baby beardies not growing

[Jwan]

Hi to you all,

I have been browsing through this forum since I got my two little beardies a few months ago. It has really been a help since being a first time beardie owner I can't help but fuss over them. Definitley a great source for everything beardie related!!

Here goes, my two little beardies don't seem to be growing much and are very inactive. One in particular which is the female(Leia) of the two. She is sleeping a lot these days, more so than before, 'cause when I pick her up she just closes her eyes and goes back to sleep. The male (Max) doesn't baske alot either. He doesn't really go to his basking rock unless I pick him up and put him there if I want to set him up for a feed. Anyway here are a few of the details....

How old are your dragons? 5 months
How long have you had your dragon? 3 and a bit months
How long is your dragon? Max is 5inches & Leia is 4 and a bit
What is the sex of your dragon? Max is male & Leia is female (from what we gather anway)
What size enclosure do you have your dragon in? 233litres (.44metres X .44metres X 1.206metres)
What type substrate do you have on the bottom of your tank? 1 third reptile sand, 2 thirds compressed wood pellets
Do you use UVB lights? Yes - reptapet sun plus uv tube 5.0 30watts
How old is your UVB bulb? 3 months
How close can your dragon get to the UVB? 15 inches
Do you use a separate basking bulb? What kind and what is the wattage? reptainfraplus 75watt
What are the basking temps? 33 degrees celcius (91F)
What is the cool side temp? 24 C (75F)
( These temps are for now as it is Autumn here in Australia but during the summer things change a bit specially when we get 30-43degree celsius days)
Do you take the temps with a stick on thermometer, a digital thermometer with a wire and a probe end or a temp gun? Digital thermometre with a wire and probe end.
Where exactly are you taking your basking temps? on the basking stone.
Do you use a heat rock or heat pad? no
What do you feed your dragon? Please be specific.
How often do you feed and what time do you feed (morning, afternoon, night)?
Do you gutload (feed) your crickets, worms, etc?
Do you use vitamin or calcium supplements? What brand(s)? How many days a week do you use each of them?

During the day while at work we leave a salad which varies from day to day from sweet corn/bok choy/celery tops/dandelions/rose petals/carrot/and a few others similar, with some bearded dragon pellets mixed in for some extra nutrients. We leave these there but the beardies don't seem to eat from it. I am not sure what to do in regards to that cos I have tried pointing them towards it, hand feeding, placing it on their mouths and also placing the crickets with them too. In the evening when we get back from work we feed them crickets gutloaded with some carrots and dusted with repti-cal. this is the routine during the week. During the weekend we feed them crickets twice a day and also one day a week we dust the crickets with repti-vite.
The beardies are still quite small so we go no larger than small crickets. but the problem is that they will only have a maximum of five crickets if that. Max since we got him would look hungry but after 4 or 5 would just give up. And Leia would just not look interested in the crickets at all. Maybe everynow and then she would have 1 or two but that was it. We feed in a separate container so that the crickets aren't jumping around in the tank. Recently we have started to feed them separately due to some dominance behaviour from Max so Leia is in a smaller container doing much better but still only eating a maximum of 5 crickets. Since then Max has actually only started to eat one cricket and then wants to go out. This never happens within a 10-15 time limit but up to 45mins. also when feeding them during the weekend it is only within in one of the feeding times do they eat. I try feeding them twice in the hope they will eat more. Am am concious of the temps so I place their feeding containers under the heat lamp so they don't go below 30C.

Is your dragon having regular bowel movements (poops)? Max more so than Leia. the rough ratio for the two would be for every two that Max poops, leia does one poop.
Do you bath your dragon? How often? I bathe them once a week at the weekend.
Do you mist your dragon or offer water other than in the bath? I mist them atleast once daily.


I hope this information helps in understanding our situation with our beardies. If anyone has any advice or information I would be very gratefull as I do want to get this right.

 

[spyder79]

were these wild caught beardies?

Are you certain you didnt end up with a pagona minor or brevis or rankins/lawsons?

These are miniture breeds of bearded dragons. if you have a picture and a general location in australia where you are at it would help. Thanks

also your temps should be in the low 100s for proper digestion 37-40 celsius

 

[Jwan]

Thanks for replying.

They are not wild caught beardies. We got them from a local aquarium which specialises in reptiles and tropical fish. We go into this particular aquarium as it was recommended to us by a friend and known in the local area for 20 years. These beardies in particular are orange phase from a particular breeder in South Australia close to where they are naturally from.

