Healthy weight

[SpikesMomma1956]

Hello out there. Now that Spike is out of Brumation (Praise Jesus), he is eating like he used to be. He actually gained 12 Gms in between last week and this week!!! Yayyyyy.
My question is what is a good, healthy weight range for a year old beardie? I don’t want him to go the other way now and get obese.
Thanks
Kimm, aka, SpikesMomma

 

[Ellentomologist]

Hiya Kimm,

Feel free to ignore a newbie here, but my understanding is that there are too many factors within "healthy weight" for most beardies to really give a healthy range. What you want is for your beardie to be active and mobile, with the ability to completely lift their stomach off the floor when dashing. If you have that and you're not overfeeding or feeding high-fat foods, you should be good!

On the other end, if your lizard-child has nice fat-pads on their head and a think tail base, you should rest assured that your liz isn't too thin.

Hope this is helpful. Honestly, I'd really like more metrics on telling if my Lizard-Son is a healthy weight or not myself! Always happy to be corrected if someone has different information that they can source!

Best,
-Ellen

 

[SpikesMomma1956]

Thanks Ellen for your info.
Yea he isn’t quite at the point where I need to lift his tummy off the floor yet. He has so much pent up energy at times which is SO reassuring! I missed him so much when he was brumating,
Okay, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing. He has a good poop every other day in his bath, and is back to basking on his tree and his rock.
Thanks for the info. ??????

 

[CliffsMom]

I'd base his health on other behaviours. My 5 yo is pretty small by beardie standards - he's only 400g and his tummy isn't touching the floor. Never has. He was the runt of his litter so maybe his growth is a little stunted. But he's always been active, running around and being silly, eating a steady amount, bright eyed and happy. He spends a ton of time exercising outside. The vet says he has good fat deposits earlier this year and I weigh him every month to see if he's gaining or maintaining.

 

[Drache613]

Moved by Moderator from General to Health