Beardie is almost constantly stressed. Why?

[milo0]

Milo's been difficult as some of you already know, but I'm beginning to wonder if this is something health related. I've been struggling to get him to eat veggies, and it's now over a month of withholding worms and he still has not given in. At this point, I think I've given up. But now there's a new issue that I'm worrying about.
I don't know if this was always the case and I just hadn't noticed, but for a while now, Milo always seems stressed. His belly is usually filled with stress marks, but his beard never goes black or anything. He is like this pretty much all the time while in his cage. Now, I just moved across the country with him so he's more stressed than usual (as expected), but this behavior was on going before the move. There was nothing in the cage that I could find that was stressing him, so I figured he just didn't like being cooped up inside. I say this because whenever he's out with me or being loved on, he turns bright gold and orange, and the stress marks go away. His belly turns almost completely white, and his beard is white and colorful as can be. Also when he gets fed worms is when he's also at his happiest, brightest moment. But the second he goes back into his cage, they reappear and they stay there until he sleeps. His temperatures are good, the UV light is new, and he gets fed a decent diet. He's currently only taking worms (silkworms, hornworms, meal worms, wax worms, and soon butterworms and phoenix worms) which are all dusted with vitamins. He also eats pellets that are supposed to substitute veggies and fruits, since that's the only thing he really likes lol. His diet could be better, I know, but I've tried everything to get him to eat better. He won the battle.


I never thought it could be health related, but there seems to be something troubling my boy. Again, I have no idea if this is something that I've only noticed in the past few months, or if this has been on going. Does this seem like a medical problem, or is he just not happy being cooped up?

 

[sweetiepie9]

My beardies show stress marks sometimes when they want to be out, that's normal. As for the stress marks all the time, I'm wondering if his temps are high enough at his basking spot They should be, at his age, at least 105F and to one side of his tank, so he has a cool side as well. Do you have a temp gun to determine correct temps? Try that & see if that makes a difference. If not, then he just wants to be outside as much as possible. And please, don't give him mealworms, they're mostly hard shell with hardly any meat. Otherwise he's got a great diet. I saw your post about him not eating veggies, hope I was able to reassure you about that.

So see about the temp, otherwise, as long as he's under his basking spot at the right temp for 2 hours after eating, he's fine.

So this is the proper calcium schedule; 5 dusted meals per week, one per day; 2 dusted meals with vitamin/mineral. You can overdose on vit/min easily, so only 2 meals a week. At his age he could be eating twice a day, but by the looks of him (saw his picture in a previous post) he's a young juvie so that would be fine.

Wax worms is a worm that should only be occasional, meaning 1 a week. He doesn't need them (they're pure fat and more for beardies that are sick and need to gain weight). So I wouldn't get mealworms or waxworms anymore. He's healthy and doesn't need them.

Otherwise, they like to manipulate us. So if he's not cold (which can bring on stress marks) he just wants to snuggle, run around or be outside. All normal