Beardie Gone Crazy

[HylianHealeys]

Hi everyone - I have an female bearded dragon, roughly 5-6 years old, whom I bought about 3 months ago. She's shy in that she tolerates handling, but doesn't seek human company. But she also loves to explore.

About a month ago her romps turned into escape attempts, where she would run away from us humans at top speed and seek out a hiding place. At one point we found her hiding under the TV (I didn't even know that space existed until we found her there). I finally got the point that maybe she was trying to brumate - her previous owner said that she did that every winter. So I rearranged the flagstone in her terrarium so she had a nice dark little cave to curl up in. It took a while for her to discover it, but once she did, she slept for 3 days straight! I thought the problem was solved.

After day 3, she came out of the cave and started basking again, very alert and energetic. "Energetic" seems to be a bit of an understatement. I've taken her out for handling since then, and she's been racing around at top speed - especially on the floor. When I've tried to put her on my shoulder for chores (which before she seemed to like), she's been determined to sprint down my arm toward the nearest surface. Today, she made a straight kamikaze attempt from my shoulder to the floor! Fortunately, she doesn't seem injured.

She's also been unusually aggressive, nipping at her cage mate this morning (also female, but older and larger). And though she's been spending a lot of time under the basking lamps, her color remains dark, with some stress marks on her belly. Her appetite is low - I can get her to eat a few dubia roaches, and she won't eat the greens. I have no idea how to interpret this, so I'm hoping you more experienced dragon keepers can help a girl out.

Additional information:
- Lives in a 90 gallon tank, roughly 48" x 18" x 24"
- 2 new 18" Reptisun 10.0 UVB bulbs
- Was eating cactus pads, tuna (prickly pear) fruit, carrots and occasional red grapes
- Bathes weekly
- Not aggressive toward humans

 

[destiny1998]

Hi. If she is new to this cage mate there is probably dominant issues going on and it sounds like she is stressing out. Beardies are solitary and territorial. I would put a divider in there to prevent them fighting and hurting each other. If that doesn't work then I would give her a different set up away out of site from the other one.

 

[Taterbug]

Have they lived together long? Are you certain it is a female? I agree about separating them to see if it's stress.

For food, have you tried other greens?

 

[HylianHealeys]

We bought them together, and as far as I know they've been living together for a while. In fact, the person we bought them from had 4 females in a huge 225 gallon tank. They've always had their little dominance things - head bobbing, arm waving, sitting on top of each other - but overall they usually get along great. This was the first time I've seen open aggression. I'm thinking about getting a webcam so I can monitor them at work!

About the diet - before we bought them they were fed kale and carrots for greens, with lettuce as a snack option. We've switched them to collard greens and cactus since, which took them a while to get used to. They still vastly prefer lettuce - sometimes I give it as a treat. In fact today I left out some spring mix lettuce for her to see if the cactus is the problem or if it's her appetite (grocery day is tomorrow, gotta make do with what I have on hand :roll: ). If it's the cactus I'll buy collard greens tomorrow. They just go bad so quickly!