Sudden behavior change in 3-ish month old beardie

Hi all! This is going to be a long one so my apologies in advance.

My baby Senua's been having some behavioral issues recently and it has me worried. My partner's baby Zaku has been thriving in his setup and both were bought at the same time from Petsmart at the beginning of October. They both have near identical tank setups with the exception of decoration (mine is desert vs his forest theme). Their tanks are at opposite ends of a 24-foot room.

Her setup:
- 40 gallon breeder, single occupant
- Zoo Med Reptisun T8 10.0 mounted inside the tank w/ command strips
- 100w basking bulb during the day, sitting on top of screen
- 100w ceramic bulb at night sitting on top of screen (the room can drop to 68 degrees in the evenings)
- Paper towels for substrate until I can get my slate cut
- Tall basking tree that gets Senua about 4-5 inches from the screen lid where heat source is
- 1 large basking platform with a cave under lamp on the floor of tank
- 1 hammock on hot side
- Other misc. decorations on both sides for aesthetics
- I'll update with tank temperatures tonight when I get home

When we first got Senua she was incredibly alert but nervous, which was to be expected. She ate tiny crickets just fine and eventually we bought extra small dubia roaches - she had a great appetite and would eat 10-15 dusted in calcium in a sitting up to 3 times a day. She always has a flat dish of water and mustard greens in the tank at all times. I don't know whether she was eating them or running through the dish but I'd see greens on the tank floor around the bowl. If I held a piece in front of her face she'd usually take a couple of bites. I was also bathing her 2 times a week but looking back that may not have been enough.

About a week ago she started acting strangely and refusing food after a pretty big shed over her entire body. I felt like we were finally starting to bond but when I would open the lid of her tank she would jump, puff up, then make quick jerking motions away from my hand. If I continued to pursue her she would run from me so I eventually just left her alone. My partner comes home on his lunch break around 2pm to feed them and noticed she wasn't eating as much. He would hold Zaku first and let him eat roaches from his hand, then would hold Senua and do the same. She would eat maybe 4 roaches then turn up her nose so we figured it was related to her shed. A few days ago I was holding her and inspecting her skin to see if she was hydrated. I took her side skin gently in my fingers to see if it bounced back and it must have felt threatening to her because she bit me on the finger! I bathed her then put her back and didn't hold her for the rest of the night. Two nights ago she started sleeping in her cave after the lights were turned off. Sometimes during the day she'll try to burrow under the paper towels on the cold end of her tank and sleep. Other times she basks happily at the tallest point of her tree or will lay on the basking platform down below.

She still isn't eating much, maybe 8 small dubias a day and no greens. I'm bathing her daily and she still seems really skittish of my presence. I bought some Fluker's ReptaBoost and she drank it up yesterday from the syringe. She's making pretty big poops and they're slightly on the watery side and they stink badly. I'm looking into doing a fecal parasite test. This is my first time raising a beardie from a baby (my last beardie was over 10 years ago and was 8 months old when I got him) and my partner has me so paranoid that something is wrong with her. We keep comparing her to Zaku who is calm, happy, and hungry and I don't think that's exactly fair for Senua...she has her own personality. He's also a lot bigger than her and I'm wondering if he's a few weeks older despite them appearing to be the same size when we bought them.

Any help is very appreciated! I can also provide pictures of tank setup and dragon when I get home.

Sounds like you're doing everything right! Definitely get that the fecal done, aside from that, 8 dubias a day isn't too bad. Just make sure they're gutloaded and dusted with both calcium/D3 powder and a multivitamin, and keep an eye on her. She might just be going through a mood swing - juveniles can be temperamental like that sometimes. Kudos to you for being patient and understanding with her.

HylianHealeys":2sazsg3l said:

Sounds like you're doing everything right! Definitely get that the fecal done, aside from that, 8 dubias a day isn't too bad. Just make sure they're gutloaded and dusted with both calcium/D3 powder and a multivitamin, and keep an eye on her. She might just be going through a mood swing - juveniles can be temperamental like that sometimes. Kudos to you for being patient and understanding with her.

