Hello all! I need some advice. My beardy, Blake's, poop has been abnormal the past couple days and his color has been dark. I have had him for about 3 months. I assumed his dark color came from him shedding, he has been shedding recently. But then his poop has begum to change. It is no longer formed.
His diet consists of cut up yellow squash in the morning (I leave his squash in there all day until about 5pm) then BSFL at 7pm.
He has a reptisun 10.0 tube and a heating lamp. I use a CHE at night to keep his temps at around 75. His daytime temps are 107 at basking spot and 81 at the cool side.
I give him a bath about once weekly and mist him once daily. He seems very aware and active still, even with his abnormal poops. He was very curious on the camera as I was taking the pictures. Anything helps. Thank you.
He definitely does look quite dark.
However, shedding is stressful for them and times of stress can cause irregular poos. Loose stools aren't uncommon during shedding.
In regards to your setup, it would be better if you could move the reptisun more to the left hand side so that it is directly over the basking site. You want the basking site to be the point with the highest temp and uv exposure.
How many bsfl is he eating at night?
And lastly since temperatures directly relate to proper digestion, what are you measuring your temps with?
Thank you for the speedy reply! His heating lamp also provides UVB. I am measuring temperature with a thermal gun. I have never counted the BSFL, but it is a decent amount. It fills up a good portion of his bowl and he eats most of it. The BSFL he doesn't eat I take out when his lights go out.
Are you feeding any greens besides the squash---- I am wondering if the odd color is coming from the squash --- here is a website for nutrition http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html-- I would get him some greens if your not feeding him those --- lighting doesnt seem to be an issue so I am guessing its what hes eating plus the shedding and yes he is dark -- I was going to say something about being dark absorbing the heat but your temps seem to be good so it could be the shedding --
Karrie
Blake is not a fan of greens, but will eat a crazy amount of squash. I have been feeding squash for a couple months and have never experienced this before. So I am not so sure it is the squash.
Your setup looks good and temps are in the right range. The 100w PowerSun is a pretty good MVB and should produce adequate UVB at around 8'' or so when shining through the mesh top. Nice wide beam from those.
I'd just keep trying to add variety to his diet. Squash is good (a favorite of my guy too) but I'd try wiggling some dark greens near him and try things like chopped up green beans or bell pepper and see how that goes. Introducing some different bugs (at least once in a while) is good too. The more variety the better really, but I understand that it isn't usually feasible to maintain more than a few things at a given time. Just rotate as you can.
Since he's active and alert I wouldn't worry about it too much for now. If they keep being messy and loose for the next few weeks it might make sense to have a sample checked for parasites. Otherwise it's likely to resolve on it's own given everything else seems OK.
Yup. It was a shed for sure. Thank you for the posts!
I will try and offer more greens. I do mix up his bugs..... I will stop at the local pet store and buy him crickets or dubia roaches for him to eat on. But his main staple is BSFL.