Hello, I joined this site seeking guidance and advice regarding my bearded dragon, Leona. She is almost 2 years old (a couple months old when I got her May, 2013). In the past week she has been acting strangely and it has been concerning to me. Her beard has been black and she has pronounced stress marks on her belly. She has refused to eat for the most part, having about 20 crickets running around in her tank for 4 days. She hasn't shed for a while but i've been bathing her and she isn't lethargic. She also isn't dehydrated or impacted because she has been urinating almost every day. Something is wrong but I don't know what it is. Perhaps her tank isn't hot enough? Any advice?
Hi there.....can you post pics of her , as well as list the exact type + brand of lights you use and a pic of her set up ? To post pics you upload to a site like Photobucket, then copy/paste the img here. It's possible that she has eggs to lay [ beardies can develop infertile eggs without being mated ]
Update: I was able to hand feed her 5 crickets before she lost interest in eating. I know she can easily eat more than 5, especially since she hasn't eaten in about 3 days.
Update: Issue has been resolved. I visited her veterinarian today and he told me it's a parasite. She is on proper medication and i'm going to bleach her tank tomorrow per doctor's orders.
Hi there....sorry I didn't get back after your last response and good pictures, I don't always receive notification and some threads slip my mind. Anyway, I'm glad that you will have her treated for her parasites...do know exactly what she has ? By the way she is a pretty hefty size, so she is in no danger of becoming too thin. If you aren't already doing so, be sure to offer her a probiotic like Benebac, Acidophiliz + or non dairy soy yogurt to replace the good gut bacteria that the meds. will destroy. And if I may make one more suggestion, beardies love to climb, so if you could get her a thick branch that can allow her to climb she will probably love it. Even taken from outdoors, just clean one off [ not pine or anything sappy ] and preheat the oven to 225-250 and pop it in for an hour to kill any potential bugs.
Good to know about the yogurt, I will do that this weekend. She is on medication from her veterinarian and doing well. He told me it is either pin worm or coccidia, which are common when feeding them a "natural diet" (as he put it, crickets or anything that can have contact with dirt). I bleached her tank and laid down newspaper. After her final treatment of medication i'm going to replace her substrate and try to switch her back to the rep-cal pellet diet. Thank you for the advice with the branch! It's hard to find one that isn't ludicrously expensive, so I shall do that. Don't worry though, she gets a lot of time to herself to run around my room and cause mischief
I'm glad to hear that she's doing well on the meds. Remember to use only soy yogurt as a probiotic, not anything dairy. As for the pellet diet, it's O.K as part of the diet, but be sure to offer greens like turnip, mustard, collard, dandelion. And feeder insects are generally O.K, they may or may not carry parasites and besides that there are many beardies that eat insects that test negative or have only very low levels of parasites which is totally acceptable.
Yes, I plan on feeding her veg and the sort. I will likely feed her crickets on and off until I get to a point where I can have a small colony of dubia roaches that I can raise myself to feed to her. Thank you for all the wonderful input and assistance, I appreciate it. Also, a question about feeding her greens. I provided her collard greens for about 2 years and she doesn't seem to have much interest in them. They usually dry up and get thrown away. Is there any tip for me to make them more appealing to her?
You're welcome. A dubia colony would be a great idea. As for veggies, just try different kinds as well as different mixes. There is a chart you can check out at a site called www.beautifuldragons.com
Yes, i've tried many different fruit/vegetables over the years. Collard greens are the only greens I was able to get her to eat ever. She love sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas, blueberries and zucchini. She will occasionally eat spaghetti squash, collard greens, raspberries, yellow squash, celery (finely chopped) and green beans. I usually just plan my meals for the week around what i'm going to feed her in an attempt to reduce food waste since she never eats all the food I give her before it goes bad.