Juvenile undigested food in stool/threw up?

Hi all,

Im a first time beardie owner, and my beardie Randy is just over 4 months old, I’ve had him for just over a month with few problems except that he seems particularly skittish and prone to relocation stress whenever something in his life/viv changes.

I rearranged a lot of his tank furniture this past weekend and afterwards he was eating very little, only a few dubias and pieces of salad per day. I assumed this was stress from new surroundings and was keeping an eye on it, but figured it would pass. Yesterday, he ate a lot more (probably 15 dubias throughout feeding sessions) so I thought he was back to normal and everything was ok. However, this morning when I came to turn on his lights, he was sitting next to a mass of partially digested dubias and veggies. I couldn’t tell from looking at it if it was stool or more like vomit, the dubias seemed to really barely be digested but were stuck together with some type of mucus.

Tank specs: 40 gallon 36x18x18, temps in hot side usually between 103-108, temps in cool side low-mid 80s taken with a probe thermometer, he has one 100w basking lamp and one thrive mvb 100 w. Until yesterday, I had the mvb on top of a screen but yesterday I set it up to hang above his tank so I could remove the screen. It is about 9” from his basking spot and another few inches from the ground. I am getting him a tube uvb today and want to get rid of this mvb because I recently learned that these store brand (this is PetSmart brand) lights are often not made right and can be bad for them. I’m thinking this could be a cause for an issue, since it may be too bright or direct of a light anyway and maybe removing the screen made that worse. Something else weird that happened yesterday was that when I was adjusting the setup for this mvb it briefly went out. I took him outside to get some uvb and then planned to go get a replacement, but when I came back inside it was working again.

My working theories are that some issue was caused by the change in his lighting, or possibly that he found some leftover dubias that had gotten away from him at feeding time in his tank last night and ate them after dark but couldn’t digest them in the cold. I know it could also be parasites or something else entirely, so I’m not sure.

Does anyone have an idea what’s going on? Or hear any major red flags in my setup? I’m assuming I should take him to a vet regardless after this, but I’m wondering if I should try feeding him in the meantime or if it will just hurt him if he’s having digestive issues. Thank you so much for your help!

this is the pellet I found next to him this morning, for reference. It is mostly dubias with some veggies.

Hi there, can you post pics of him and his set up ? A couple things to consider, was the MVB off for the hours that he needed heat for digestion ? What was the temp. where you had him outside and what type of enclosure was he in ? He may have been too cold or too hot which could cause digestion problems. What size are the dubias compared to him , can you post pics for a size comparison ? How is he acting right now ?

Yes, here is a picture of his tank setup from the weekend and him today. Those plants are tillandsia air plants, I put some additional roots from them in there and he was hiding under them when I went to bed last night. The other materials in the tank that are new are tiles, bricks, some cork on the wall, and that wood ladder. I washed all of them with non toxic dish soap before putting them in. The white marks on the log are just calcium dust that fell off his dubias, I clean it frequently.

He looks pretty much the same as he always does and is basking normally. He did pass a small amount of stool that was a bit watery but not too far off from normal this morning, unfortunately I didn’t get a picture before he sat on top of it. Now that I think of it, he hadn’t pooped in a few days prior to this, but I attributed it to him not eating much due to tank changes.


As for the time outside, it was for probably no more than 30 minutes and I live in SoCal so it is pretty sunny and warm, though yesterday was only mid 70s. While we were outside he sat on me and I made sure his back was facing the sun. The last time he ate was probably around 1 pm, he didn’t seem interested in food at night. I believe the time spent outside was around 4. I do think it’s possible he could’ve eaten some stray dubias in the tank after dark, but it wouldn’t be like him because he is usually a pretty bad hunter and mostly only eats if he’s hand fed. He went to the cool side of his viv earlier than usual last night and stayed there, but I don’t think that was until later at night maybe around 8, so he would be a bit colder than usual but again I didn’t feed him during that time.

The set up looks nice! He will outgrow it pretty quickly though. How long did you have the 2 100 watt bulbs for that tank ? It may have been too hot and caused him to be sick. Another thought, is it possible that he ate some of the tillandsia air plant ? They may be toxic to some animals. Also can you post a pic of the dubias next to Randy to show what size they are ? Are they bigger than what he ate in the past ?