8 Month old beardie gone off food

[Jaminahat]

Hi there all, I am new to the forums so Hello!

I have an 8 month old beardie Called Gary, He is around 18 inches (Nose to tip of tail) and weighs around 370 grams.

In the past month or so he seems to be going off his food plus he prefers to sit in darker/cooler areas of his vivarium. This just started to happen last time he shed and he has carried on the same behaviour since. It might just be a trait of his now that he has grown up but ill run you through it. His basking spot is between 100f and 115f at all times and his cooler end is between 75 and 85f. I offer him water in a water bowl, his veggies are usually rocket, peppers, occasional apple, carrot shavings and pea shoots. Although, i think his bugs eat more of this than he does. His live food usually consists of a wide variety, including Locust, Dubia roaches, Morio worms and the occasional wax worm/Silkworm. By the way it might be worth noting that the humidity never goes above 40% even with his water bowl in his viv. I use a 12% arcadia UVB bulb (not compact) that stretches the length of his enclosure and a 100 watt exo terra heat lamp. He also has darker areas to hide which is where he tends to spend a lot of time at the moment.

He seems quite active when outside of the vivarium and sometimes inside of it too but only occasionally. On the odd chance he does fancy something to eat he might chase a locust for a short while but will then easily give up if it bounces too far away.

I give him baths every other day and thats when he tends to go to the toilet, there is always urate but often there isn't all that much poo and i have put that down to the fact he isn't eating much.

I have looked into Brumation and seen that it usually only happens when beardies reach 1 year of age and over although some do it before then. I'm not sure if this is the case for Gary though. I would be interested to see what some of you more experienced beardie keepers have to say on this subject.

I do have a local exotics vet and am thinking of taking some of his poo in to get checked for any parasites or anything else that is similar. I just wanted to see if anyone else had any other ideas of what i could try. I am trying to do the most I can for him and will often offer him some worms when he is out of his viv... Sometimes he will eat a couple, sometimes he will just run off.

Here are some images of Gary:

https://ibb.co/drCXrK
https://ibb.co/etBaBK

 

[CooperDragon]

He looks nice and healthy and his environment is good. My guess is that he just isn't hungry and is in between growth spurts. They go through phases like this as they get older. Since he is alert he is probably fine. If he is active outside of his tank, try giving him more time out of the tank. They like to sit in window sills and look outside. It's also helpful to set up a portable basking light so he can return to it if he gets cold while out and about.

 

[Jaminahat]

Thank you for your reply, I appreciate all the help I can get.

I did think that he looked healthy and I was hoping that he was just going through a phase.
I really like the idea of a more portable basking lamp, I might look into this as the "LampShade" thingy i have now has a clamp just like in the photo, I could just buy another one of them and use my spare bulb. Whether he will use it or not when out of the tank is another question but no harm in trying. Thanks again for your input.