Is Lizzy dehydrated?

[micbrown]

Hello,

1st Thanks for reading..

Well, I recvd my 4 month old fmale beardie about two weeks ago from reptile show in Arlington, TX. She looked alert for the first couple of days..Then started keeping her eyes closed & was lathargic.. I had a coil UVB light for about 24 hrs. Then was told to get rid of that imediately as they have been known to cause eye damage. So, I purchased repti-glo/exo terra 10.0 tube uvb. She also has a basking light with temps at 105-110 in basking spot. Her tank ambiant temps are 100-80/warm to cool side. She has climbing rock to regulate how close she wants to be to the basking light. I am using paper towels over astro turf for substrate. Anyway, her eyes are open again after only a couple of days. She is eating about 10-20 crickets a day..I havnt been able to get her to eat any vegies/greens/fruit yet..still working on that. However, I am mostly having to hand feed her as she does not seem to have the will to hunt them down on her own unless they crawl directly around her. She is not moving around her cage too much..seems lathargic to me. She looks around & watches when you enter the room. But, i have never been around beardies much. I have been bathing her every other day in warm water..she is pooping about every other day. I also mist her a couple of times a day. She has a water bowl but never see her drinking. So, my questions are:

1) How active should she be?
2) Is it normal the way she is eating crickets or should she be more aggresive?
3) How would I know if she is dehydrated?
4) what should I do to be sure she is well hydrated until she starts eating vegies?

Thanks in advance for any feedback...

 

[ErinMeetsMachine]

I'm glad that you got rid of the coil, it has been known to cause seizures as well. I would highly recommend the reptisun 10 though because the reptiglos aren't that great either. Sorry.

If you're worried about her being dehydrated, I would get a plastic liquid dropper (I found mine in the baby section at the supermarket) and drip some water on her nose so that she will lick it up.
Normally, beardies that young will be eating about 3x as much as she is. But being lethargic may be part of that. At least she is eating. Are you dusting your crickets at all with calcium and multivitamins? Without calcium they can't probably grow and can cause metabolic bone disease. This happened to my iguana because I was horribly misinformed.

 

[micbrown]

Hello,

Yes, I am dusting w/ Calcium daily & multi-V's every other day...She seems to be doing pretty good except I have to hand feed her..she just does not want to hunt..maybe she is just lazy/spoiled. She will sit there & eat about 15 at a time as long as I feed them to her. Other wise she just watches them walk around her..She seems to be alert.

 

[ErinMeetsMachine]

Yeah. They're known to be picky and spoiled like that.

 

[lisas]

i had one of those lights and it did the same to mine stopped eating just lying around so turned it off today waiting for arcada d3 to come tommorrow

 

[Freeie]

Sounds like she is still getting used to everything and has gotten spoiled they tend to do that very easy

 

[micbrown]

OK, so it sounds like she is acting like a normal beardie? Thanks so much for the feedback.

 

[Tigg]

If you can find it in yourself to do this... you can always try freezing your crickets just for a few min before feeding, then when you drop them in, they will just lay there and slowly begin to twitch their legs for a good 5-10 min before fully coming back to life... during this time little BD's get pretty excited by all the movment without getting discourraged about not being able to catch it's prey. another option is to break the rear legs on the crickets (while they are frozen for humane purposes) and put them into a shallow dish (without their rear legs, they cannot jump out of the dish) under your BD's favourite basking spot. this way he will be able to bask, and watch the crickets running around in the bowl below him, eventually he will get the urge to pick some out.

I wouldn't just assume your BD is lethargic... 10-20 crickets a day is still plenty. And it all depends on the size of the crickets you are feeding. You also have to remember that they are just like humans when it comes to their appetites... some like to stuff themselves, and some like to just pick...

to get out of hand feeding, you can start using feeding tongs instead of your hand so they stop expecting it from you.

 

[micbrown]

Great Ideas..Thank you!

Do you have any suggestions on how to get her started on veggies?

 

[Tigg]

She's still a little young for her to be paying much attention to greens, they usually begin around 12-18 months. Just keep adding in fresh greens every day and they will slowly begin to graze on them...

 

[Freeie]

Chimera started eating veggies at 4 months, I kind of tricked him i guess , hes a visual eater, if a crick dosnt move he wont eat it so I used my finger at feeding time tossed a crick in his viv and that got him going so i put the veggies (colard greens cut small) in a small dish and i moved my finger around so he seen the movement and thats all it took , now he eats them on his own, and they say to put the veggies in the cage first before the live food that helps too.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

I just wondered what you were measuring your temps with currently?
How is she doing this evening?
You could try getting some phoenix worms or butterworms & mix them in with the greens & veggies to try & entice her into trying them.
Also, as suggested, the Reptiglo 10 really is not a good light. Can you exchange it for a Reptisun 10? Or just get your money back? You can get the Reptisun 10 flourescent tube light at:
http://www.petmountain.com for around $20 or so.

How far is the UVB from her & is the basking light directly beside the Reptiglo UVB?
The Reptiglo 10 has been known to cause eye problems if it is too close. It has a low wavelength UVB which can be harmful, & does not emit favorable wavelength for D3 synthesis, which also means she wont be absorbing her calcium very well. You may find that she would be much more active with the better light. Since you had her under the coil light & her eyes began to become sensitive they are still sensitive & she is under another light that is hard on the eyes now which is compounding the problem.


Tracie

 

[Trickseedog]

My Breyas can't stand food that climbs on him. I gut load all his crickets and every other day or so I refridgerate a bunch in a jar. He doesn't really care if they twitch or not. I've had a few crickets wake up after 24 hours or more in the fridge. My anole gets those; she likes to hunt.

 

[LJean]

For months after getting Calypso I had trouble getting her to eat. Not that she didn't want to eat, mind you, but that she wouldn't eat if we were looking. Can you leave the room for 10 minutes so she can eat without seeing you?

I used a spare 10 gallon tank to feed in at the time. I would try to peek around the corner to see if she was eating. As long as she didn't see me, she would eat.