We are in Melbourne. So at the moment we are going into winter. We are in the process of adjusting the tank to try and raise the temps up a little higher. We can get the temp up to 35 on their basking rock. We have been adjusting the basking light a little closer to get these temps. We are also getting a lid for our tank as it has an open roof and especially during winter we want to keep the temps up.

 

[akingsley9000]

Hi -

How are your little ones this morning?

There are a few things with your setup you could change.

1. swap that red light out for an ordinary household bulb. Beardie's thrive on bright white light. The red light is more for nocturnal animals.

2. I'm not sure about the UVB light you have (i've never heard of it) but they need to be able to get with in 6-8 inches of it and usually they need something with higher UVB like an 8.0 or a 10.0.

3. Your temps do need to come up a bit as already stated. However, you can do this simply by raising the asking spot. This will also help with #2 by getting them closer to the UVB.

Another thing that may help boost your temps is using a dome fixture to put the basking bulb in this will help reflect the heat back down into the enclosure rather than let it just dispurse. Remember heat rises :wink:

4. Sand and compressed wood pellets are not good for beardies. babies lick everything and ingest these things which can lead to impaction. Your best option is to swap those out for tile, paper towel, non adhesive shelf liner or newspaper.

5. Crickets should be dusted one meal a day 5 days a week with calcium with D3 and one meal one day a week with a multi-vit.

6. Dont worry about salad at this point. They do not typically eat very much if any salad at their age. At this point their diet should be 80% feeders & 20% veggies.

~Allison

 

[Buggsy]

Im no expert, but from what i gather the consensus is not to house two BD's together as there can be competition for food etc and the smaller often gets bullied and stressed.

On another note, i would not use particle substrate ( i have had bad experiences) i use shelf line, or wallpaper, it stops and impaction issues. I would also try and give them more baths (about 3 a week)

Hopefully someone will be able to offer more insite

Buggsy

 

[akingsley9000]

I fully agree that two should not be housed together however that tends to be a very touchy subject for most people. :wink:

 

[Lennifer]

I agree about not housing 2 bearides together.

Hey, Is the top of your enclosure galss as well? If so, this could be the issue. If the top is glass then the UVB is not able to penetrate through to the beardie's which could explain why they are not growing. Just a thought.

~Sandy

 

[DistDrag]

I'm going to guess your biggest problem at the moment is the UVB. The ReptiSun 5.0 will not emit the needed UVB any near 15". Even if the could get close enough it doesn't produce enough. Get either A ReptiSun 10.0 or MVB and get them within the recommended distance. Do that and you should notice improvements in a couple days.

You will want to address some of the issues others already mentioned.

Kevin

 

[Jwan]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I am going to change what I can tonight such as change the substrates to paper towel, divide the tank in twok), and also create a second level so that they can get closer to the UVB.

I finish work after the aquarium closes so I will just get anything else I need over the weekend. I know the reptisun 10 is a bit hard to get here but I will keep an eye out for a good brand here that has anything stronger that what we have at the moment.

I will keep you posted on how they are doing with the changes.

Thanks again!!!

 

[akingsley9000]

You may have the Arcadia D3 12% there if you do thats even better than the Repti-Sun. I'll try to track down the names of good bulbs that are available there for you.

~Allison

 

[Jwan]

Just an update on how my babies are going since the changes I made yesterday....

I came home from work today to find Leia a lot more active and alert than she has been in the last week which is great to see. She dived into the crickets. She only ate about 7 which is actually quite good for her so we are slowly getting her back to the stage she should be at. I have separated the two which has probably helped a great deal. Max has started to eat a bit more too. For the last few days he didn't pay any attention to his food but now he is getting there. So hopefully when I get a new uvb bulb soon and finalise setting the tanks up then they should be eating a healthy 15-20 crickets a feeding each.

I have also managed to get the temps up another 3-4 degrees which puts them now at between 35C and 39C which is an improvement to before. the tank is surrounded by light fittings and wires but as long as the temps are good I don't really care.

I have noticed that both of them have stress marks but at the moment I am putting it down to all the changed that I have made. I don't like to see them like that but if it means they will get healthier in the long run then I will be patient with them.

Jen

 

[akingsley9000]

Thats great that you are seeing improvement already!

Dont worry too much about the stress marks at this point. Sometimes the slightest change to their surrounds will cause relocation stress.