Underweight Juvenile?

Hello, I am new to this website and it seems that everybody is nice and friendly and extremely helpful. I was hoping to get some advice. I recently purchased a juvenile beardie about a week ago, his names Banzai and he's about 2 or 2 and a half months old.I don't know exactly how old, but he is 8 inches, that's how I estimated his age. He seems perfectly healthy, active and tolerates being handled by many people. Anyway, he is fairly new and I was wondering if he is underweight for a beardie of his age and size. I will leave pictures. When I brought him home Sunday, I fed him and he had ate about 10 crickets total for the day. The next day he ate around 12, the next day 12, the next 25 (I was surprised) then the next few days he ate around 12-15. Saturday, he had started shedding. I know that appetite wanes a bit in preparation to shed, but I was concerned about the inconsistencies of his eating. I was wondering if there's any way I could get him to eat more, or if he will eat more after he finishes shedding. I take a small sterilite tub and put a few crickets in there and he goes after them. Eventually after the 5th or 7th cricket, he runs at the walls and that's when I know he's full. I feed him three times a day, first feeding at around, 6:30 am or 7:30 am, I let him warm up first, second feeding at around 2:30 pm or 3:00 pm, last feeding at around 7:00 pm or 8:00 pm. At around 9:00 pm, I turn off his lights and it's time for bed. His poop isn't too runny, its solid and has white urate. He poops regularly, once or twice a day. Also, he is very picky, he won't eat vegetables after multiple attempts. I gave him a salad of spinach, bell peppers and carrots. He also won't eat anything that doesn't move. I bought the Fluker's buffet blend and put it in his feeding bowl and he went after it once and never touched it again. Anyway I can entice him to eat non live food from his bowl? Also, a small concern, when he started shedding, he had only shed from his arms and legs which shed fairly fast, in about 2 days, but tail, head and body have yet to shed. Is this a waiting game and will happen eventually? Or should I be worried about stuck shed? Anyway, thank you for your time reading this.

Hi there, he looks + is acting perfectly fine. He may eat a bit more as he settles in, he's doing fine right now for being in a new place and shedding. Don't bother with the freeze dried stuff, not much nutrition + easy for a baby to choke on or get constipated with. Offer just a few greens like turnip, mustard, collard a few times a week. Some will pick at, some will ignore + some will eat it eagerly.

As for shedding, it's normal that they shed in stages. Like this one here, looks crazy but is totally fine.
https://www.beardeddragon.org/media/29897/full

Alright thank you so much, very reassuring, ill try to offer more vegetables and not worry about the freeze dried food too much

Congrats on the new beardie!! Yes, he looks to be around 2 or so months old based on his length, and his weight looks proportional to his length, so he's not too skinny at all, but he will be eating a ton of live insects and gaining a lot of weight and length in the next few months. Beardies do most all of their growing in their first year of life, and even though they continue to grow up until 2 years old, most of their growth is done during their first year. This is why it's important to feed them a ton of live insects from hatching to a year or a year and a half old. He'll be shedding a lot during his first year, and yes, it's totally normal for him to shed one body part at a time, then the next month he might do an entire body shed all at once, then the next month he might shed all 4 legs at once, then his body, then his head, then his tail, etc. There's no rhyme or reason to how they shed, but you'll know he's going to shed a body part or his entire body because it will turn a very muted, whitish color just before it sheds. "Stuck Shed" is skin that turned white and then actually started to shed, but a piece of the shedding skin fails to actually loosen from his body and fall off. That's a totally different situation, your beardie is shedding totally normally.

