Lethargic beardy not eating much...looking for 2nd opinions

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kingofnobbys

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Iroh":3ph1repg said:
UV:
22" reptisun 10.0HO 24w. The fixture is a carolina custom cages unit with reflector. There is nothing between the lights and him. All lights are adjustable if need be. At the time i wrote this his uvb was measured at 70 microwatts/cm squared at its strongest where he mainly basks. The uvb bulb is 14" at its closest point right now.
<<<< if you can get the 10%UVB T5HO (?) about 4 inches closer , or the basking spot 4 inches higher, this will boost the UVB flux by about 100 - 120 microW UVB / sq.cm and closer to the optimum of 190 microW / sq.cm.

Temp:
Thanks for that info. I will check to see if mine is calibrated and try to educate myself further on the subject. I have a zoo med probe that gives me readings consistent with the infrared.

Diet:
Irohs daily diet consists of crickets and a mix of 2 to 3 of the following veggies: collards,escarole, endive, kale, and butternut squash. He also gets BSF larvae and wax worms from time to time. He has been given silk worms in the past. When cactus pear is available he gets that regularly. I give him crickets in the morning and he usually eats greens at that time and i will give him crickets in the evening. As a general rule i wait about an hour for him to heat up in the morning before i feed and make sure he has at least an hour of light left in the evening. All the crickets get are flukers orange cubes and cricket quencher.
<<< cricket quencher aka water crystals .... I think this is the granular stuff seen, the crickets have to eat the gel to get the moisture which is fine for them since they don't live long enough to accumulate enough in their individual guts to become a problem (to cricket) , but, the beardie is eating these crickets and accumulating the stuff in his gut over time.

This is analogous to what happens in the ocean with nanoplastics and toxins .... the further up the food chain you go the worse effects of these on fish and marine mammals because these apex predators eat contaminated prey and tend to accumulate / concentrate these in their guts and tissues.

I've been warning people about using these cricket quencher jel and like rather than fresh carrot to hydrate their insects , because this is what happens.
I'd cut using the cricket quencher product & flukers orange cubes.

Better off using fresh carrot (food and hydration) + choi greens (calcium and vitamins) + repcal adult bearded dragon pellets (food and vitamins) to feed the crickets.

Very cool info on the regularity of those dragons. I really like to see that kind of data.
 

Iroh

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Where do you get your uv information from? I got my solarmeter to test decay and to learn. This the first i have heard of an optimal level. Neat. It is a t5 bulb, too.
 

kingofnobbys

BD.org Sicko
Iroh":3g1i0abs said:
Where do you get your uv information from? I got my solarmeter to test decay and to learn. This the first i have heard of an optimal level. Neat. It is a t5 bulb, too.

I too have a (UVB) solarmeter, and I have analysed the data at the UK UV Guide, and the manufacturer's specs , and done a lot literature searching (scientific papers) and am trying to pull it all together and I also know the conditions in their natural range. Is a work in progress .

I'm interested as I have both beardies and bluetongues and they have very different requirements and I want to get to "best practice" or work it out.

It's unfortunate that some companies provide misleading and vague guidance wrt best levels of UVB and UVA exposure.
 

Iroh

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Original Poster
91786-6161434497.jpg
Poooop! I gave iroh a bath a minute ago in an attempt to stimulate things and after getting out he produces this. You can see his beard is black as well. The urate is hard and chalky. There was some yellowish stuff between the urate and the rest that i would describe as sandy feeling. What implications may this have?
91786-769979977.jpg
91786-5743490504.jpg
 

CooperDragon

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Staff member
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Wow that must have been quite a relief to pass through. It may have caused some strain which would explain the black beard. If it was built up for a while it could explain the chalkiness as well. That can also be caused by dehydration but I wouldn't worry about it unless it becomes a trend.
 

AHBD

BD.org Sicko
That might have been casing a little discomfort. I was going to ask you how you hydrate Iroh and whether he eats many veggies ? Sorry if i missed that anywhere.
 

Iroh

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I was most pleased to see that poo! Once he squatted he didnt seem to have trouble pushing it out. As far as hydration goes he just gets a bath every week and from his food. He has always been good about eating greens. I guess i will just see how he behaves after this. Right now he is not happy. He is hiding.
 

EllenD

Gray-bearded Member
Alright so he has no loose substrate in his tank, and it doesn't seem that he eats any insects with a hard chitlin shell like mealworms or superworms. Crickets have a hard exoskeleton but you would see undigested crickets and/or chitlin shells from mealworms/superworms in his poop if he wasn't digesting them properly, trust me, I just cleared a horrible impaction of mealworm shells in a rescue I took in about 3 months ago, and it was awful. But something I can give you some insight on after this experience with my rescue is the black beard and what might be going on here.

He actually looks well hydrated, and I don't see anything in that poop (maybe you did up close) that looks like an impaction risk. But the fact that he black bearded when he passed that huge poop with hard urates is something that is very familiar to me after my experience with Nix. He had no black beard at all, at any time, only when he was straining and trying to poop. I immediately started feeding him laxative slurries twice a day from the day I brought him home, as his back legs were partially paralyzed when I got him. His prior owner told me he pooped every day or every other day, but they were small poops, and she thought this was because he wasn't eating much. Well it turns out that he had the biggest, most extreme impaction caused by mealworm shells I've ever seen, it took almost 2 weeks and 3 massive piles of chitlin shells, both loose and encased in fecal matter. He passed 3 of these in 2 weeks, and they looked like massive piles of bark chips, either loose or actually wrapped in poop. He wouldn't start straining to poop until I put him in a bath, which I did once a day after his second laxative slurry. He would continuously strain to poop throughout the entire bath, but only 3 times could he actually poop, and that's when he black bearded, as the poop passed. I thought he was fine after the first one, but nothing changed.

