Bearded Dragon pooping once a week

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My 1 year old bearded dragon male has been pooping only once a week for 3-4 weeks now. He has basking temp of 110 and cool side of 85-90. He is kind of lethargic but eats his food immediately and has strong appetite. I feed him 10 large crickets a day and a salad of mixed romain lettuce and carrots . I give him a bath every other day in warm water. Any ideas of why his poop is watery and only once a week? He appears healthy in every other aspect.
 

HippieLizards

Gray-bearded Member
Beardie name(s)
Daisy, Loki, Rocket, Phoenix, Mulder & Scully. Non beardie pets: Stan (Leo) Cayde (Hognose) Tillery (cat)
Hello,

I would like to say that the lettuce is your suspect for making his poops watery. Lettuce is basically crunchy water and holds no nutrition at all. Carrots also aren't very good for beardies. You will be much better off with collard, mustard, dandelion, and turnip greens. Your beardie probably is pooping once a week because of the lettuce. But some ways to make him poo more is feeding him Pure canned pumpkin mixed with a few drops of olive oil. But since you said he is lethargic he could be impacted. Have you felt any hard lumps in his stomach?

Could you post some pictures of him and his setup? What are his lights? What type of UVB are you using? Do you feed him calcium? How long is he? How much does he weigh? What substrate do you use? and How old are his lights?

I hope he feels better! :)

-HippieLizards.
 

RancidLatte

Member
Original Poster
HippieLizards":142bmjam said:
Hello,

I would like to say that the lettuce is your suspect for making his poops watery. Lettuce is basically crunchy water and holds no nutrition at all. Carrots also aren't very good for beardies. You will be much better off with collard, mustard, dandelion, and turnip greens. Your beardie probably is pooping once a week because of the lettuce. But some ways to make him poo more is feeding him Pure canned pumpkin mixed with a few drops of olive oil. But since you said he is lethargic he could be impacted. Have you felt any hard lumps in his stomach?

Could you post some pictures of him and his setup? What are his lights? What type of UVB are you using? Do you feed him calcium? How long is he? How much does he weigh? What substrate do you use? and How old are his lights?

I hope he feels better! :)

-HippieLizards.


I am just now reading your reply. I will send photos of his enclosure and setup once I get home from school today. He is in a 20 Gallon Long tank with a strip UVB and a basking bulb that hits temps of 110 on hot side and 85-90 on cold. He has green reptile carpet for a substrate and a water dish that is always full. He typically rests on a reptile hammock that I have made his basking spot. He has some rocks in the far right corner where the crickets hide. I actually prefer they hide because I have noticed when they are all right in front of him when I dump them in, he doesn't seem to chew them up that well. When they all spread out and hide, it gives him a little more time to eat them individually and not feel pressured to quickly eat them all. The Water dish and Salad dish are right next to each other in on the far side of the tank. He is positioned in front of a window but the blinds are typically shut with curtains in the way too. I feed him dusted large crickets. 10 a day with a salad always ready in the dish. He gets a spray a day and every other day baths for hydration. The main concern I had was the odd looking stools but he goes right after his food and doesn't appear to have lost his appetite at all. I heard that loss of appetite is a big concern and I am happy to say that isn't the problem with my bearded dragon. Thanks for reading this and I will send photos of the enclosure soon.
 

VenusAndSaturn

Sub-Adult Member
a 20 Gallon tank for a year old male? That is far too small!
By 8 or 9 months they should be in a 40+ gallon enclosure, only time a beardie that big should ever be in such a small enclosure is when your travelling or your getting a 40+ Gallon very very soon.

My juvenile female beardie can't even fit in a 20 gallon and shes about 18 or so inches long head to tail and about 11 months. Even if your beardie is smaller than 15 inches he still needs a larger enclosure, and 15 inches or less for a 12 month old male beardie is a bit concerning as that is incredibly small for that age, which means he might have something wrong with his lighting depending on how old it is, the brand, if its a t8 or t5, 10.0 or 5.0.

