dolphinangels
Member
It has been 5 days since my beardie has pooped. There are several things that I could guess could be the cause of this but I am not positive. I will share my theories.
1. Everybody keeps telling me that the sand that I have as his substrate is no good. Okay, okay. I get it now. Sand is not good. I got him from a breeder, and the breeder gave me all the necessary materials along with my beardie to help me get started. One of the things that he gave me was the sand. He stated that there was nothing wrong with it, and that my beardie should be fine with a sand substrate. I have had my beardie for 6 months now, and up until this point, I have not had a single problem with the sand. I trusted this breeder because a lot of my friends used him to get their beardies, and he has been breeding for over 10 years.
2. I purchased crickets from flukers almost 2 months ago. I got the 4 week old (or 1/2 inch) crickets. That seemed to be fine with him. He ate many of them a day (up to 50 a day). As time went on, and the crickets got bigger (I think the biggest ones were just under an inch long) he still seemed to be enjoying them and eating many a day (I think it went down to about 23-30 a day). I just purchased more crickets 2 weeks ago, and I have gotten slightly smaller ones, hoping that by the time they are all gone, they dont end up being up to an inch long. He has slowed down his intake of these smaller crickets drastically over the last week and a half. He was fine eating up to 30 of them a day, but now I cant seem to get him to eat even 10 a day.
3. My other theory that I believe to be a factor in all of this is that he has been stressed out over the last two weeks what with the wildfires we have had here in Horry County and I have constantly been moving him from place to place, with the evacuations and smoke and all. I was thinking maybe this could be a factor because either of the stress from moving, or the amounts of smoke he has been inhaling over the last couple of days. Finally last night we got a nice enough rain that has all but stopped the smoke completely for the time being. Could the large amounts of smoke inhalation caused this as well?
Other than that, he seems to be healthy. He is very energized. There has been a few times that when I take him out, if there is no immediate warmth around him, the first thing he wishes to do is sleep, but it is not often. I have been bathing him daily for the last couple of days, hoping that that will help him. He has lost a little bit of weight, but not much. He has lost a lot of weight over the last month and a half, reason being, my brother bought him large, large crickets to feed him and they were so big that he started to become chubby and obese! But he has finally managed to rid himself of that excess weight.
I am trying to find whatever alternative that I can to help him out because I have been on unemployment checks for the last couple of months and I can not afford to go to a vet. It is bad enough I have maxed out two of my credit cards for my cat. I have spent almost 1500 on her alone for vet bills.
Please, if there is somebody out there that can help me out, I will really appreciate it. I am desperate to get this little fella back to his normal, overeating and over pooping self again.
Thanks.
Marie
1. Everybody keeps telling me that the sand that I have as his substrate is no good. Okay, okay. I get it now. Sand is not good. I got him from a breeder, and the breeder gave me all the necessary materials along with my beardie to help me get started. One of the things that he gave me was the sand. He stated that there was nothing wrong with it, and that my beardie should be fine with a sand substrate. I have had my beardie for 6 months now, and up until this point, I have not had a single problem with the sand. I trusted this breeder because a lot of my friends used him to get their beardies, and he has been breeding for over 10 years.
2. I purchased crickets from flukers almost 2 months ago. I got the 4 week old (or 1/2 inch) crickets. That seemed to be fine with him. He ate many of them a day (up to 50 a day). As time went on, and the crickets got bigger (I think the biggest ones were just under an inch long) he still seemed to be enjoying them and eating many a day (I think it went down to about 23-30 a day). I just purchased more crickets 2 weeks ago, and I have gotten slightly smaller ones, hoping that by the time they are all gone, they dont end up being up to an inch long. He has slowed down his intake of these smaller crickets drastically over the last week and a half. He was fine eating up to 30 of them a day, but now I cant seem to get him to eat even 10 a day.
3. My other theory that I believe to be a factor in all of this is that he has been stressed out over the last two weeks what with the wildfires we have had here in Horry County and I have constantly been moving him from place to place, with the evacuations and smoke and all. I was thinking maybe this could be a factor because either of the stress from moving, or the amounts of smoke he has been inhaling over the last couple of days. Finally last night we got a nice enough rain that has all but stopped the smoke completely for the time being. Could the large amounts of smoke inhalation caused this as well?
Other than that, he seems to be healthy. He is very energized. There has been a few times that when I take him out, if there is no immediate warmth around him, the first thing he wishes to do is sleep, but it is not often. I have been bathing him daily for the last couple of days, hoping that that will help him. He has lost a little bit of weight, but not much. He has lost a lot of weight over the last month and a half, reason being, my brother bought him large, large crickets to feed him and they were so big that he started to become chubby and obese! But he has finally managed to rid himself of that excess weight.
I am trying to find whatever alternative that I can to help him out because I have been on unemployment checks for the last couple of months and I can not afford to go to a vet. It is bad enough I have maxed out two of my credit cards for my cat. I have spent almost 1500 on her alone for vet bills.
Please, if there is somebody out there that can help me out, I will really appreciate it. I am desperate to get this little fella back to his normal, overeating and over pooping self again.
Thanks.
Marie