Sudden Behavior Changes

We got our Bearded Dragon Merlin almost a month ago. He is our very first reptile of any kind. He has been really sweet and very social. He climbs into my daughter's hand, sits on her while she pets him, looks for her when he hears her voice, and even eats out of her hand. He has been held by everyone in the family (there are 6 of us) without any issues. It is obvious who his favorite is though from day one.

Today we got home from work/school and noticed his heat light was off. My daughter thought maybe the cord came loose, so wiggled it around and turned the light back on. She tried to hold Merlin to warm him up, but he wanted nothing to do with her. He ran from her, turned and opened his mouth and hissed at her. For the first time ever I saw his full beard! I told her he was obviously stressed so we should leave him alone for a bit.

I went back in there a little while later to check on Merlin and the temp and the light was off again. I messed with the bulb a little bit, double checked that everything was plugged in correctly and turned the light on again.

At this time we were able to get Merlin to let us hold him. We held him for a couple of minutes and put him back in his cage. He let us pet him and seemed to be back to his old self.

Thirty minutes later I went in to check on him and the light was off yet again. At this point I unplugged it and will be taking it back tomorrow. My oldest is on her way home now with new lights. When I went to move his veggie bowl he started acting aggressive towards me again. I could see his full beard, he was hissing, open mouth and if I moved my hand he would run from me, which is totally abnormal behavior for him.

I know he is cold (he wasn't his usual toasty self when I held him), because I think his light has been off most of the day. He does have a heating pad on the side of his tank, to help keep it warm. We have a space heater going in her room right now so that it will warm up in the room and my oldest should be home soon with his new lights.

Any suggestions on what may have caused these changes or what we can do to help him get past his anti social behavior?

probably napping as metabolism is governed by temperature and you startled him when you suddenly grabbed him.

next time
.. talk to him first
.. then pet him for a while
.. then pick him up

He was definitely awake before we tried to touch him, so I don't think we startled him.

We got the new lights hooked up and got the temp back up to where it should be. He seems to have calmed down a bit. He was sleeping in his water dish last night when I went to bed and still there this morning. He likes to stand on his back legs on the edge of his water dish (it's in the corner of his cage) with his front legs on the glass halfway up the side of his tank. He has slept like this several times previously. I didn't try to mess with him this morning since he was sleeping.

I am hoping that when we get home today he is back to his normal happy social self! I just don't understand why his behavior changed like it did. I would like to make sure whatever happened to change it doesn't happen again :wink:

Please help, my bearded dragon is very sick, he looks like he's breathing on his mouth this past few weeks. He had been very weak for 3 weeks now. I brought him to Vet and gave him antibiotics and meds but still he's not getting better.

Lhory74":12f08i1g said:

Please help, my bearded dragon is very sick, he looks like he's breathing on his mouth this past few weeks. He had been very weak for 3 weeks now. I brought him to Vet and gave him antibiotics and meds but still he's not getting better.

Click to expand...

Please start a new thread in the ER or health section of the forum so we can address this issue separately. If you can provide details about your setup (lighting you use, size of the enclosure, temperatures, etc.) it would be helpful. Also if you can post some photos of him it would be good. You can upload photos here https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/ and post them to your new thread using the XIMG button. We'll do the best we can to help you get this sorted out.