Brumation or something else?

[allusiontoanillusion]

So for the past three days Haku has been hiding in his cave (which he has NEVER used before). He doesn't come out to eat and spends most of the day sleeping. Normally, I'd assume he was starting brumation and leave it at that since it is the middle of winter here but he's only 10 months old. I took him out of the cave and he spent maybe 45 minutes basking before crawling right back into the cave and going to sleep. Do you think he's some sort of early bloomer when it comes to brumation or should I take him to the vet to get him checked out?

I did make a change to his cage recently so it's entirely possible that this is some sort of extended tantrum considering he took one look at the new addition and high-tailed it to his cave when he'd been peacefully hanging out in his basking spot beforehand.

 

[MsCarter]

What are his current basking temps? Usually when a dragon seeks shade often like this they are either overly heated or sleepy. 10 months is a bit young for brumation but not unheard of for a "partial brumation" especially if he is a larger juvenile. Does he come out and bask any at all throughout the day? And when was the last time you had him checked for parasites?

 

[SHBailey]

You never know how they're going to react to a new addition to their living space either. We once put an empty box in our beardie's terrarium because we thought it was about the right size for him to use as an extra hide, but then we noticed he was having trouble settling down at bedtime. We finally figured that since it was something unfamiliar, maybe he was afraid that some sort of predator was going to come out of the box and get him. So we took it out and problem solved. In the meantime, he seems to have learned that he's safe here so he hardly ever even uses the hides he already has, unless he has a bad day.

So it might be worth a try to remove the "new addition" and see if that makes a difference :?

 

[allusiontoanillusion]

He's definitely overdue for a vet checkup anyway so that's gonna need to happen regardless. But his temps are 99 degrees F in his basking spot and about 78 on the cool side. He doesn't like it much hotter than 100 so I try to keep it around there.

He doesn't come out to bask at all unless I actively make him, and even then he only stays out for around half an hour before slinking back in. But he never seems grumpy about being woken up, no darkening of the beard or stink eye thrown my way.

I've taken the offending object (a beardie-sized fleece blanket) out of his tank so we'll see if that makes a difference.

 

[allusiontoanillusion]

Update: once he realized the blanket was gone, he came out of the cave and started acting like his normal self again. He's just dramatic.

 

[SHBailey]

Now I have to wonder what he found offensive about a small fleece blanket :?
Maybe it smelled funny to him or maybe it looked to him like some sort of a furry predator or ???
As someone recently observed, who knows what goes on in their little triangle heads :roll:
At least he's back to "normal" (whatever that is)

 

[MsCarter]

That is hilarious. Hes like "I do not know what that is but I don't like it!"
I'm glad to hear it was a simple fix.

 

[allusiontoanillusion]

What a little nut. :lol: It was his Christmas present and I was SO SURE he was gonna love it. I'm slowly reintroducing him to it and I'm fairly sure that one day he'll realize it's not going to murder him.