Baby Brumation or Sick Beardie?

I got my beardie around a month ago and she was very alert and eating decent until recently. She is around two months old. Today she’s seemed to have slept a lot of the day away from her basking spot on the cooler side. She hasn’t been pooping like normal and was constipated the other day. The past week she hasn’t eaten much at all. A few crickets here and there and some butternut squash and some beardie pellets. I am aware that my temperatures may be off because my thermometer isn’t the best.(I’m working to fix that) But she has been fine until now. The things that have happened are signs of brumation but I have read that it’s not normal for babies to brumate. I am very new to beardie ownership and I’m just very worried about her.

First off, what is the substrate in your tank? Also, while some sites say that babies actually do have the ability to try and brumate, users like AHBD believe that it is fake. Plus, the chance of a baby brumating is slim and is more likely a sign of illness, as you mentioned in your post. As you might expect, you should probably take your beardy to an exotic vet as your beardy could be suffering from an illness or, actually trying to brumate(which even then, unless OK'd by a vet, is harmful to his/her health as well). So, in the meantime, try giving baths to assist in constipation, possibly bump up the temps and time that the lamps are on, and give some fatty worms to assist in develop fat storage. While I do hope this helps, it's always good to have a second opinion, hopefully from a vet and in the meantime, a more knowledgable user like AHBD or Drache13 I think it was.

So have a shelf liner in the bottom of her tank. Nothing loose. Could she be acting this way because she’s getting ready to shed?

It's probably related to lighting. If there isn't sufficient UVB and a proper heat gradient (it's important to have an accurate measurement of surface temps) then it can cause them to lose appetite and have poor health in general. High quality lighting that closely imitates natural sunlight is quite important for their wellbeing.

No, a 2-month old baby is not brumating. Dragons do most of their total growth and development during their first year of life, which is why it's imperative that they get strong UVB/UVA light and tons of live insects every single day during their first year of life. So this is why they don't brumate in the wild, let alone in captivity. Beardies in captivity don't have to brumate and many never brumate at all, ever, but definitely not as young as 2 months.

Generally when someone has only had their dragon for only a month and the dragon is only 2 months old, and then their appetites slow down/stop and they become lethargic, 99% of the time it's due to an inadequate or incorrectly mounted UVB light, or both, and improper temperature zones. The problem is that it's a "cumulative" effect, so while you say your temperature zones have been incorrect but they've been "fine until now", actually they haven't been fine at all, as what's happened is he's been in improper temperature zones and possibly under inadequate UVB/UVA lighting for a month, and now the effects of this improper husbandry have started to effect his health, because without proper temperature zones he cannot properly digest his food (this is why he's been impacted, in addition to not being able to absorb nutrition from his food), and the lace of proper UVB/UVA light, if that's also going on, has finally started to cause the signs/symptoms of a calcium deficiency, because without adequate UVB/UVA light for at least 13-14 hours a day, he cannot absorb, process, or use any of the nutrition/vitamins/minerals from either the food he has been eating or from the supplement powders you've given him. It's very common for this to start happening about a month or so after a person brings home their baby, as it's just been enough time for the improper lights/temps to start to cause issues.

What UVB light do you have? (Brand, wattage/strength, and type, meaning is it a compact, coil, long tube, or Mercury Vapor Bulb) Is your UVB light sitting on top of the mesh lid to the tank, or do you have it strapped to the underside of the mesh lid? How far away (in inches) is the UVB light from the basking spot/platform your dragon sits on to bask?

What type of Basking Bulb do you have? (Meaning wattage and color of the light) How many hours per day do you leave both your UVB light and your basking light on?

I guess you don't have a proper thermometer, meaning either a Temperature Gun or a Digital Probe Thermometer, probably only using a stick-on thermometer of some kind? You already know that you have no way at all of measuring his Basking Spot Surface Temperature if you only have a stick-on thermometer, as they only measure Ambient (air) Temperatures, and this is very important, as without a Basking Spot Surface Temperature within 105-110 degrees F your dragon cannot properly digest his food, and if the Basking Spot Surface Temperature or Hot Side Ambient (air) Temperature is over 110 degrees F, then this is getting into the ranges that cause dehydration, and if over 115 degrees F they can be lethal for long periods of time. So buying a $10 Digital Probe Thermometer at Petco, Petsmart, etc. is very important ASAP.

EllenD https://www.exoticdirect.co.uk/news/bearded-dragon-brumation

Keyblu, the site you referenced about beardie brumaton in babies states that some dragons under a year old may try to brumate, and that is true. I always mention that when someone posts about a 8-9 month old brumating. I'm not one of the ones who says they must be a year old. But babies don't , they do not have the instinct and would die in the wild and could get sickly + stunted in captivity if they went through a slow down for months. I raised a lot of beardies from the egg.....never saw a baby brumate. A 9-10 month old yes but not a baby or small juvenile. The writer specifically mentions an 8 month old dragon. That's a huge difference from a 2 month old baby, so don't get mixed up with that. If a biologist/herpetologist would come upon + document baby's brumating in the wild it would be widely accepted as a fact but it really can't be substantiated.

Good point, nvm on what I said about brumation.

That's O.K, some points can be misunderstood by the way things are worded. We all have done that before, I know I have and so has everyone else. You're fine.