Beardie slow to wake

[onceblue]

Every so often, my beardie has an off morning. He'll stay in his bed and even burrow down under his blanket to avoid getting up when lights turn on. This has happened twice in the time that I have owned him. He gets up eventually and then is normal and active for the rest of the day, eats no problem, etc.

However, it happened again this morning and affected his breakfast routine. His lights go on about 45 min before I wake up. I woke up, and he was still in bed. I didn't bother trying to feed him, because I knew he'd be too cold to eat, but I did take him out of his bed and then set him down on the warm side of the tank to encourage him to wake up. I asked my husband to feed him since my husband leaves the house later than me.

About 30 minutes later, Falkor was basking (making his way from the bottom branch to the top), and my husband tried to feed him, but he still wasn't quite warmed up enough to want to eat. I'm concerned that he missed breakfast. I'm going to ask the woman who comes walk my dogs at lunch if she'd be willing to try and give him some dubia (she doesn't like roaches but she likes Falkor so maybe she will for him).

Any tips/suggestions for this? Is it normal for beardies to try and sleep in sometimes? Should I be concerned? He had a normal weekend, ate no problem, etc.

Here's some extra info:

Lights on: 5AM
Breakfast: 6AM
Dinner: 4:30PM
Lights out: 7PM

He's between 8 and 9 inches long so too young for brumation.

Last night he ate dinner earlier since it was a Sunday, and fell asleep on me at about 6:15 PM, so he went to bed even earlier than normal, and I just let him sleep through the night.

I can't really adjust this light schedule much because it works around my work schedule. Any earlier adjustment will make it hard for me to give him ample time to digest his food after dinner. And my understanding is that they really shouldn't be kept up more than 14 hours a day - is that accurate?

 

[destiny1998]

Hi. What kinds of lights are you using? Brands? Temps? How do you take them?

 

[onceblue]

I got all my info from here so I should be good on lights/temps. I have a reptisun 10 mounted inside the tank 6-8" away from the basking areas, a clear household basking bulb, and I have a temp gun and a digital thermometer with a probe, I use both. The basking spot is 107, the warm side 90, the cool side 76. It doesn't get colder than 70 in my house at night.

Also, he was tested for parasites last week and was clean.

He ate his normal dinner, pooped, was active today when I got home, and everything seems back to normal...but I would for sure appreciate tips and suggestions since this isn't the first time this has happened! I don't want him to go without breakfast Maybe giving him something to hide under (his blanket) isn't a good idea?

 

[destiny1998]

Yeah that is weird. Your set up sounds good. So try removing the blanket like you thought and see if that works.

 

[onceblue]

Okay I'll give that a shot — thanks!

 

[onceblue]

So I've come to the conclusion that my beardie just isn't a morning beardie. He's become more lazy with his mornings.

From the weekends, I've determined that he likes to have a good 2-3 hours to wake up fully and then he's ready to eat and bask. Unfortunately, I can't give him so much time on the weekdays with my work schedule being what it is and having to account for feeding him after work and the appropriate amount of time to bask. He has a good hour and fifteen minutes to warm up in the mornings on weekdays, but most mornings lately he wants to be lazy and stay snuggled up/hidden for a good amount of time. And then when he finally does bask, it's a procession of starting out at the bottom branch and slowly (very slowly) making his way to the top before he's all warmed up and ready to eat.

So I've taken to putting some dubia or phoenix worms in a bowl for him in the morning for him to eat when he's ready. They're eaten by the time I get home, and then he still eats dinner. I'm actually thinking about slowly transitioning him to being awake longer in the evenings and setting his lights to go off later in the day, so that I'll be able to maximize my time with him, because right now I only get a little bit of handling time before his lights need to go off. And I figure I can just put his breakfast in a bowl so that it's there once he does wake up, since that's exactly what I'm doing now.

He's still active, still eats a ton of insects a day, etc. I guess he just hates mornings.