Is my beardie baby sick? PLEASE HELP!!

Hi everyone! I want to go ahead and apologize for the book I'm about write. I'm a new bearded dragon Mom and I've been told I worry too much, but I just want to give our baby the best life possible!

I got my beardie about 2.5 months ago when she was about a month old. Her name is Jules. She started out with coccidia and had a really rough start to life, weighing only 8 grams and dehydrated when we took her to the vet a couple days after getting her. Since then, she's made a ton of progress and has a very healthy appetite. We switched her live feeders to mainly dubia roaches after a couple weeks of having her and she still loves them.

We switched her from a 20 gallon tank to a 75 gallon tank back on August 19th. After doing a lot of research and after a lot of discussion, on August 31st, we switched the 75 gallon tank to bioactive with The Bio Dude's Sahara setup. Since then, we've had a little bit of a hard time getting the humidity and temperatures under control. We're currently trying to keep it around the mid-high 80's on the bottom of the warm side, anywhere from 100-110 in the basking area, and around 75 on the cool side. At night we use a ceramic heater to warm the tank, as it gets pretty cool in our house overnight.

Ever since we switched her over to her new home and then changed it to bioactive, I've noticed that she hasn't been acting the same. She's since darkened the bottom of her beard, stress marks have appeared, and she lays around a lot more in the shade or in the dirt instead of basking. Though her appetite seems to be perfectly fine. She eagerly eats her live feeders every morning and evening. We still feed her the x-small dubias and she eats anywhere from 60-90 each meal. We have a little trouble getting her to eat her greens. She'll pick at them, but never finishes them. Most of the time we give her a mix of mustard or collard greens, kale and butternut squash, with little bits of carrots, celery, or sometimes cactus leaf pad.

Some of the pictures I've attached are of her puffing herself out (she seems to be doing this a lot more lately, not sure if it's relevant), laying in the dirt in the middle of the day, pictures of her dark beard and stress marks, and a picture of her bioactive setup. I've also attached a picture of these little worm-like insects I keep finding in her roaches. I'm assuming these are cleaner insects, but are these safe for my beardie to eat? It's almost impossible to make sure these tiny bugs don't make it into her feeder bowls. I've worried that she may just be stressed due to all the changes we've made to her home recently, but I want to make sure I get her to the vet if these are signs of her being ill.

Please let me know your opinions!! Beardeddragon.org has been my life saver through the millions of questions I've had throughout raising her in these past couple of months. I really appreciate your help and input!

Sincerely,
A very worried bearded dragon Mom

I think this is just stress from changes made to her enclosure and not a sign of illness. I don't know about the worm-like insects that are in your roaches though.

It could be stress from the changes or something else like a bad shed or even just a moody phase. She looks OK in the photos and I'm glad to see she is gaining weight and eating well. Those are usually good signs as well. Your temperature range sounds good so she's not likely avoiding the basking area due to improper temps. I'd just let her be for a while since everything else seems OK. The bugs in the roach bin are likely cleaner crew/buffalo beetle larvae as you mentioned.

CooperDragon":knrp0hfc said:

It could be stress from the changes or something else like a bad shed or even just a moody phase. She looks OK in the photos and I'm glad to see she is gaining weight and eating well. Those are usually good signs as well. Your temperature range sounds good so she's not likely avoiding the basking area due to improper temps. I'd just let her be for a while since everything else seems OK. The bugs in the roach bin are likely cleaner crew/buffalo beetle larvae as you mentioned.

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Thank you both for your quick responses! I feel a lot better now and will just keep a close eye on her. Do you all by chance have any suggestions for getting her to eat more of her salad? I've read that you can try to skip a live feeders meal so they're hungrier but I know her growing body needs the protein, so I'm a little skeptical of going that route. Again, I really appreciate the feedback. I definitely worry a little more than most!

At her age don't worry too much about the salad. Make it available so it's familiar but she will need plenty of protein from the bugs to support growth spurts. Her growth will start to slow around 12-18 months old and that's when her diet should start changing over from mostly bugs to mostly veges.

Thanks for the input! I looked some things up and it looks like the cleaner insects aren't toxic to bearded dragons. I think I can sleep soundly tonight knowing it's nothing serious, but I'll definitely keep an out for anything out of the ordinary. Thanks again!

Yeah the cleaner bugs are not harmful at all.