Strange bearded dragon behavior

Hello everyone,

I wasn't sure where to put this (enclosures? health? behavior?) so I just put it in this one instead, sorry if this is the wrong forum. My bearded dragon has consistently been displaying a new behavior for the past few weeks and I'm wondering what it means (if anything at all).

He (I think it's a he) has always been very active in the mornings; about 15-30 minutes after his lights turn on, he begins running around the cage. He glass surfs, runs around, and knocks over decorations. On the days he poops, his running around is even more frantic. It's almost as if he is desperate to get away from his poop? For the past few weeks, every morning without fail, he has been pooping and then smearing it everywhere...all over his decor, food bowl, floor, and 6-8 inches up all 4 walls. His cage is in my bedroom and it smells horrendous because by the time I get home from work, it has hardened and has been marinating in various crevices in the tank. He is usually covered head to tail in it, so he smells too. If he poops while I'm at home, I wipe it up as quickly as possible before it starts to smell up my bedroom and before he can smear it everywhere. However, about 6 days a week, I am either at work, class, or out running errands when he poops in the late morning/early afternoon and I can't get to it in time. This is a new behavior for him and his scratching about the cage and smearing poop everywhere is starting to get quite irritating. On the days where I don't have to wake up at 5 am, I get woken up at 6-7 am anyway because of the running and scratching noises, and the cage cleanup is starting to become difficult (I did his monthly deep clean today and it took me 3 whole hours because of the poop everywhere!). I also had to put him in the tub forever today (draining and putting more warm water in every time it cooled down), and then gently scrubbing him with an unused toothbrush to get all the poop off and to get him to hopefully stop smelling so rank, but that was quite the situation too as he HATES baths and I now have scratch marks all up and down my arms because he apparently hates the toothbrush too. So this whole running about the tank and getting poop everywhere is getting on my nerves...

I'm not sure what's going on with him. I'm thinking now that he's full-grown, the size of his cage is a bit small for him and he just wants more space. He also seems desperate to get away from his poop. He never has stress marks during his "morning run." I am planning on building a 4x2x2 cage in the upcoming weeks to give him more space, but is there anything else that could cause this behavior?

Basic stats:
~A little over a year old, 21" long
~40 gal tank
~UVB is a 24" Reptisun 10.0 T8, mounted directly inside tank
~150 watt basking bulb
~Tile as substrate
~Basking spot: ranges between 90-94 F
~Cool side: 70-80 F
~Gets dusted crickets every other day, 30-40 at a time. Greens offered every morning, I give him a variety of dark leafy greens but it usually consists of collard, mustard, and turnip greens
~He is the only reptile I own so there are no other beardies in sight to stress him out
Any insight or comments would be appreciated, thanks!

That sounds pretty devastating , esp. for you. :shock: Has he always done that much glass surfing ? And are you positive that he's a he ? If not, post a couple of pics here with his tail arched up high [ think of a dog that's extremely excited with it's tail up in the air ] Just to rule out the possibility he's really a female looking for a place to lay.

What you might try is to put a layer of newspaper on the bottom of his tank on top of the tiles. Add a few handfuls of shredded newspaper as well on top. The shredded paper should absorb most of the mess. If you have a lot of cage decor just leave one nice big basking log and hopefully he won't mess it up since he won't be stepping in much poo. The newspaper can be lifted right out, and if any gets on the glass , use a simple solution of red wine vinegar + water on a wad of paper towels, wipe it off + dry. Takes a few minutes and the RWV is a natural disinfectant.

Thanks for the reply! He has pretty much always glass surfed in the mornings. I got him in November of 2016 when he was less than 6 inches long; he didn’t glass surf back then, but rather just ran laps around the cage. The scratching at the glass happened when he got a little bigger. It was never that big of a deal but as he got bigger the scratching got louder and he became big enough to knock over decorations. He also only used to do it for a few minutes at a time, but now he can do up to an hour or two. Again, no stress marks at all during this procedure. With my winter break from college coming up, I’ll have more free time and I was thinking of maybe letting him out of his cage to roam around my room so he can run around and be less restricted; however I also desperately do not want him to poop on my carpet, lol. I would like to try putting him in the bath every morning so he can go in there instead but I’m always at work really early in the mornings so I’m not sure if I can pull it off. Also, he really hates baths.

I’ll see if I can get the tail pic tomorrow. I think the longer bath yesterday seriously stressed him out ? when I put him back in his cage yesterday he immediately ran to a corner, stayed there for the rest of the evening, slept there, and now his lights have been on for 3 hours and he still hasn’t moved from that corner. Such a high maintenance lizard.

Maybe you can get one of these to give him some exercise + running time.

They are not expensive at all and can be used indoor or outdoor. Just put a nice tall fake plant or something else to climb on to put inside. You can probably suspend a high watt heat bulb from the top.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwic8qr_qsjXAhVE6CYKHQlJAiUQFghZMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drsfostersmith.com%2Fproduct%2Fprod_display.cfm%3Fpcatid%3D22274&usg=AOvVaw2V2mk5-mXmyzu7KnFq56zy

When my dragons dirty themselves I soak them in warm water for about 15 minutes, then use a little larger scrub brush with a handle + gently stroke them . I do under the belly by gently lifting the tail. Takes about 35 minutes at the most.

