamel from a locally owned fish/reptile shop. He was originally part of a pair. However, by the time we got there to purchase him, his cage mate had been purchased by someone else. Crocodile skinks are very shy reptiles and do not like to be handled . We do weekly check ups on him to make sure he’s doing well. Otherwise, we just admire him when he makes his small appearances out to bask in the light.