Beardies usually suffer from some level of relocation stress for up to 2 weeks after going to a new home, new tank, etc., so the fact that he's eating at all and that he's letting you handle him during his first week home is great! Don't worry at all about him eating any fresh greens or veggies during the first year or so of his life, most bearded dragons eat little to no greens or veggies until they are over a year old, and this is because they are doing 90%+ of their physical growing and developing in their first year to year and a half of life, and so what they need is a ton of live insects and the protein they get from the live insects. You should still offer him FRESH greens every single day, just so he has the option of eating them, but typically they won't eat a lot, if he does you need to consider it simply a bonus. You need to concentrate on his live bugs, and you should be gut-loading his live bugs with the healthy greens and veggies that you'd like him to eat. That way he'll get the nutrition from the greens, as well as the moisture from the greens when he eats the gut-loaded bugs. It's good that you're giving him 3 live insect feeding sessions a day, that's wonderful, but if I can make a suggestion to you, try feeding him inside his enclosure rather than in a separate plastic tub. Many babies get nervous or won't eat as many live bugs as they want to because they want to get out of the plastic tub. So from now on let him stay in his new home that he's just adjusting to (a second new eating place is too much for a baby all at once). Do 3 live insect feeding sessions a day up until he's around 8 months old, then you can scale it back to 2 live feeding sessions a day. Each live feeding session should last for between 10-15 minutes, and he should be allowed to eat as many live, gut-loaded insects as he wants to during each 10-15 minute session. He'll definitely start eating a ton of live bugs once he gets completely over the relocation stress and if you keep him in his comfortable home while he eats. NEVER LEAVE ANY LIVE CRICKETS IN HIS ENCLOSURE AT ALL!!! Feed him 2-3 crickets at a time inside his home, and he'll generally jump up to his basking spot to bask when he's full, and if there are any crickets left in his enclosure you must get them out of there, even one cricket hiding behind a piece of tank decor or under carpet can bite him while he's sleeping at night. Also, always be sure that any live bug you feed him is smaller than the space between his eyes, otherwise he can choke or become very impacted.

Please, please stop feeding him that Fluker's garbage, which is exactly what it is. No bearded dragon should EVER be fed any freeze-dried or already dead insect. Not ever. They contain little to no nutritional value, they contain absolutely no moisture at all, and they cause severe impactions, especially in babies and juveniles. And the Fluker's pellets are junk. You don't want him to eat more of it, or any of it, and he already knows that he doesn't want to eat it. It's alright to keep a bowl of high-quality pellets in his enclosure if you want to, but it should not be considered a real part of his diet, and it must never ever contain any dead or freeze-dried bugs. The two high-quality pellets for bearded dragons that might be worth giving him are RepCal Juvenile pellets, the multi-colored fruit ones, and Mazuri Natural pellets. They actually have a high protein content and a good variety of vitamins and minerals, but typically bearded dragons won't eat them, or many of them if they eat any at all, and you're wasting money on commercial foods that are worthless when you could be buying him more live bugs or fresh greens (never feed any dried greens or veggies either, only fresh). Again, during his first year he needs a ton of LIVE, gut-loaded bugs 3 times a day, just like you're doing, and a salad of FRESH, healthy greens every day, whether he eats it or not. That's really it. I would forget about any commercial, pre-packaged foods. You can feed the rest of the Fluker's pellets to your feeder crickets, it makes a nice gut-load...

One last thing, stay away from giving him any spinach or kale. They both contain a very high level of calcium, but also a very high level of oxalates, which will bind to any calcium he takes in and keep him from absorbing it. Good greens for beardies include collard greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, escarole, arugula, endive, bok choy, and swiss chard. Veggies include different types of squashes (they love butternut squash), green beans, pea pods, all colors of bell peppers...

Also, I forgot to mention dusting his live crickets. For his first 8 months you should be dusting all of the live bugs in one of his daily feeding sessions with a reptile-specific calcium powder at least 5 times a week, and with a quality reptile multivitamin powder 3 times a week.

Also, just to make sure your set-up is adequate for a baby bearded dragon, as their lighting is very, very important, what brand, wattage, and type (long tube, compact, or coil) of UVB light did you get for him? Is it inside his tank or sitting on top of a mesh lid? How far is it from his basking spot?

And lastly, what is his Basking Spot Surface temperature, his Hot Side Ambient temperature, and his Cool Side Ambient temperature? What type of thermometer are you using to measure his temperatures?

I use a 50 watt flood light for his basking spot, a Reptisun 13 watt 10.0 uvb compact bulb and a ZooMed 60 watt red nightlight. I Typically leave it on during the day just so he gets a little warmer. Hot side and basking spot ranges from 90F to 105F and cool side ranges from 75F to 85F, though he rarely goes over there. The light currently hang about 3 inches above the mesh top so it doesnt burn him. I use a ZooMed stick on thermometer and a ZooMed velcro Thermometer and Hydrometer. Humidity ranges from 30% to 40% which is annoying to maintain in southern california, we have naturally high humidity. Basking light is about 7-8 inches away from spot. As far the research I've done, his viv meets all requirements. Let me know if i should alter anything.

