Smelly Beardie

Hi. When I first got my beardie, Draco, he smelled HORRIBLE. I gave him 2 baths every week. After a week and a half, he smelled better, but still smelled bad. After another week, you could barely smell anything from him. He didn't smell like anything, and I continued to bathe him. Well, I gave him a bath about an half an hour ago, and he smelled bad. Not as bad when I first got him, but bad. So I came to ask, is there anything I can do? Is there like a special soap to wash him with? I bathe him with warm water, mor eto the hot side. So about 80-87 degrees. I tried even WARMER WATER. So about 90-95 degrees. Still nothing. Are beardies just naturally smelly? Literally, any advice will help.

Bearded dragons are not crocodiles or water dragons , they do not need bathing unless ABSOLUTELY necessary.
Bearded dragons are evolved to survive very long periods of extreme drought ( droughts can last over 10 years in their natural range - tropical arid grasslands and woodlands in central Australia where standing water is very rare, and running water extremely rare and very shortlived.
My bearded dragons are very rarely bathed , Rex who lived to be 5 years old was never bathed and never smelled.
Peppa loves splashing about and occasionally gets a bath , she's 2 year old and been bathed 4 times.
Toothless her sibling has never had a bath.

The smell might be fungal .... bathing way to frequently , and if there is any fungal infestation , constantly bathing him and not drying him properly will result in fungal bloom, of cause it may also bacteria on his skin who are thriving under excessively damp skin conditions.

I'd cut the bathing , and let his skin dry properly .... I'm betting the smell will go away .

Well, thats the thing. When I don't bathe him, he smells badly. I've one 2 weeks to see what happens if I don't bathe him and he just smelled bad. And also, I highly doubt it's about me bathing every week because I know many beardie owners who bathe their's almost every week too and they don't have any problems. I honestly don't know. But I've tried to let him dry off naturally and cut bathing, and it hasn't worked.

When my dragon stinks or gets messy I give him a bath with some Dr Bronner's Baby Mild soap which seems to work pretty well. He doesn't get baths often, just when he gets dirty.

This doesn't sound right at all, as bearded dragons have NO smell at all. I had a male from 1 month old to 13 years old, and I currently have a year and 3 month old male, a year old female, and a 6 month old male, and none of them have EVER had any smell at all unless they have pooped in their enclosures and then stepped in it and had it on them, and of course then they smelled like poop, and a quick bath remedied it. So if your dragon has a bad smell that goes away with a bath but comes back within days after the bath, something is going on that shouldn't be.

I hate to ask this, uhg, but try to be as specific as possible so we can help you...oye...What exactly does he smell like, when you say he smells "bad"? Like feces? Musty? Like Wet Dog? Or is it worse, like a body odor, like something rotting? And is it coming from a specific part of him, like, have you tried to smell him all over and pinpoint where the smell is coming from, or is it his entire body, like it's coming out of his skin?

As Knobby's mentioned it could be a fungal infection, and he's right that water does usually cause external fungal infections to spread, but if it's strictly an internal fungal infection, like in his mouth, his ears, his nostrils, or in his vent the water would not likely effect it spreading. It could be a bacterial infection of some sort, like a skin infection that is causing him to smell from his pores (they do have pores in their skin). Also, what is his daily diet? Do you feed him any commercial pellets, canned insects, Repashy Grub Pie, etc.? Sometimes food allergies cause this to happen to people and other mammals like dogs and cats, I don't know about reptiles but I'm sure it could...or it could be a smell coming from his vent/cloaca, he may be leaking fluid due to a weak sphincter muscle or another reason, that's why I asked you to define "smells bad"... Either way, something is definitely wrong if this smell always comes back shortly after you bath him, and it's strong enough that you can just smell it on him without getting your nose real close to him...see if you can figure out what part of his body it's coming from. That's your homework for tonight :lol:

This is a lovely conversation. Gotta love Dragons...

EDIT: i forgot to ask, does he have any type of loose substrate or anything else in his enclosure that could be causing this? Have you smelled his enclosure to see if you can smell the same smell inside it?

kryptozic":26ve5u2k said:

Well, thats the thing. When I don't bathe him, he smells badly. I've one 2 weeks to see what happens if I don't bathe him and he just smelled bad. And also, I highly doubt it's about me bathing every week because I know many beardie owners who bathe their's almost every week too and they don't have any problems. I honestly don't know. But I've tried to let him dry off naturally and cut bathing, and it hasn't worked.

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Bearded dragons DO NOT NEED bathing unless they have soiled themselves , or are impacted (can help sometimes) or need soaking in dilute Betadeine because they have an open wound, so unless the dragnn actually enjoys the bath (some do and its fine to endulge them) or they like to drink the water while in the bath, cut the regular baths - not worth the extra stress to the dragon, and unnecessary.

He's also shedding. He's been shedding about a week after I've gotten him. That's why I give him baths weekly, to help him. The smell is usually coming from his upper body down. Last week he didn't smell like anything, but then one day he came back smelling a bit bad. He's actually getting better, as I gave him bath yesterday. Now that I think about it, it could've been his old skin. The smell is like dead roadkill. I'm also thinking it's because he sits in his feces. He has a weird schedule, he'd poop every 3-5 days, but when he does that, he poops 3 times. Usually he poops early, and when I'm at school. The problem is, he poops right on his basking spot, where he's just step and lay on it. But honestly he wouldn't even smell bad after that. But, he's found a spot - right in his basking spot, he's been using that spot since like, one week and a half ago. He's actually been smelling better after that. So since I gave him a bath yesterday, I'll see how he does and try to figure out the problem. His substrate is a regular sand mat, and his terrarium smells fine.

Hi. The only time I leave food items in his terrarium is when he eats his sald. Most of the time I'll feed him out of the tank, and he'll eat some, but when I do leave it in there at times, he jumps off his basking platform, he eats a bit, waits at least an hour, then repeats. I usually leave it in there at 6 PM to 2 PM then give him a new salad, I would take it out earlier but I'm in school, sadly. And he doesn't even care if its dry or hard, he would still eat it, so I try to take it out when I can. I clean his terrarium every week (usually just the decor). I clean it with a soapy solution and hot water. I remove his feces every time I see it. And that's about it.