Hi,
First, Thank you for taking him. He needed you! :love5:
Yes, beardies shed randomly, not like snakes that comes off in one piece. He does look to be in shed. Giving him a warm
bath can help soften the shed and probably feels good to the dragons, I can only imagine it must itch or irritate the scales. Some will lose their appetites or even get grumpy when shedding. The warm
bath will also help
hydrate him, they absorb water thru their waste vent, {not thru their skin as some believe}.
It is hard to assess from the photo but his upper jaw appears shorter than the lower??? This can indicate metabloic bone disease and after reading the very poor diet I suspect he may have it. Other indications can be bumpy knobs along the spine, tail and long bones. Repeated tremors and twitches in the limbs and muscles of the legs and toes when at rest, a jerky or shaky gait and malformation and soft bone of the jaw. Lethargy, anorexia, and constipation are some other symptoms. Do you know if he ever got a calcium supplement on a regular basis or had a good
UVB light?
He will need a calcium supplement daily, perhaps for the rest of his life to stall the MBD from progressing further. It won't get better, but it can be halted or slowed down and some bones can harden up but the malformations of the bones are not correctable. Daily calcium glubionate is often recommended.
I recommend and use beautiful Dragon's nutrition list. It is color coded and easy to follow.
http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html
If you would like, the members of this forum can help you tweak your set up to make it the best it can be for him. If this is something you would like let us know and any of the members can give you a list of questions to answer about your set up and husbandry. This will help us help you.
You are wonderful for rescuing him!
Amanda
