Travelling with Chinese Water Dragons
Okay I know it's a strange title, but I do get asked "How do you go about taking water dragons on a trip?" every so often. :) I think travelling with your dragon(s) will depend very much on what your dragons are like, how often you plan to take them on road trips, and how long the trip actually is. All of these factors must be considered. Now this page isn't really such a silly idea when you consider that at some point we all must travel with our dragons. We do take them to the vet don't we? And sometimes there are other unavoidable trips that must occur in the dragons life, I mean, sometimes we have to move, and sometimes we just have no one to care for our beloved dragons so we must bring them with us. :) I think that there are times when it is more stressful for the dragons to be left with other care givers for short periods of time than to travel back and forth. I've had my dragons since Sept. '95 and they have been on long and short trips with me. I live in Canada by the way and it is quite cool here in the fall and worse in the winter. :) A family crisis came up in November and I had to go to my parents home rather quickly. We had no one that could care for our dragons properly while we were away so we put their 30 gallon tank (they do live in a large enclosure now, but this was a good size tank for our purposes) in the back seat, wrapped a hot water bottle in a towel, and purchased and used a `heat to go' heating pad (one of those gel filled packs with a metal disk in it that you flex to start a chemical reaction that produces heat, the pack stayed warm for about 6 hours, and is reusable), put the pad and the hot water bottle in the tank, put the dragons in the tank, put the lid on the tank, packed up the dragons lights, heating pads that they use when they are free roaming, food for them, got in the car, turned the heater on so that it was so hot as to make us very sleepy, and drove for 5 hours! :) We covered the tank with a blanket so that the shadows and lights reflecting on the glass of the tank wouldn't drive them nuts. They slept most of the way. I checked to make sure that the temp was adequate several times during the trip, and that they hot pad and the hot water bottle weren't too hot or cold- at least with a hot water bottle you can stop at a restaurant along the way and beg for hot water. :) We also brought along a handful of those little hand warmers 'Hot Stuff" (they are little packs that are filled with a chemical powder that heats up when exposed to oxygen) just in case the car broke down along the way or some other mishap occurred that would cause the dragons to get cold. :) The large dragons now live in their 6 x 3 x 2.5 vivarium, so at Xmas time we left them at home- this time we had a great dragon sitter lined up, and we took the babies with us in the same manner as above. In both long trips the dragons appeared to be fine, unstressed, adjusted well to their new surroundings- probably because the tank and heating pads etc. were familiar, and showed no signs of stress when we got them back home again. I've taken the dragons on short trips and used a pillow case to transport them, holding the case in my coat against my body. And we've even been daring and let them loose in the car a few times, but only on short trips. If your going to be travelling a lot with the dragon(s) it might be a good idea to buy a converter that can be plugged into the cigarette lighter, and allows you to plug appliances such as a heating pad into it. Unfortunately I can't remember what this is called. Then you could use a tank to transport them back and forth and just put a heating pad into the tank- you might still need to turn the heat on in the car but hopefully not to unbearable levels! :)
Water Dragon Books
Basic but detailed information about the care, diet, and health of green water dragons, sailfin lizards and basilisks.
Discussion of the general care of many species of anole, basilisks and water dragons. Excellent information regarding enclosures, cage building, and insect care and breeding.
This book is a guide for owners of reptiles and amphibians who feed insects and other live foods to their pets. Advice is offered for selecting , ordering and raising your own supply of live invertebrate foods. More than a dozen species of live foods are discussed. The book includes instructions on keeping cultures of insects, and recipes & diets for insects. |
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Green Water Dragons,
Sailfin Lizards and Basilisks (General Care and Maintenance of Series) by
Philippe De Vosjoli
Anoles, Basilisks and
Water Dragons : A Complete Pet Care Manual (More Complete Pet Owner's Manuals)
by Richard D. Bartlett, Patricia P. Bartlett (Contributor) 
Eat This
Bug : A Guide to Invertebrate Live Foods for Reptiles and Amphibians by Lynn
Davis