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My dad owns a pet wholesale, and received in a shipment a one-eyed baby uromastyx. He decided to bring it home as he figured he wouldn't be able to sell it.

At the time, we had a female who had just had just lost a clutch of eggs. She had become overly aggressive and territorial after that, and began beating up her tank mate at the time, an "ancient" 14 year old female named Puffy.

Puffy eventually died in her sleep a year later, which left Fatty (the one who had laid eggs; I'm not very creative with my names) alone for a few months until we brought home Pascal (the one eyed Uro).

In retrospect we should have realized that this was a bad idea. Fatty began immediately picking on Pascal; doing things like chasing her around the tank and nipping at her neck. She got pretty aggressive sometimes, although we never saw any blood.

Then, out of nowhere, Fatty got sick and died within a day (We have no clue what happened. She was perfectly healthy prior).

That was about a year ago, and Pascal is still very defensive and skittish. She will barely let you touch her, and freaks out if you move quickly around her. She also hates being picked up, which from my experience is abnormal for Uros (Puffy used to try and run up your arm if you put it in the tank). I've never had a Uro that acts like this (although I don't blame her). She's never tried biting me when I try to touch her, she just first slowly leans away from my hand, then runs away if I continue. She's otherwise healthy. She eats a ton, sheds normally, and poops fine.

Has anyone had any experiences like this? My first thought was to try and handle her more, but the seems to be making it worse. She spends the entire time trying to wiggle out of my hand, and isn't fooled by me "treadmilling" my hands; she turns and tries to run off the side instead of continuing straight ahead. I'm hoping she grows out of it, but I know at least in humans being traumatized young can scar you later into life.

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I'll just post a 6-year-later follow-up since someone upvoted the question today:

I still have Pascal, and she's very healthy. She never became very friendly though.

I take her out almost daily and let her run around, and expose her to people constantly. She's still super-skittish despite that, but she's also entirely non-violent. We think it might have to do with only having the one-eye (it probably makes her less confident in her surroundings).

Unfortunately, not all Uromastyxs are bound to be socialites.

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I have a baby Moroccan and is also skittish as soon as I open up the tank doors he runs but am vigilant in catching him . I do this every day so as he gets used to me an eventually will know I’m not goin to hurt him

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