I am completely at a loss and confused.

[Nasirus]

I am resurrecting this post because I am still having issues with my bearded dragon's digestion. I have not seen a single 'well-formed' poop in months. It is always diarrhea. In that time frame, I have had her tested for parasites twice and both times received a call from the vet saying that she's completely parasite free. I have been dealing with this issue from her since she was a sub-adult and cannot for the life of me figure out why.

She is 3 years old now, lives in a 40 gal. breeder tank and lives on ceramic tiles I manually cut for her, has a completely varied diet of greens, vegetables, fruits, and insects. Her UVB light is only 3 months old and is mounted inside the enclosure with her. Her basking spot reaches 100 - 105 degrees, the warm part is 95, and the cool is in the high 80's. I have tested all of this with a digital laser thermometer.

She is always bright eyed and alert, she readily eats her food the moment I set it down in the morning. She does not always eat all of it, but I give her quite a lot so that's understandable. She does not like to be handled, it stresses her out a lot, so I limit it to only when I give her a bath, which also tends to stress her out as well. That's two to three times a week. She usually has a routine for when she poops. It's usually every 2 days. Lately, however, it has been every day... and it's usually just this cloud of undigested scraps in her bathwater. I am going to post pictures below. I don't have any pics of the undigested food scraps yet. A lot of these are old but the first is from today. Honestly, a lot of the time her poop has started to look like vomit. I just don't know if she's healthy or not. Everything points to it EXCEPT her poop. And it always smells horrible-- it permeates through the entire room. These pictures will show you just how varied her BM's are.

https://imgur.com/a/ABYJT
https://imgur.com/a/vh4Fu
https://imgur.com/a/6Ang5
https://imgur.com/a/blnO6

At this point I am just looking for any ideas as what to do.

 

[AHBD]

The only thing I can think of is to limit the baths and reduce the amount of greens + veggies . Can you post pics of her ? And another suggestion is to try another vet to test the fecal samples if her poos don't improve after about 2 weeks with less bathing + less veggies. [ Of course she's need at least a quick bath if she stepped in her mess. ]

 

[Ellie2015]

Hi, I don't know if you are still reading this posting or not. But I noticed that you had only one person that answered your post? I think it is always best when you have multiple opinions or advise. It's a shame no one else answered. I am surprised really. I rarely come on here so I didn't see it. I am the owner of 3 Bearded Dragons. And I have the exact same problem with my 3 year old female Beardie and always has. The one that loves to eat her vegetables and greens a lot more than my other 3 year old male. And she ends up with some really stinky , runny bowel problems. Hardly ever formed. So, I know how you feel. There only better if she she isn't in the mood to eat them on rare occasions such as egg laying time and brumation times. Both of my Bearded dragons have identical cages. They both have the exact same everything. Both are in a 65 gallon tank each, temp is the same on both sides, basking area is the same temp, what I feed them and when is the same (except what I tell you below that I started doing), exercise, etc. all the same. Except I give my female more baths than my male. But that's about it.But of course this can add to even more water in her system. And yet my male the one who does not like to eat his veggies has very nicely formed poop and not nearly as stinky. And he does not go nearly as much as she does. But on the rare occasion when he does start eating more of his veggies the more he poops and the less it is formed. But this is rare.. They are both very healthy Beardies. Bu like yours she constantly makes a mess in her cage with diarrhea and gets it all over her tail and feet.. That's why I also started giving her a bath every other day just so she can empty her bowels into that instead of her cage. This tends to work. She is now on a schedule. So, since I know it's the veggies what I do now is offer her veggies every other day instead of every day and not as much as I use to give her. And the next day when I know she is going to poop I put her in the bath. Oh, and not so many different kinds of veggies either. Which for her isn't a problem because she mainly only enjoys her sweet peppers..This helps some as well.. I really don't think it would hurt her if she didn't gorge every single day on veggies and greens. In fact because of what her intestines are doing I think it is better for her and yours if she doesn't. This is just my opinion and what seems like common since to me. Just like us humans. We would do the same thing. As far as my male goes however, even though he doesn't like his greens nearly as much I still give him fresh greens every day. So he at least has the option. I always end up having to throw them out though the next day because he didn't eat them. But at least they are offered. He hates baths so I stopped giving them to him as much. I now have a new Beardie who is about 6 months old. I found her roaming around in my garage if you can believe that! I mention her because she also likes to eat a lot of her veggies just like my other female.. When I first found her and put her in a cage her poop was normal. But as soon as I introduced greens and veggies and she started eating a lot of them she started to have poop just like my other Beardie with diarrhea. Her bowels are now doing the same thing. I feel sorry for them because when we have diarrhea we tend to have a gut ache with it. I imagine it might be the same for them. So if you find out and are sure that it is the greens and veggies I believe the answer is to do a bit less. Not more! Like I said this is common sense to me. Just like we would do if we were eating too many veggies and getting diarrhea. You can always give them a multi vitamin like I think you said you do. I do as well. I just think some Beardies might have more sensitive bellies than others. And some Beardies adore their greens while others do not. I am glad though that you got a rock that was higher up to her basking bulb. So she has the choice of how hot she would like to be in order to digest fully. And when you see them gaping don't worry. This is what they do. This is good for them. It is all instinct. This is when food is being digested the best. I love when my Beardies do this. It makes me feel that I have their basking spot perfect.When they feel they have had enough they will move. Have a good one and wish you and your Beardie well.