Hi, I got my first bearded dragon about a month ago and he's not been eating great. We started off feeding him small dusted crickets and gradually he lost interest in them. Whenever we put the crickets in his tank he would get really dark stress lines and he would get too stressed in a separate eating container. While waiting for some medium sized phoenix worms to come in, we had to feed him some wax worms which he absolutely loves (I am aware that these are awful for a staple, we didn't have any better options around us that he would eat and had to wait a week for the phoenix worms to come in). He ate a bunch of phoenix worms when they came in, probably around 10 the first day and 7 the next, but as the days went on he gradually stopped eating them and he now only eats 1 or 2, if any. I tried mixing the phoenix worms and wax worms to trick him, but he ate right around the phoenix worms! We've stopped offering wax worms in hopes that he will eat the phoenix worms, but he hasn't really eaten any so we decided to make a little "worm smoothie" and drip it on his nose. He seemed to like it so I was wondering if this was a good alternative until he forgets about wax worms and eats live phoenix worms?
His tank is a 20 gal at the moment, he's around 6 inches long and seems to be really small for his age (got him from a pet store, so I'm guessing by his size that he's around 2 months). His basking area stays around 100-120 and he has plenty of space to move if he gets too hot, and his tank stays around 80. We have the sticky thermometers but also just got a temp gun for more accurate readings. We got the zoo-med kit but decided not to use the sand and got a humidity gauge which stays around 50%. The UVB is a reptisun 5.0, I believe it is the tube kind but I'm not sure. He has a hammock, log, and cactus on the hot side and a half log hide on the cool side. He always has a few worms and greens in his food dish but doesn't seem interested. We previously had to use a red light for nighttime but just got a CHE so we don't disturb his sleep. He's super alert and runs around his tank when he's not basking and poops every day. He seems healthy to me other than he looks a little thin.
Oh and the smoothie he had today was collard greens, a little strawberry (he loves those), a tiny bit of calcium powder, and a few phoenix worms. I added some water so we could drip it on his nose. He lapped it right up and was drinking from the syringe until he started backing away from it. I put a wax worm in his bowl to see if he was really full or just being difficult, but it seems he's full. If I do another smoothie, I'll put other veggies instead of strawberries in, I just wanted to put something familiar in it. He doesn't look like he's shedding, but he does have stress marks sometimes. He could be trying to absorb more heat but we just moved his tank so it could also be that.
As I'm writing this, I just saw him gasp and puff up his belly, but nothing happened. It's been about 20 minutes since the smoothie. He doesn't appear to have stress marks right now and is acting like nothing happened, so maybe he was just trying to look bigger or something (my family is moving around a lot right now). Just thought that was something worth noting.
I was also wondering if I should get the large phoenix worms next time since they look more like wax worms.
Thanks for your help in advance! Glad to be part of this community, it's helped so much already!
Here's a pic of him hunting for a wax worm (his name is Chalooby)
His tank is a 20 gal at the moment, he's around 6 inches long and seems to be really small for his age (got him from a pet store, so I'm guessing by his size that he's around 2 months). His basking area stays around 100-120 and he has plenty of space to move if he gets too hot, and his tank stays around 80. We have the sticky thermometers but also just got a temp gun for more accurate readings. We got the zoo-med kit but decided not to use the sand and got a humidity gauge which stays around 50%. The UVB is a reptisun 5.0, I believe it is the tube kind but I'm not sure. He has a hammock, log, and cactus on the hot side and a half log hide on the cool side. He always has a few worms and greens in his food dish but doesn't seem interested. We previously had to use a red light for nighttime but just got a CHE so we don't disturb his sleep. He's super alert and runs around his tank when he's not basking and poops every day. He seems healthy to me other than he looks a little thin.
Oh and the smoothie he had today was collard greens, a little strawberry (he loves those), a tiny bit of calcium powder, and a few phoenix worms. I added some water so we could drip it on his nose. He lapped it right up and was drinking from the syringe until he started backing away from it. I put a wax worm in his bowl to see if he was really full or just being difficult, but it seems he's full. If I do another smoothie, I'll put other veggies instead of strawberries in, I just wanted to put something familiar in it. He doesn't look like he's shedding, but he does have stress marks sometimes. He could be trying to absorb more heat but we just moved his tank so it could also be that.
As I'm writing this, I just saw him gasp and puff up his belly, but nothing happened. It's been about 20 minutes since the smoothie. He doesn't appear to have stress marks right now and is acting like nothing happened, so maybe he was just trying to look bigger or something (my family is moving around a lot right now). Just thought that was something worth noting.
I was also wondering if I should get the large phoenix worms next time since they look more like wax worms.
Thanks for your help in advance! Glad to be part of this community, it's helped so much already!
Here's a pic of him hunting for a wax worm (his name is Chalooby)