You might try giving him a warm soak in the morning. I use a bucket with warm water about shoulder high. Mine will usually poop in the bucket in 2 or 3 minutes. I blot dry with a paper towel and put him back in to bask/finish drying. He rarely poops in his tank.

AHBD, he was in the tub for about 35-45 minutes. I was taking so long to clean the floor of his cage and I needed to let the poop soften so I could get it off him so I left him there for longer than usual (15 min is usual length of bath). And thanks for the suggestion, I was thinking about getting a playpen of sorts but not sure if I have room (I have dogs so I can't let him loose outside my room). I might just have to suck it up and let him run around on my floor.

winalldeb, I wanted to try putting him in the bath real quick every morning so he could poop; the only problem is that he despises baths, freaks out when I put him in there. I make him suck it up for his weekly baths but I wasn't sure if I should do it daily. I only fill it up to his elbows and make it warm, not hot, so I think he just doesn't like it. And when I put him back in his cage he acts like he's stressed out about what just happened.

I'm going to try getting a tail/vent pic tomorrow so hopefully he can be definitively sexed. I forgot about it till today. I thought I saw 2 bumps the last time I checked though.

Hi everyone, sorry for the late reply! He has consistently been pooping every day for the past few weeks, which is strange because before that he was consistently pooping 3-4 x a week. For a bit he wasn’t smearing his poop around but today he resumed the habit, unfortunately. Luckily he isn’t caked in poop.

I gave him another bath today, as per usual he is begging to be let out within a minute. The water is quite warm but not excessively so. I just cleaned all the poop smears out of his cage and I’m washing his cage decor as that is all filthy. I remember that someone requested under tail pics to see if he is actually a she and I tried my best to get those pics. I’ll post them in just a sec. I still think he is a he.

I’m getting pretty frustrated at this new habit of his, I don’t understand how I clean up after him more than any other animal I have ever had/taken care of (this includes birds and horses)!

EDIT: here are the pics. I tried my best considering he was in the bath. If needed I'll get better ones.

The photos you posted don't have his tail arched high enough over his back, we need to be able to clearly see his vent and the area on his tail above his vent with the tail arched far over his back and the skin tight...from the angles you posted he actually appears to be she, so you really want to get some better photos up ASAP, as it may very well be at a year old she is looking to lay some infertile eggs and needs a lay box...

EllenD":d4slrcw5 said:

The photos you posted don't have his tail arched high enough over his back, we need to be able to clearly see his vent and the area on his tail above his vent with the tail arched far over his back and the skin tight...from the angles you posted he actually appears to be she, so you really want to get some better photos up ASAP, as it may very well be at a year old she is looking to lay some infertile eggs and needs a lay box...

Click to expand...

He/she was jumping around in the bath a lot so that was the best I could do at that time. I'll try to get better pics tomorrow.

I'm desperately hoping he is not a she, as I have absolutely no clue how to deal with the egg-laying thing at all. I get the gist of what a lay box is, but it still makes me nervous.

Charlie has been pretty quiet this morning; he/she has gotten down from his/her hammock a few times to walk around but there has been no scratching and jumping around. I figured my carpets are safe for now and decided to let him/her out for some floor time in the first time in forever (due to lack of time and me being too busy to sit and watch). I was able to get a hopefully better picture of the tail. Now that I got a better look and better picture, I think he might be a she :/ Also I just learned about the existence of femoral pores; apparently only males have them? Do they only show up at a certain age? Because I don't see anything like on Charlie; the inside of his/her hind legs look just plain white.

The femoral pores can vary. Based on that photo, it looks like a male to me.

Sorry for the late reply. I looked today and he does have small femoral pores.

I'm hitting the end of my rope. For the past few days he has been incessantly scratching at the glass and running around for hours each morning. He did it again this morning. Today I come home from work, not in a very good mood, and I see that he pooped and smeared it EVERYWHERE...its on all 4 walls, tracked through his water dish, all over the tiles on one side of the cage, and he is covered in it on all 4 feet and his tail is totally covered in it. I honestly do not have the energy to deal with it today, I'm leaving it till tomorrow morning.

Hopefully he's just freaking out because he doesn't have enough space, because his newer bigger cage is coming along and maybe once he gets moved in there he'll stop. If he doesn't stop then I don't know what to do. If he is indeed a male then what is going on with him.

I’ve been thinking about taking him to the vet or at least taking a fecal sample for them to analyze.

That happens from time to time. It should be cleaned and sanitized quickly to help prevent illness. Just an accident and they don't understand not to run through it. My guy has done that when he is going nuts trying to get out of the tank too. I would just provide as much out of the tank time as you can and perhaps start a routine at the same time every day to encourage pooping out of the tank. It won't help 100% but it will reduce the times they go in the tank and make a big mess.

Yup cleaned it and him all up this morning. I know it happens from time to time but he’s just been doing it almost daily for the past few weeks so when it happens that much it just gets frustrating. The glass surfing is getting to me too, when he was little it wasn’t bad but now that he’s big, he scratches at the glass loudly and for hours almost every morning. I also feel bad that I’m having to bathe him so much because he hates it and it really stresses him out but I have to clean the poop off of him somehow. Crossing my fingers that this bigger enclosure will be what he needs to calm down.