Beardie having difficulty eating

Hello-

I am a fairly new beardie mom. I brought home Theo from Petsmart on Sept 2. Since then he has been growing like a weed and is seeming constantly in shed. He was eating very well. I feed him Dubia Roaches, calciworms and the occasional wax worm. He will begrudgingly eat some mustard/collard greens but is not yet a fan. I dust the feeders 4x a week with calcium and 3x with the multivitamin. He is housed in a 40 gallon breeder, with a 150 watt basking bulb and temperatures range from 95-100 on warm side, 105 basking spot, 80-90 cooler side. I have a 10.0 reptisun tube UVB. He gets a a ceramic heater for the night to keep his tank in the low 70s. He’s on a repticarpet substrate.

Recently he went into a big shed of his head and body. His eyes began to get quite watery, this has subsided since his eyelids shed. He does,however, act as if he is having trouble seeing. He falls off his perch sight, ducks his head to find his feeders, and just does not seem oriented as usual. He has not been eating as much either. I try to hand feed him as much as I can, but I can only do so much until he starts to get stressed from my hovering.

Theo has normal and regular bowels, even with the lack of food he has been eating for the past week. I have been weighing him, he hasn’t lost weight and sits at 60g. I give him daily baths and he will drink right from the bath every other day.

I love my baby, any suggestions or tips would be so appreciated.

It sounds like his setup is good. Sheds can definitely cause them to be grumpy or lose appetite. It's a good sign that his weight is stable. Keep monitoring that. As they grow, they also go through phases in which they eat more and sometimes less. It's possible that he has a piece of shed still in or around his eye that causes irritation and may be causing some vision issues. Keep monitoring the issue though and be on the lookout for things like seizures or if he's holding his head straight up in the air/back.

Thank you so much for your reply. Theo has completed shedding a day ago. Still acts like he is having trouble seeing and some clear fluid in his eyes, but not as much. He did eat 4 super worms dusted in calcium yesterday and some collard greens. I offer him food three times a day. He did gain 3 grams and poops almost daily.

Will there ever be a time I won’t be freaking out?!

I'll bet there is a small bit of shed stuck around his eye then. That should pull free soon. If you see it, you can try to gently dab at it with a q-tip to see if it will come free but don't be forceful with it.

You will understand their behavior more in time so fewer things will freak you out, but the worry and occasional freak outs don't really go away. I still fret over my guy constantly :lol: