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DragonMyr   Chrlea   Newfgal   Dragon Lover   DragonMyr  
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 #1724470


DragonMyr
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 Unusual behavior or maturity? Please help.

My bearded dragon, Taz, is just over a year old now. In fact, tomorrow it’ll be a full year that I’ve owned him. Recently, he’s been behaving rather inconsistently. Some days he wakes up, basks, eats greens, basks again, eats bugs, and acts normal. Other days he won’t get out of bed, but he’ll lay there fully alert and watch you if he can see you. He just won’t get up to bask or go get his food. Sometimes he stays in bed for a day and then acts normal the next day, and sometimes he stays in bed for 2 or 3 days before acting normal again. Is this normal? It doesn’t seem normal to me and he’s been acting like this for at least 4 weeks. He also only poops maybe once or twice a week even if I rub his belly and stick him in the bath. His droppings are well formed when they do eventually come out.

Normally I can opt to make Taz get up by uncovering his sleeping spot and picking him up. If he’s in one of the two caves in his enclosure he normally likes to stay in there. If he’s sleeping in the open, then he normally wakes up and acts normal on his own. Once Taz has ’gotten out of bed’ and basked he will roam around exploring, munch on some greens, and munch on some bugs too. He doesn’t eat like he used to. He does eat a lot of greens, but he only eats maybe 2 to 5 crickets and 2 to 5 super worms a day when he was doing about 4 to 8 crickets and 4 to 8 super worms. In other words, it seems like his food intake has decreased, but he’s definitely of a healthy weight. I don’t know his exact weight, but I do know that he’s 21 inches in length (full tail). The food decrease seems normal because he will completely empty his greens dish unlike how he used to just eat half.

Taz lives in a mesh cage. His basking spot is 100F although the bulb is underpowered at 100 watts so the heat dissipates quite a bit (it should be 160 watts but both the main and backup 160 watt bulbs I had blew out--the 100 watt bulbs were intended for a water dragon and not a bearded dragon). I’m thinking the bulb is the problem, but I’m not sure. This behavior change coincided with the loss of the backup 160 watt bulb. I know Taz is getting sufficient UVB because the weather has been so nice that he gets to sit in a windowsill for multiple hours a week and get direct sunlight. These bulbs are also mercury vapor bulbs and Taz will get active even on rainy days after basking under the bulb. I have had great success with these bulbs. I have also attempted to heat up the place Taz was sleeping in to see if he just wasn’t getting warm enough to wake up, but that also didn’t help convince him to get out of bed on the days he doesn’t want to. Almost immediately after I noticed this behavior change, Taz’s cage was transfered from a basement with no windows upstairs into a room with two windows but shears cover the windows so the birds outside are not plainly visible. Also, ambient temperatures of the cage are at room temperature. Temps never drop below 65F and commonly warm to 70F in the morning and evening hours. During the main daytime hours temps are at least 70F and have gone as high as 85F and Taz still tried to sleep in on one of those days. Last time Taz went to a vet was last July to get dewormed and he was given a ’better than 99% of bearded dragons the vet has seen’ clean bill of health.

I’m just confused and not sure what to think. Some days Taz is unusual and some days he’s perfectly normal. It isn’t hibernation time here anymore so that’s why the sleeping in thing is bugging me. Visibly he looks healthy, his droppings look good, he gets the right greens and some fruits....overall, the only thing that looks wrong is the underpowered-nature of the bulb. Can anyone help me out and give me an additional opinion?

Taz will be getting a new cage at the end of June or early July. He will be moved from a mesh cage into a converted piece of furniture. I’ve attached some pictures of Taz below. The first two are him in his cage and the second two are during roaming time. He’s got the whole first floor of the house mapped out, gets along with our chocolate lab, and never gets pissed off.






05/03/08  10:31pm

 #1724560


Chrlea
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   Message To: DragonMyr   In reference to Message Id: 1724470


 Unusual behavior or maturity? Please help.

Sounds like you need to get the 160 watt bulb and soon. Also, just so you know, sunlight through a window filters the UVB rays from the sunshine and he is not getting what he needs. If you have him out side in the sun for 15 to 20 minutes every other day, that would be enough UVB for him. It is however, much easier to just give him a UVB light and not worry if he is getting enough UVB. It sounds like he is doing the normal slowing down of eating and eating more greens. That is normal and he sounds like he is in good shape. Keep up the good work and get yourself another 160 watt bulb and he should perk up again. Other than that, I would get another fecal done on him as it is almost a year and it is always good to keep tabs on any possible parasites.

Charlie
05/04/08  01:01am

 #1724635


Newfgal
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   Message To: Chrlea   In reference to Message Id: 1724560


 Unusual behavior or maturity? Please help.

What a beautiful boy! He looks healthy and happy.
05/04/08  06:40am

 #1724893


Dragon Lover
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   Message To: Newfgal   In reference to Message Id: 1724635


 Unusual behavior or maturity? Please help.

Hey Dude,

WOW!!! I can’t believe how big Taz has gotten. Look how Gorgeous he is!!!

The bulb will sometimes do the job, but not with my guys. LOL It sounds like Taz is acting like a totally normal adult dragon. Not much eating or pooping and still a healthy weight. My Androth will only get out of his hammock if I physically pick him out of it and put him down. Then he’ll just bobb at me and go back to the hammock. He eats only about a bite of salad a couple of times a week, and when offered worms, they will stay untouched for days. Yesterday was bug day for my adults, and all of the ones who are awake ate at least 25 silks. He ate three and then stopped. So, I say, Taz appears to be pretty normal.

I agree with Charlie that you should take in a sample to do a fecal, but if he is clean, then I would not worry.
And, yes, the uv rays will not penetrate the glass, so if you have screen, sometimes what I do is just open the window and let them sit on this side of the screen.

Talk to you soon,
Edel
05/04/08  02:24pm

 #1731652


DragonMyr
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   Message To: Dragon Lover   In reference to Message Id: 1724893


 Unusual behavior or maturity? Please help.

Thanks for the messages! :) Sorry it took me so long to get a response in.

For the windows, thanks for the concern. I did read about uv rays being blocked by glass as part of my research before purchasing Taz. Whenever he sits in a windowsill he gets direct sunlight although there is a screen present. I only let him sit there when conditions are that he’ll warm up. It always surprises me how he will react to things hundreds of feet away and visibly track vehicles too (I live on a hill in the country so there’s a lot to look at). I just have to have his ’crash pad’ sitting nearby just incase something really spooks him if I’m not sitting there with him (like a bird flying at the window to get to the bush under/in front of it).

Last Sunday Taz was absolutely hyper-active. He was literally following me and the dog around the house until we got into the sun room. Then Taz normally freezes up for a good 10 minutes because he thinks he’s outside and there’s a lot of birds, bunnies, and other small animals around (sometimes deer too). It’s kind of like every other day he likes to sleep in. He eats his greens and bugs, is always alert although not necessarily active, is maintaining a healthy weight, and his droppings are well-formed. It seems he’s acting normal then like how Edel described Androth. I watch over Taz’s behavior like a hawk though, especially after the whole experience of parasites in a water dragon last year. The past year with Taz and the half a year with Rocky plus all the time on this site definitely taught me a lot. :)

Thanks again for the messages! I’ll try to get more active here again. Things have been crazy with the whole job and house hunting.
05/11/08  03:30am


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