After the third time he passed this stuff he immediately started using his back legs again, he started eating the next day and his legs were fully functional the next day, no more straining, no more issues like this at all. I called his prior owner to tell her what had happened and to verify that he had been pooping daily, she said yes, he pooped small, normal looking poops every day or every other day in his bath, and there were no shells in his poop. He didn't lose the use of his back legs or his appetite until after a bowel movement he had about a month before I got him.

I spoke to my certified reptile vet at length about this, and he told me that it is possible for a beardie to have something in their intestinal tract that is too large or too hard for them to pass, and still pass small, softer poop past the impaction. He assumed that one of the small, normal poops he did finally pushed the impaction (which was inside him at the very least for over a month) against his spinal column causing pain and discomfort, a lack of appetite, and the paralysis in his back legs. The laxative slurries I gave him slowly pushed the impaction out of him in pieces as it was moved through his intestines by the extra hydration and loose fecal matter, and since this stuff had been inside him for so long, it was extremely hard and dry, and when it actually passed through his vent it was very painful, causing the black beard.

So that "granular mass" that your guy has in the x-ray may have been in him for quite a while, while he still had small, normal poops. That mass inside his intestinal tract was no doubt causing a lot of gas pressure and pain, and possibly nerve pain because it's very close to his spinal column.

Now the question is was that huge, painful bowel movement he just passed the mass that was seen in the x-ray...You'll get your answer if he starts becoming active again, acting normally, and eating on his own again. I'm thinking it was, that's a huge bowel movement that looks extremely hard and dry. I bet if another x-ray was taken now the mass and the gas pocket would be gone, at least I hope so.

Did you see anything abnormal in that poop? Could have been undigested cricket exoskeletons, maybe a fake plant he chewed up, or like Kingofnobby mentioned THE CRICKET QUENCHER GEL!!! I bet if you had looked in that poop you would find that gel pack, beardies seem to love them...And I think the elevated blood protein level was just a coincidence...
 

Iroh

Member
Original Poster
What youre mentioning about his behavior is what ive been trying to work out. He is a daily pooper, not small ones either. The day this lethargy started it was like a switch had been flipped. He just wanted to hide. The next day he had a huge BM and then started refusing food. I started to think it was some sort of brumation. The black beard i saw today started when i took him out for the bath and persisted until he went back into his cage. I took him out yesterday and it was the same with the black beard. He didnt even strain when he finally made an effort to get that mess out of him. I dug through it and couldnt find anything that looked suspect. I do agree that that gel is plausibly suspect, though. Here's hoping he perks up. Again, you all have been awesome. This is my first post on any forum asking for real help and i am impressed with the response.
 

kingofnobbys

BD.org Sicko
So long as doesn't persist for more than a few days, out of character behavior can just be he's having an off day .... beardies get tummy upsets and short term illnesses too , just like people do.
 

EllenD

Gray-bearded Member
I'm hoping whatever it was it was corrected by passing that massive bowel movement, you'll be able to tell soon if his behavior goes back to normal. As already mentioned beardies do have off days or several days, just like we do, and dogs and cats do, everyone gets sick once in a while, but when it happens suddenly and continues long term like your guy did, something is definitely wrong. Could have been the diagnosed parasites, and then the meds made it worse, but based on that x-ray it was at least compounded by something he ate. That gas bubble/mass in his bowels may have just made the original problem worse. And those gel packs seem to be very popular with beardies, I watched a video on YouTube not long ago that was dealing with a completely different issue, but in the video the beardie is absolutely devouring some red thing that I didn't recognize until someone asked if it was a cricket quencher. Apparently this beardie was actually fed the cricket quencher at the end of each batch by the owner, and he thought his beardie had become impacted from the crickets, he never considered the quencher until we told him to stop feeding them to him.

Keep an eye on him, hopefully he perks up and starts eating and acting normally ASAP. Keep us posted on how he's doing. I'm very glad we could help you and Iroh, or at least we tried to.

Totally off topic question for you, I finally have to ask you, where did you buy that tree/cave combo thing that is on the bottom of his enclosure, under the hammock? I've seen that thing in people's photos recently more and more, and I love it and would love to buy one for my 3 month old boy, but I've never seen it in any pet shop...I love the little tree tops! Sorry, just wondering if you remembered where you got it or what company makes it, it seems like everyone has one but me!
 

Iroh

Member
Original Poster
91786-5396729014.jpg
It may be too early to tell but he looks like he could be on the mend. Iroh has been out and about today. I will update for anyone still interested.

I believe that tree/hide came from petsmart. I cant recall the brand but could find out when i get home. It is a nice sort of center piece although i have been thinking about getting rid of mine because its the one thing iroh doesnt use much and it takes up a lot of floor space.
 

Iroh

Member
Original Poster
Update: iroh remained impacted after the last post. He had a bm on the 27th (which you saw) and another on the 28th. He did not go again until today (4 days). Im curious about what i saw in his poo...

91786-1910273927.jpg

If kingofnobbys is right then this is what i might expect to see. The yellow on his urate was as hard as rock candy, transparent, and a very similar yellow to the cricket quencher. It felt sandy when broken up. What do you think?
 
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