Bearded dragon stress marks

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Idkman

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So my bearded dragon has been having stress marks that won’t go away. She’s an adult so this doesn’t seem normal. The only time they do go away is when she’s super happy, so basically only when I taker her out, feed her, or while she’s asleep. However, right after taking her out and putting her back in her cage those stress marks come right back. When she wakes up they also come right back. I’m genuinely not sure what she could be stressed about or if she could be in any pain. Lately she hasn’t been basking at all and is avoiding her lights all together but I assumed it had something to do with her bruminating but she’s already brumanated for this year. Shes also barely pooping like at all- but again, I thought that’s just because it’s bruminating season. She has a 40 gallon tank, her eating is regular, I keep paper covering most of her glass so she can’t see her reflection, she cannot see any other animals, her basking spot is a little over f100 degrees, use 10.0 reptisun 22” fluorescent uvb, and her flooring is carpet. The only reason I could think of why she’s stressed is 1) she’s sick or 2)loud noises, we have thin walls and as much as I’d like to control it, my family is just LOUD. If anyone knows anything’s that I can do to help my beardie or maybe a reason why her stress marks aren’t going away I’d be really great full.
 

Longfellow777

Sub-Adult Member
Beardie name(s)
Frey'ja
you got a good uvb whats the distance between the uvb and the dragon. do you have anywhere for the dragon to get out of the light. how old is your dragon? you say barely pooping ? how long has it been going on?
 

CooperDragon

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Can you post some pictures of her and her setup? They don't usually react much to sound, so unless the noise is really intrusive I don't think that's likely to be a problem. Is her beard going dark? A dark beard and beard flaring is a more typical stress reaction. If her skin is just darkening at times, that may be related to her trying to absorb light to heat up rather than being mood related.
 

Idkman

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you got a good uvb whats the distance between the uvb and the dragon. do you have anywhere for the dragon to get out of the light. how old is your dragon? you say barely pooping ? how long has it been going on?
I try to make sure that her uvb is at least 8” away from her. Yes, she has a log to go under in order to get away from her light. She’s 5 years old. She’s been barely pooping for maybe 3 weeks now. However she finally pooped this morning after maybe a bit over a week since she last did it. Her poop is way more watery than usual though.
 

Idkman

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Can you post some pictures of her and her setup? They don't usually react much to sound, so unless the noise is really intrusive I don't think that's likely to be a problem. Is her beard going dark? A dark beard and beard flaring is a more typical stress reaction. If her skin is just darkening at times, that may be related to her trying to absorb light to heat up rather than being mood related.
Her beard does at times go dark with the rest of her body but I wouldn’t describe it as a black beard more just a grey beard most of the time. Also in the pictures I did just wake her up so she was kinda grumpy, but her beard does sometimes get that dark. The set ups also Kinda low budget but I think it serves its purpose effectively (I hope).
 

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CooperDragon

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She looks pretty healthy. The way she is darkening looks to me more like she is trying to warm up rather than being upset or stressed out. I would pick up a digital thermometer with a probe if you don't have one (two is better, they aren't very expensive) so you can monitor the surface temps in her basking spot and on the cool side of the enclosure (to check gradient). I would also try and move your UVB fixture to maybe angle it a bit and get it a little closer to the basking lights so the most intense UVB is over (or near) the basking area with the higher temps. It doesn't need to be exact, just as close as you can. Once you have a good reading of the surface temps, you can try adjusting the basking light based on that and see if bumping the temps a few degrees makes a difference in her behavior.
 

Idkman

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Original Poster
She looks pretty healthy. The way she is darkening looks to me more like she is trying to warm up rather than being upset or stressed out. I would pick up a digital thermometer with a probe if you don't have one (two is better, they aren't very expensive) so you can monitor the surface temps in her basking spot and on the cool side of the enclosure (to check gradient). I would also try and move your UVB fixture to maybe angle it a bit and get it a little closer to the basking lights so the most intense UVB is over (or near) the basking area with the higher temps. It doesn't need to be exact, just as close as you can. Once you have a good reading of the surface temps, you can try adjusting the basking light based on that and see if bumping the temps a few degrees makes a difference in her behavior.
Alright I’ll try that, thank you very much.
 

Longfellow777

Sub-Adult Member
Beardie name(s)
Frey'ja
Coopers right about sound, my families loud too my wife plays loud music they get use to it. She does look healthy and yes they do darken in relation to heat so he's correct there too. You said 8 inches woth uvb. I'm assuming a t8 then? also your comment about low budget give yourself a break friend it looks great 👍 an enclosure with proper husbandry and routine doesn't need to be all fancy. your a good beardie owner your on here aren't you. oh and hows her appetite? do you feed roaches and/or crickets? what's her diet like. Runny stool can be a lot of things like diet, stress, parasites.
 

CooperDragon

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Based on the photo, the UVB fixture looks like it's a ReptiSun T5 hood. Since it has the 10.0 version of the bulb, 8-10'' below the bulb (since it's running through a screen top) should be OK, especially since there are shade areas away from the bulb.
 

Idkman

Member
Original Poster
Coopers right about sound, my families loud too my wife plays loud music they get use to it. She does look healthy and yes they do darken in relation to heat so he's correct there too. You said 8 inches woth uvb. I'm assuming a t8 then? also your comment about low budget give yourself a break friend it looks great 👍 an enclosure with proper husbandry and routine doesn't need to be all fancy. your a good beardie owner your on here aren't you. oh and hows her appetite? do you feed roaches and/or crickets? what's her diet like. Runny stool can be a lot of things like diet, stress, parasites.
Ah well it’s a good thing they get used to loud sound. So they get dark to absorb more heat but would that also cause them to show stress marks? Yup coopers right, it is a T5. Well thank you, I’m glad her enclosure is fine. Her appetite is somewhat normal. She’ll eat some days but then won’t eat the next- witch she does sometimes do around the colder seasons. The only difference is she’s only been eating apples and nothing else. But I wouldn’t think that’s too worrisome. I do feed her crickets. Her usual diet, when she doesn’t go and eat only one type of food, is always a mixture of carrots, collard greens, lots of Romain lettuce, apples ofc, and sometimes bluberries, bell peppers, or watermelon. She gets live crickets 1-2 times a month and when I do get them, I get 100 or 50 of them for her. When she’s not having live crickets she gets freeze-dried crickets 3 times a week covered in powdered calcium or vitamins. Yes about her poo the other day, it was very runny, she eats lots of watery food so her stools are usually runny but definitely not this much. I’ll post a pic of it. Also, the Reason it has some small dust bunnies in it- and very sorry for the nastyness, is because A few days ago her demonic tiny lizard brain decided it was a good idea to hide under my bed and proceed to devour every dust bunny insight. I was having a hard time stopping her. So just keep in mind that her stool doesn’t always look like that.
 

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CooperDragon

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I would probably go easy on apples for a bit. A diet that is heavy in fruit may be giving them too much sugar (and apples may lead to messy poops as well).
 

Longfellow777

Sub-Adult Member
Beardie name(s)
Frey'ja
I don't know how put together your petco is but I wont buy them from petco or petsmart because the bins they keep them in dont get cleaned too many dead left here. With conditions like those there should be worry for parasites. They actually cost more there than online too. Not saying thats whats happening but the runny stools and non consistent appetite are symptoms of this.
 
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