concerning behavior

I have a dragon about 7 months old. He was fine and healthy before I left for a month. When I came back, he became lethargic and quit eating. He is sleeping all day on his cool side, but not digging. I am concerned since I am a new owner, I don't know what to do. It has been over a week now and he has yet to eat anything, crickets or greens. I tried to hand feed him crickets, broccoli, even bananas, since he loves them, but he wouldn't even look at them. At about day 4-5 he did poop finally, but it was red and looked like it contained mucus. I was concerned so I set an appointment with my vet the following day. Since I live far from a Exotic Pet specialist, I set it with the closest vet I have. She said that there was nothing in the poop other than the red coloring and he was physically healthy. She sent me home with some amoxicillin to see if that would help. I have given him 2 days worth of the antibiotic and he continues to excrete red mucus poop and still refuses to eat. However, I have been able to dropper feed him a very small amount of commercial food. Do you know what may be causing this?

Hi. I'm sorry he's having issues. Can you give a rundown of his set up? Did the vet do a fecal exam? I wouldn't give antibiotics unless there really is a reason. Antibiotics are very harsh on their system.

so he has a 45 watt uva/uvb bulb and a red heat bulb. He has a food and water bowl and a cave on his cool side, and a climbing log on his warm side. he has a repticarpet as well. The vet did do a fecal exam and couldn't find anything wrong with it. She prescribed .02mL twice a day for 5 days.

Hi there, who was taking care of him for a month ? It's possible they fed him wrong or maybe fed something red in color as well. Whoever was watching him just may not have taken good care of him + it affected his appetite + activity level. And I agree with Destiny, it's not a good idea to give antibiotics with no actual diagnosis. At least it's only 5 days though.

my parents took care of him for a month, and they only gave him crickets and veggies, since I am working on feeding him veggies. I usually hold him/ give him floor at least once a day, though the most they did was pet him within the cage. He was fine up until I came home, in which we thought was originally stress.

How big is the enclosure? Does he have a coil/compact uvb? Also those red lights are not good for beardies. Beardies need a bright white basking light. They also need a good uvb one of the most recommended is the reptisun 10.0 Tube. What are the temps? How do you take them?

I'd ditch the red globe and replace it in the 1st instance with a Philips incandescent par38 clear colorless spotty.

Re compacts : there are good and very bad ones around , I've had a great deal of success raising bearded dragons (as hatchlings and juveniles to 12-18 months old in 100L rearing tubs) under 13W UVB200s (when I had the globes in dome style reflectors hung under the lid of the tubs) and more recently under 26W UVB200s (now using nanohood attached to the underside of the tubs' lids). UVB200s are perfectly fine in a smaller enclosure or rearing tub (I'd restrict that to 130L max , larger enclosures your best bets are either a good MVB or a good quality T8 or T5 10-12% UVB tube with a reflector behind it for bearded dragons).

Possible causes for lethargy may be :

---- insufficient UVA , how old is the UV source ? if older than 6 months I recommend replacing it ASAP as the UVA and UVB flux produced decays over time.

---- too cold in tank , can you please give a rundown in the zone temperatures and basking spot temperature , and how you arrived at these measurements.

---- too short a day cycle, seems very common for people to be told a 12on - 12off is OK for bearded dragons , this is incorrect, and should only be applied when trying to induce a bearded dragon to go into brumation, I recommend the lights be on a timer set to give a day cycle of at least 14 hours , 16 hours on is better, this will reproduce more closely the actual daylight hours wild bearded dragons experience in their natural range in summer and it will encourage them to bask longer.

---- insufficient food intake, a 6 month old bearded dragon needs to be on feeding schedule of two live insect feeds per day.

Thank you so much for that, the temperatures are 80-90 degrees F on his cool side, and 90-115 on his warm side. Sadly I have the stick-on thermostats, which are apparently inaccurate. I know there is a lot of fluxuation, but the only area we could fit him changes temperature rapidly. The uva/uvb is only 3-4 months old. I only have him on a 12-12 day cycle, thank you I am changing it now. I will try to feed him twice a day now, but that will be hard since he isn't eating anything.

I am warming up his cage, but I am still wondering how to explain the red poop. It is still coming up in his cage, and I don't know how Brumation would explain that, can anyone tell me why he is still having these?