You've got some major issues, the biggest one being that the Reptisun compact UVB bulb is completely inadequate for a bearded dragon to begin with, and you have it on top of a mesh lid (or raised above it), which is blocking between 30-50% of the already too weak UVB bulb. It's also a compact bulb with no reflector. For that bulb to emit any UVB light to your beardie, it would have to be totally unobstructed by anything (inside the tank, under the mesh) and within about 4" of him when he basks. So you absolutely have to get an adequate UVB light. There unfortunately aren't many options for bearded dragon UVB lights, even the ones labeled as such. For an adequately sized enclosure for a bearded dragon (40 gallon breeder is minimum) you want a long UVB tube, either 18" or 24" long with a reflector behind it so that the enclosure all gets some UVB light. I already explained why it must be over the basking spot and right alongside the bright white basking bulb. The distance of the basking bulb from the basking spot doesn't matter at all except to get his temperatures within the correct ranges.

The only compact UVB bulb adequate for a bearded dragon is a 26 watt one, like the Exo Terra 200, but honestly I would definitely go with a long tube for that size enclosure, which means you need a new UVB tube and long fixture for it. If you refuse to buy a long tube UVB light and new fixture, then please go buy a 26 watt compact Exo Terra 200 ASAP, because your beardie has gotten no UVB light at all since you've had him under that 13 watt bulb. You can take him outside if it's warm enough and sunny for an hour a day to get him natural UVB, but you really need to go buy an adequate UVB light, it's the most important item you can buy for his health. If you keep him as you have him he will not grow correctly and become stunted, and no doubt already has started with bone density issues.

The Reptisun 10.0 (never use a 5.0 or lower) T8 or T5HO long UVB tubes or the Arcadia 12% tubes are the tubes appropriate for a bearded dragon that do not emit harmful light rays as some cheaper, Chinese tubes like All Living Things, Zilla, ReptileOne, and some others do. Pretty much all experienced owners and all breeders use either the Arcadia 12% T5 UVB tube or the Reptisun 10.0 T5HO tube. The weaker 10.0 T8 tube must be mounted under the mesh lid, within 6" of his basking spot to be effective, and be replaced every 6 months because they stop emitting any UVB light at all at that age, even though they still turn on and light up. If you buy either the Reptisun 10.0 T5HO or the Arcadia 12%T5 tubes they are strong enough to sit on top of the mesh lid, but still must be within 11" of his basking spot to be effective. These T5 tubes must be replaced every 10 months to a year.

In addition, you should never, ever use any colored basking or heat bulbs for a bearded dragon, especially a red bulb during the day. They see in full color, and this is confusing him as far as his day/night cycles. He should only need a total of 2 lights on during the day, and none at night. The adequate UVB tube, and a bright white basking bulb that is a high enough wattage to keep all 3 temperature zones within the correct ranges. For a glass 40 gallon breeder tank, typically a single, 100 watt bright white basking bulb will do it. That's it. Please turn off the red bulb and get rid of it, it's doing him no good at all. You do not need to buy an expensive, specialty reptile basking bulb either, most of us use regular, household halogen indoor flood bulbs like you buy at Walmart or Lowes.

Also, please spend $10 and buy a digital probe thermometer at Petco or Petsmart, those cheap stick-on thermometers have 2 major problems: #1 they are typically off by around 20 degrees if you test them, and #2 more importantly, you have absolutely no way to measure his Basking Spot Surface Temperature, which is not only dangerous, but if it's not within the correct range he will not be able to digest his live insects. Combine this with the inadequate UVB light, he's essentially not getting any UVB light, he cannot properly digest his food, process any nutrition, absorb any vitamins or minerals, including his calcium, because without proper UVB he is not manufacturing and vitamin D3. So you must get a proper digital thermometer with a probe on a wire, or a temperature gun if you have one. This is not optional, as the proper UVB light is not optional.

Basking Spot Surface Temperature: between 105-110 degrees for a baby or juvenile, between 98-103 for an adult...110 is the maximum temperature for his enclosure.

Hot Side Ambient: between 88-93 degrees

Cool Side Ambient: between 75-80 degrees

Needs no nighttime heat source at all typically. He needs it to be pitch black (no night lights on at all, they disrupt their sleep), and it needs to be considerably cooler at night, just like the desert is. As long as his enclosure stays at 65 degrees with lights out at night he's comfortable and needs no nighttime heat source.

Alright so just upgrade to a better UVB, turn off the red nightlight and upgrade to a better thermometer. I will try to do that asap thank you