Brittany26
Member
Hello, I have a two year old bearded dragon named Squirt. I’ve had him since he was a baby (petco). His setup has been pretty much the same since he was a couple months old: Reptisun t5 HO tube light mounted on top (I recently cut a few holes in the screen). I have made slight changes to his heating bulbs, right now the basking spot is usually in the 100’s. If it’s higher he will stand away from it, most days he even prefers to be at 85 degrees F. I use a CHE for the middle temps and for night time. The middle temperature is 85 F, and the cool side is in the mid 70s (I use a temp gun). Substrate is reptile carpet and he’s in a 40 gallon cage. He’s not hibernating because he isn’t going to the cool side and isn’t hiding or sleeping (every once in a while he will hide for a day or two). His entire life he has never had a huge appetite. Even as a baby he would only eat a few crickets at a time, not the dozens upon dozens that I’ve seen normal baby beardies devour online. But he was growing and gaining weight. Right now he is around 475g, which I was surprised to see he gained weight as he weight 395g last summer. But he is very small for a dragon. I’ve offered him salads since a baby, usually collard greens or dandelion greens, but, I consider it a miracle if I manage to catch him taking just one or two bites of his greens. Lately, I just get tired of buying him greens since he won’t even look at them. Since I’m discouraged by his lack of desire for greens, I probably only give him salads 2-3 times a week now. I feel guilty, but he won’t eat them. He also doesn’t have an appetite for bugs. He used to eat a bowl of crickets everyday but about a year ago his appetite got worse. Everyday I make sure he has bugs in his bowl. I offer him crickets, superworms, Dubai’s (using them now), hornworms, wax worms, earth worms. More recently, it has been normal for him to eat ONE, maybe two roaches/super worms every couple days. This past week, I haven’t seen him eat any of his roaches at all, although he did take two bites of his collard greens and I almost fainted in disbelief! (It’s been a few months since I’ve seen him eat greens). Since his appetite has gotten worse, I’ve been giving him baby food mixed with calcium/bee pollen/vitamins/reptiboost/critical care a couple times per week (I don’t want him to get dependent on baby food..). Despite his lack of interest in bugs or greens, he actually can scarf down quite a lot of baby food (sadly he seems to only like peas/green beans, not a fan of fruity baby food). I use a syringe and put it on his nose and he eats it himself. He also won’t even try to eat (real) fruits such as bananas, strawberries, blue berries, etc. if I put a piece of banana on his lips he’ll try to lick the liquid my soft part but he doesn’t make an effort to bite it. I don’t know if he’s just dumb and doesn’t know what it is or if he just isn’t hungry (Love you Squirt). He also use to poop almost everyday when he was a baby, and then I remember it was slowing down to 1-2 times a week. Last summer of 2019, it had been a few weeks since he last pooped so I took him to the Vet. The vet said he looked good but found a small amount of parasites in him and I gave him the medicine (I think panacur). It did absolutely nothing. His pooping seemed to get a little better, until a couple months ago. Now, it is common for him to poop once a month, maybe even longer. I am a broke college student but I couldn’t bear it anymore and took him to the vet last week (a different one because I didn’t feel confident in the last vet). I heard good reviews about the vets experience with reptiles, and I am much more pleased with this visit. The vet said “For not eating, you sure are chubby!”. The vet said he appeared alert and a healthy weight, and she recommended a blood test. She could not get Squirt to poop there, so she sent me home with dewormer (starts with a F), once a day for three days. I finished the dewormer over the weekend and then he pooped. The poop was huge, he dropped from 502g to 462g. I dropped off the poop to the vet and today I got the results of the blood and fecal test. she said his kidney, liver, and white blood cell levels are good, but she said he is extremely dehydrated. She told me to continue giving baby food and also to soak him everyday. Then she said his pinworm levels are still high, even after the dewormer, so she prescribed me more dewormer for 10 days this time. I don’t know the name of it yet. She said she is worried that he could have an underlying infection that doesn’t show up in blood tests, and she said she also doesn’t like giving out antibiotics like that. I told her if this round of medicine doesn’t work, I will try the antibiotics. I have a copy of the blood results if anyone wants to see them. He black bearded today, hopefully because of spring season, but he’s back to normal too. Also, I forgot to mention that his activity levels have decreased as well. He still will walk/run around when I get him out of his cage, but I remember he used to have more energy. He used to run back and forth in his cage every morning, he also used to gape his mouth open. I haven’t seen him act his old self in awhile. I just want him to be okay. I’m trying the best I can. I wish he would just eat normal food and be active again. Any advice would be helpful.