Beardie has stopped eating!! HELP PLEASE! :(

Hi all,

My beardie which is almost a year old now has realy slowed down her eating habits the past 2 months or so. Maybe even longer than that. But the past month it's got progessively worse. She has probably eated a total of 5 medium-large sized hoppers in 2 weeks.

I can't remember seeing the last time she ate veg either. I give her fresh veg regardless in the hope she eats something when I'm at work.

Anyway I've tried everything! I've changed her UVB bulbs (they did need changing)
I tried giving her some different worms but no success
Tried giving her some different veg with no success
Checked her temps which are fine

I went to the vets last saturday as I was getting worried (she did eat 3 big hoppers that day sods law!) and the vet seemed to think she looked ok. She weighed her and she was 350g. She was perfectly happy with this weight for how old my beardie is. She injected her with a Vitamin B+ mixture in the hope of boosting her appetite but that doesn't seem to have worked either.

Things to note:
Since we had her from 1 month old she has eated like 50% veg and 50% crickets/hoppers. Which is unusual considering they normally move to a 70%-80% veg diet as they get older and rely more on crickets/hoppers in the first year. From what I have been told anyway.

She hasn't shed for months. She did start a few months back with her back legs but that was it. Nothing more came of it. She has probably shed 2-3 times since we have had her.

She has ZERO substrate in her vivarium. I've got a bit of kitchen roll in the top corner shelf underneath the log she likes to sleep in, but other than that the floor is just wood with lots of rocks dotted around.

Her eyes look alert and wide. Unless I've just woken her up but once I've picked her up her eyes will perk right up and she will be inquisitive and looking around.

We have another older female beardie (5 years old) who lived in a seperate viv below. My beardie is generally quite active outside of the viv. Will run around and when she clocks onto the other beardie she will be running around and arm waving and such (they hate each other) but she seems ok.

When she was 5 months old she started getting a gloopy eye (it just looked like sleep in her eye) which took her to the vets about. The vet at the time told me it's fine as there is no damage to the eyes and to just use a warm, wet cotton bud/Q-tip (depending where you come from lol) to get the gunk out. And she still gets this from time to time.

She does hide under her log for a lot of the day. Sometimes I will see her basking and I've just put this down to her getting older, less active and lazy. She does run around her viv though on the odd occasion.

Anyway this is all the info I can think of right now. I'm not sure where else to turn other than go to the vets and start taking some evasive procedures at the vets like xrays and such. Which I really hope I don't have to do. Especially when I'm broke this month!

My only thought is maybe shes going into Brumation but it's the wrong time of year for it! It's like Summer here and scorhing at the moment in the UK. But she was born in the summer so maybe she is just going into Brumatioin but just at the wrong time of year due to her age and stuff? Who knows.

Here is the most recent pic. This was taken on her way to the Vets last week. So you can get an idea of colour, length, width etc.

https://instagram.com/p/4loxPcH3sy/ Apologies for it being instagram. I don't have a suitable account to share photos of her!

EDIT: After looking into Brumation more it seems that all things point to Brumation although I can't be sure. It explains many things to be honest. Anyway i'd love your feedback and any suggestions!

Thanks

Chris

Hi Chris.....being that she's approaching adulthood , she is probably just slowing down naturally. Her body size is great, quite muscular looking and stocky, so once they hit that 1 year mark [ if they've always been healthy + grown quickly ] then they can go on these " hunger strikes" because they are pretty much done growing and they don't have the activity level that they would in the wild. So they can instinctively go without food for certain amounts of time. She may be going in to semi brumation as well.....all perfectly normal + healthy behavior. At her age + size they can go for long periods with little to eat. Now if she were scratching around the tank like crazy one might suspect that she were going to lay eggs, but it doesn't fit with her behavior at the moment. She looks good, I'm sure she'll be fine.

AHBD":3ixbm816 said:

Hi Chris.....being that she's approaching adulthood , she is probably just slowing down naturally. Her body size is great, quite muscular looking and stocky, so once they hit that 1 year mark [ if they've always been healthy + grown quickly ] then they can go on these " hunger strikes" because they are pretty much done growing and they don't have the activity level that they would in the wild. So they can instinctively go without food for certain amounts of time. She may be going in to semi brumation as well.....all perfectly normal + healthy behavior. At her age + size they can go for long periods with little to eat. Now if she were scratching around the tank like crazy one might suspect that she were going to lay eggs, but it doesn't fit with her behavior at the moment. She looks good, I'm sure she'll be fine.

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Thanks I feel so much better! I'm always worrying about her! She decided to eat her first hopper today after an entire week of not eating. But I had her out and she was running around, perking her head up, left, right all inquisitively and seemed fine. She was basking when I got back so that means she moved out of her little log hidey hole.

I put this question on another forum and got a reply about not having substrate. Is it bad that I don't have any? I keep her in a wooden vivarium but I'm just scared of using substrate as she's quite the licker lol.

It's not bad that she has no substrate, most owners don't use any......having said that, beardies do like to dig and it seems to give them something to do in their little prison cells. I actually have a 300 gal. aquarium in my basement with about 100 lbs. of top soil/sand mix that I put some of my dragons in for periods of time. It also has basking platforms, wood + cement blocks as well. But as long as she's out to roam for a bit at least a few times a week that should help burn off her beardie energy.