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Thank you so much! She's such a sweet little gal and I want to do the best for her. I have an ADV swab on the way to rule that out and I'm working with my vet to get a fecal done. Hopefully everything turns out fine!

I've included photos of her and would like to see if someone thinks she's underweight? There is calcium and shed everywhere but it's been cleaned up!




The next two are a picture of Senua and her "brother" Zaku across the hall with a penny for a size comparison. Zaku was really confused about the penny!

Senua


Zaku

Overall she looks like a healthy young beardie! Just like humans, the young ones tend to be on the skinnier side while they're growing but once they reach adulthood they start to fill out. :wink:

HylianHealeys":2cr2jm0n said:

Overall she looks like a healthy young beardie! Just like humans, the young ones tend to be on the skinnier side while they're growing but once they reach adulthood they start to fill out. :wink:

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Thank you very much! Sounds like I'm (mostly) freaking out for nothing.

Haha no worries! Freaking out over nothing is what we all bond over. :lol:

Your husbandry sounds great, the only thing that I would definitely stop is the CHE at night, as a 100 watt CHE is WAY too hot, and no nighttime heat source is needed nor wanted by bearded dragons. The Australian desert is extremely cool at night and pitch black, and bearded dragons are extremely sound sleepers unless they are uncomfortable because they are too hot or it isn't pitch black inside their tanks. The rule stuck to by experienced owners and breeders is that unless their tank drops below 65 degrees at night you need absolutely no heat source at all, because they want it and need it to be considerably cooler at night than their daytime temps. Your house would have to drop to at least 60 degrees or below for her tank to drop below 65, so if your house drops even to between 60-65 degrees at night she needs no nighttime heat source at all, and even if your house dropped to say 55 degrees at night, at most you would need a 10-15 watt CHE to bump her temperature up to 65 degrees...so a 100 watt CHE is cooking he at night. It's quite possible that she's very uncomfortable at night with that on, and she will sleep much more comfortably and deeply with no nighttime heat source at ll. I know it's our first instinct to want to keep a lizard warm at night, but again, imagine how cold the desert gets at night, it drops below 65 degrees most nights, and that's what they are built for and what they want. So I highly suggest ditching the CHE and just leaving her at night without ANY heat source at all, she'll likely not be as grumpy during the day if she sleeps better at night. My first beardie was a male, I got him as a month old baby, and I originally kept a black nightbulb on him, then went to a 15 watt CHE once I figured out they need it to be pitch black, but his tank with the 15 watt CHE was still at over 80 degrees, and it took me almost a year of reading and talking to breeders to realize that he was really much too hot at night at even 70 degrees, so I dropped all the nighttime heat and his tank went to 68 as a low at night due to my house being around 70, and he was so much happier!!! He lived to be just shy of 13 and never had a health issue, not one! All 3 of my guys now sleep at a very comfortable 65-70 degrees (my house is on average 62-65 at night now, figure their tank is about 5 degrees warmer than your house temp, so your girl should be perfect if your house is 68, she should be over 70 and happy). Make sure your partner does the same if he's using a CHE at night as well, especially a high wattage one like that...

It sounds like her lack of appetite may be due to parasites, I suggest finding a Certified Reptile Vet or a Reptile Specialist vet and taking a fresh fecal sample in to be tested...However, be sure to ask what parasites exactly that she has, as well as what the count/load is for all of them. If either Coccidia or PinWorms shows as being positive, which it probably will, and the count is only low to moderate, that is not the cause of her issue and she does not need to be treated with harsh Antiparasitic or Antiprotozoan meds at all. All Bearded Dragons typically have a low count of Coccidia and/or Pinworms at any given time without them causing an issue, and a lot of inexperienced vets or "exotics" vets will either just medicate for everything, regardless of the count, or they will get a negative fecal test or not even run a test and then medicate anyway "Just in Case", which should never be done, because the unnecessary meds cause more issues than the dragon had to begin with.