6 mo. Old appetite loss and laziness

Hey guys, I picked up my beard dragon(King Boo(or Queen if it ends up being female)) back in March and they said he/she was 3 months old so I'm assuming it's around 6 months old. When we first got it he/she was a little skittish which is natural for being in a new place and all that.


(Named for his/her spooky ghost face on the back of his/her head. :lol: )


(This picture is a few days after we got him/her)

After getting comfortable he/she would eat regularly (pinhead crickets) and poop regularly. At first he/she wouldn't have anything to do with greens but finally after about a month he/she started to eat greens. The only thing he/she really liked was Kale (we tried mustard greens, turnip greens, ECT. (Excluding iceberg, romaine and other empty greens)). I did loads of research on it and from what I've gathered kale is fine as a staple as long as it's not the only green they eat so I alternate between kale,collard greens and mustard greens (pretty much the only other greens we could get him/her to eat though kale is still his/her favorite). We also try to give her veggies with his/her salad but he/she wouldn't eat it (we tried yellow squash, carrots, and a few other things along with tiny bits of apple occasionally(surprisingly of fruit)). We also try to give her water every day via medicine syringe, dripping water on the tip of his/her nose (he/she usually will drink every other day).

So his/her diet started with salad in the morning and crickets for dinner (he/she would hold out for crickets if we didn't wait for him/her to have some salad first). Once he/she started eating his/her salad more we switched up the diet to crickets in the morning a salad throughout the day. We would sometimes hand feed then other times let him/her chase the crickets to keep him/her from getting too lazy.

Now onto current events, lately he/she has been staying on the cold side of the tank (temp is usually 70F give or take 2 degrees) and goes to bed super early (before went to bed around 8-9 now sometimes as early as 6). Also he/she seemed to have lost her appetite for crickets and wouldn't eat them from hand or chase so we got her some superworms (we cut them in half cause they're a little big, but he/she has been pooping regularly and it appears healthy, but definitely a lot less poo than he/she was producing when he/she had her appetite). He/she very eagerly ate the supers no problem, tried crickets again the next day, not interested.

He/she use to roam around the Viv and do normal lizard things but lately he/she has been very lazy. If I put him/her under the basking light he/she will stay there for about an hour or 30 minutes then go back and curl up on the cool side ( around 80-90F degrees on hot side, high to mid 90s directly under the heat light).


(This is before this started, but the same thing he/she does all the time now, also had the kink in his/her tail before we got him/her)

When we take him/her out of the tank he/she is alert, looks around, explores and such, but when we put him/her back he/she just goes back into his/her little spot. Most of the time his/her eyes are open so he/she isn't sleeping all day but he/she use to bask most of the day.

Now that all the details are out, I'm wondering if something is wrong. I've been expecting him/her to shed soon (it's been about a two weeks since the last shed) and gave him/her a bath recently to see if that would help but it didn't seem to have any effect.

Enclosure details:
3 ft. L x 16 in. W x 16 in. H (upgrade from the previous 2 ft. L x 1 ft. W x 16 in. H glass tank)
Basking light and UVB bulb (Zoo Med Reptisun 10.0)



Also it looks like he/she has a dark spot under his/her ear that i don't remember seeing before, there is one on the opposite side that looks the same too. He/she seems healthy for the most part, haven't wanted to take him/her to the vet yet to avoid the travel stress. I've done some research on early brumation and the reason i think it may be something like this is because it was cooler outside when we got him/her so we had our heat on more so it was warm in the room, but now its warmer and we have the AC on more (stays above 67F with lights off at night). Should I wait a bit longer before doing anything or should I take him/her to the vet soon? (This has only been going on for about a week and a half or so)

Forgot to mention, it doesn't appear that he/she has lost any weight but unfortunately i don't have a scale to keep track.

She looks pretty healthy to me. Sometimes they just slow down like that for a bit in between growth spurts. I'm not exactly sure why but if her weight is OK and she's alert when you have her out of the tank I wouldn't worry too much. Just keep offering food on the regular schedule. Try offering some different bugs like black soldier fly larvae or silk worms if you can get them. It's good to rotate bugs a bit just like with veges. At this point I'd just keep an eye on her and wait it out. Hopefully she'll be back to her usual self in a week or two.

Just wanted to post a little update, Boo has been doing much better lately. Eating more, basking more, we switched her diet to super worms semi daily depending on the last time she pooped along with daily mixed green salad with escarole, endive and carrot greens. I took a trip for a few days last week so we took the old setup over my girlfriends house so she could look after her while I was gone and since she's come back she seems to be acting more how she was when we first got her. Eventually I want to see if she will eat crickets again but last time we tired she had 0 interest in the crickets.

I'm glad to hear she has perked back up. She looks good in the photo. I would limit the amount of supers you offer. They are OK as part of a balanced diet but I wouldn't use them as a staple. I would try the crickets again and see how they go over. You could try some small roaches too. Silk worms, black soldier fly larvae, and small hornworms are also good options.

We got some crickets for her yesterday and she ate them right up, she must have been in some kind of funk. She didn't shed for like 3 weeks and she finally did a few days ago. She definitely seems much happier now so that's good ??

Hi there, I'm glad to hear that Boo is doing better. I can tell from her baby pic that she was actually more like a month old when you got her. Was it from a store or breeder ? Stores often have no idea or outright lie about the age. If it was from a breeder they either did the same [ lied ] or the dragon was not fed properly. So she's probably 4 months old now. At any rate, doing pretty well in your care.


I do wonder if the uvb is too far away or is on top of the screen ? If so, lack of good uvb exposure can cause loss of appetite. And BTW, if you post a few pics with Boo's tail arched up high while she's flat on a table we can probably tell you the gender. [ Although at times it's a bit tricky ] Arch the tail like this :

https://www.beardeddragon.org/articles/sexing/