Young Beardie Won't Open an Eye *Update-Is it swollen now?*

So I just bought a beardie like 4 days ago from a Petsmart. I don’t know it’s sex or age but it’s in the 6-7 inch range it seems like EDIT: Took actual measurements, seems to be around 9 inches from nose to tail tip. Anyways, it seems completely healthy, eating alright and everything but today when I woke up, I noticed one of its eyes are closed. There’s no discharge or bulging coming from it…it’s just closed. I’m kinda worried about it and this is my first reptile ;n;

Here’s a bit of info if any of this helps!

Diet: Greens and bits of fruit, frozen mealworms as a treat and juvenile bearded dragon refrigerated food (they’re like these green orb thingies) with some live calcium dusted crickets thrown in.

Substrate: Reptile carpet

Temperature: ~105-110 f on the basking side ~80ish on the cool side

Water: Fresh daily kept out of the heat

Fecal Description - Dark feces with white urates

Cage Type - 23 gallon terrarium (will get a bigger one as it grows)

Lighting - 13w uvb compact light (coil), 50 Watt basking bulb, 60w Nightlight

Plants - Plastic ones with some ceramic decorations

Placement - On my dresser, fairly low traffic aside from the cats who don’t bother much

From research I've done (which led me to this site) it seems like the coil light would be the problem here. I've turned it off for now to give the eyes a rest, but I'd still love some feedback as to what else I could do.

I also noticed my beardie doing the eye bulging thing, so I'm assuming there will be some shedding going on soon if that might contribute to anything.

Here's a picture of the eye:

Hello,

Most likely you are right and the coil light could be bothering your beardie. Do you plan on replacing it with a tube like a Reptisun 10.0? The eye bulge also normally happens when they shed, so that could also be a reason as well.

I would like to add, strictly as my opinion, I would stop using the refrigerated food. Is it the Nat Geo juvenile diet? I looked up the ingredients and they were not the greatest stuff for a beardie. There is a lot of unnecessary things added, especially the sugars and molasses, and very few good things added that are truly beneficial to them. When they are young they need a high protein diet to compensate for their fast growth, the best form for that is in live prey such as crickets, dubia, phoenix worms, silkworms etc. I would also be careful of the frozen mealworms as they can cause impaction in young dragons, so it may be safer to avoid for now.

SukiLove":2kl30zkd said:

Hello,

Most likely you are right and the coil light could be bothering your beardie. Do you plan on replacing it with a tube like a Reptisun 10.0? The eye bulge also normally happens when they shed, so that could also be a reason as well.

I would like to add, strictly as my opinion, I would stop using the refrigerated food. Is it the Nat Geo juvenile diet? I looked up the ingredients and they were not the greatest stuff for a beardie. There is a lot of unnecessary things added, especially the sugars and molasses, and very few good things added that are truly beneficial to them. When they are young they need a high protein diet to compensate for their fast growth, the best form for that is in live prey such as crickets, dubia, phoenix worms, silkworms etc. I would also be careful of the frozen mealworms as they can cause impaction in young dragons, so it may be safer to avoid for now.

Click to expand...

Yeah I'm planning on buying ReptiSun 10.0 asap I just have work very soon so I can't today and I'm going to let my beardie bask in the sunlight for a little bit before I go and for now am leaving the coil light off.

And yeah, it's the Nat Geo one. I was thinking of getting rid of it myself, since my beardie doesn't seem to care much for it. I'll be sure to remove the frozen mealworms too and stick mostly to live foods. At what age would it be better to feed them frozen mealworms, if at all?

I don't prefer to feed anything frozen, especially insects. There are many on here who think that mealworms are bad, and in most cases they are not the best and it's easier to avoid using them. I don't think they are an issue when fed sparingly as treats, although I would wait until your dragon was a little older, most common suggestion is 16" in length before feeding superworms or mealworms. I think supers are a bit better nutritionally than mealworms, but not by a huge margin.

Update:

The eye is still closed, but she [I managed to sex her, and judging by the lone lump I'm guessing!] does open it at times and then slowly close it. She tends to open it when I hold her, when she's trying to bite my fingers off, and when she's hunting crickets. The eye doesn't appear to be infected or irritated. She's very active and has normal poop still.

Today I'm buying ReptiSun 10.0 for her, and she had her first bath today. I also ordered Phoenix Worms for her to see how she likes those and I got a shopping list of greens I'll be feeding her to expand her salad plate.

Also I named her Pancake :'3

Another update:

Pancake is starting to shed more, there was quite a bit of skin littered around her place. She's been getting baths to help her along. I also noticed that her eye looks more swollen now, though. I'm not sure if this is due to the shedding or if her eye is really getting worse.





She opened the eye here because she was starting to get grumpy

Then she closed it again


What else can I do for her? She's still eating just fine and is very active, but I'm really worried about that eye of hers.

Hi Kaiti....her eyes are probably just still recovering from the uvb irritation. The eye actually looks good in the pic [ especially open ] so it will probably be feeling better now as you get rid of the coil and get your new bulb. I think she'll be fine.

I agree, her eye looks better. Just give her some more time to recover. Love the name by the way, she's so cute!