So im gonna ask a few questions,
How big is your beardie head to tail?
What brand of tube light do you have?
Is it a t5?
Is it a T8?
Is it a 5.0?
Is it a 10.0?
Is it a 12% or 14%?
How old is the tube light?


As for as your temps it is a bit too hot, 110 is okay but its best to keep it a bit lower. 105 seems to be a good temperature for them, just keep it between 100-110, lowering the basking spot would also help keep the cool side down as 85-90 is way too warm. It should be 70-85 and no higher.
However If he was impacted possibly the high temperatures help in some cases.

Sometimes beardies poop once a week and its completely normal, my juvenile poops daily to every other day, my somewhat now burmating male used to poop about once or twice a week, sometimes three times a week depending on how much he was eating. Which is nothing currently as he's decided he may go on 7 months of burmation.
And then my adult female usually poops once or twice a week, though usually depends on if she had a large meal or not and is out roaming around in my room after basking for a while as she refuses to go in her tank.
 

EllenD

Gray-bearded Member
First of all, the fact that your year old Beardie is "only" pooping once a week is not a problem at all, as they get older they naturally do poop less and less often, with some adult beardies pooping only once every 10 days to 2 weeks. There is absolutely no reason at all to try to make him poop more often than once a week, unless he becomes impacted, which your beardie obviously is not if there is water in his poop. So you don't need to do anything at all to try to get him to poop more often, because he is just simply getting older and this is completely normal and natural. There is no reason at all to get worried unless at least 12 days has gone past, and even up to 14 days is normal, unless you see him straining to go and he can't, which indicates an impaction. But your beardie is fine as far as his weekly bowel movements go.

That being said, his diet is not very good at all, and does need some tweaking. Adult dragons will usually start to switch themselves from eating a ton of live insects every single day and little or no greens/veggies to the exact opposite, a ton of greens/veggies every single day and less live insects. As such, it's extremely important that you replace all of the nutrition (protein, fat, carbs, vitamins, minerals, etc.) that he was getting when he was eating a ton of live insects every day with appropriate and very healthy greens and veggies that contain the same nutrition. There is absolutely NO kind of lettuce that is going to provide him with even a fraction of the nutrition he needs to survive, as already said, all lettuces are just nothing but water, that's it. They have very little nutritional value, and he will end up becoming malnourished if you keep feeding him lettuces. It is also the lettuce that is causing all of the water in his bowel movements. So you need to totally stop the lettuce and then scale back the carrots, as they don't contain much valuable nutrition either.

Instead, you need to give him a mix of fresh (always fresh, never ever give him any freeze-dried greens/veggies or bugs), healthy greens that will replace all of the nutrition he's going to be losing as a result of not eating nearly as many live insects.

The fresh greens you need to feed him include Collard Greens, Turnip Greens, Mustard Greens, Dandelion Greens, Endive, Escarole, Arugula/Rocket, Bok Choy, Pal Choy, and Swiss Chard. All of these are available very, very cheaply (as cheap as the lettuces) at any grocery store or Walmart.

The veggies that you need to be feeding him daily mixed into his salad include all types of Squash (Butternut, Acorn, Spaghetti, Yellow, and Green), all types of Bell Peppers (Red, Green, Yellow, Orange), Green Beans, different types of Peas and Pea Pods, Broccoli, Cauliflower, and then sparingly a little carrot. Limit any fruit to only 1 or 2 times a week at most, as it contains quite a bit of sugar, which is bad for Beardies, but once or twice a week a few pieces of fruit is okay, like apples, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, peaches, strawberries, etc. NEVER FEED A BEARDED DRAGON ANY CITRUS FRUIT OR AVOCADO!

Now the other issue, as already mentioned, is that your tank temperatures are WAY TOO HOT, and this is going to result is not only dehydration but also heat exhaustion, AND THIS IS THE REASON HE IS ACTING LETHARGIC AND HAS NO ENERGY TO MOVE AROUND MUCH, HE'S FAR TOO HOT!

If you don't already have either a Digital Thermometer with a Probe on a Wire ($10 at any pet shop) or a Temperature Gun, you absolutely must get one, as YOU CANNOT MEASURE HIS BASKING SPOT TEMPERATURE WITH A STICK-ON THERMOMETER! You only listed 2 temperatures, a Basking Spot Temperature and a Cool Side Temperature, and usually that is an indication that the person is only using stick-on thermometers, If this is the case, then that means that the "Basking Spot Temperature" that you listed is not at all the Basking Spot Temperature, as this is a SURFACE TEMPERATURE and cannot be measured with a stick-on thermometer. What you're actually reading on that stick-on thermometer is the Hot Side Ambient (air) Temperature, which should only be between 88-93 degrees F maximum, so this is obviously a serious problem if that's the case.

BASKING SPOT SURFACE TEMPERATURE (Must be measure with a Digital Probe Thermometer or a Temp Gun; Probe must be placed directly on the basking spot/platform where the Dragon lays to bask, and be allowed to sit there for at least 20-30 minutes before the temperature is read): Between 105-110 degrees F maximum for a Dragon under a year old; Between 100-105 degrees F maximum for a Dragon over a year old; 110 DEGREES F IS THE MAXIMUM SURFACE TEMPERATURE THAT SHOULD BE ANYWHERE IN A DRAGON'S TANK.

HOT SIDE AMBIENT (air) TEMPERATURE (The air temperature of the Hot Side of the tank that is SURROUNDING THE BASKING SPOT/PLATFORM): Between 88-93 degrees F maxium.

COOL SIDE AMBIENT (air) TEMPERATURE (The air temperature of the Cool Side of the tank; This is very, very important, as your dragon absolutely must always have a place that is considerably cooler than the Hot Side of the tank to go and cool down in): Between 75-80 degrees F maximum.

*****Your Cool Side Air Temperature cannot go above 80 degrees, your's is far, far too hot, and if you are not using either a Gun or a Probe to measure that "Basking Temperature" as you listed it, then the Hot Side Air Temperature of his tank, which should be only between 88-93 degrees, is actually up into the Lethal Zone, as will be the real Basking Spot Surface Temperature, because it is going to naturally be much, much hotter than the Air Temperature surrounding it. This is a very serious problem that you must rectify immediately, and it's the sole reason that your dragon has no energy and is severely lethargic.

****Also, as already mentioned, you cannot keep a Bearded Dragon in a 20 Gallon tank, not only because it is way too small for a 7 month old Dragon space-wise, but because obviously it's extremely difficult to keep an adequate and appropriate Temperature Gradient inside a 20 Gallon Tank. At 6 months old he needed at least a 40-Gallon Breeder Tank, and at a year old and for the rest of his life they should be in an enclosure no smaller than 4'x2'x2'. So you absolutely must get him at the very least a 40-Gallon Breeder Tank ASAP, as it's cruel to keep him in anything smaller, and you're going to continually have temperature gradient issues.

You can usually find very cheap 40 Gallon Breeder Tanks on Craigslist at any given time, and they typically come with a mesh lid. Otherwise, you can buy an Aqueon brand 40-Gallon Breeder Tank at any Petco for $50 that does not have any type of lid, but the lid isn't that important if you have an appropriate long UVB tube, as you can place the tube fixture across the top of the Hot Side of the tank, and then put the bright-white colored Basking Bulb in a clamp-lamp over the Hot Side of the tank.

In the meantime, you need to go and buy a lower-wattage, bright white colored Basking Bulb or a lower wattage, Halogen Indoor Flood Bulb immediately, as he's literally being cooked inside that tank right now. If you have a 100 watt basking bulb right now, I'd go to a 75 watt, if you have a 75 watt then I'd go to a 50 watt, etc.
 
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