Is my beardie impacted?

[Skindo]

my bearded dragon hasn’t pooped in a long while. At first he was straining to poop and now he won’t even attempt it. I know I’ve avoided this problem for way too long but I’d like to see if there’s some way I can fix this myself before I take him to a vet. He doesn’t eat any vegetables but will still eat bugs. He doesn’t move unless moved in which case he moves back to his favorite spot, and he becomes much much more active after seeing and eating any bug.

 

[smaugthebeardie3756]

For the immediate issue, try a spoonful of canned pumpkin and/or a couple drops of olive oil. Thin the pumpkin with some water and drop it on his nose to lick off, same with the olive oil but you don't need to thin it. Or mix the olive oil with the pumpkin. Also warm bath while doing an abdominal massage. Stand him up a little in the water and work your fingers from his chest to his vent with a little bit of pressure for a few minutes.

Long term to prevent it happening again, some more information on husbandry would be needed. Brand, power, and type of UVB, dimensions of enclosure, substrate, diet, basking temps, hot/cool side and nighttime temps, distance of your UV bulb to basking spot, UV on top of a screen or unobstructed. All of these things can contribute to impaction and should be looked at to see where any improvements can be made so he hopefully doesn't have to go through it again.

 

[AHBD]

I agree with Smaug's advice and you can also use sugar free applesauce, baby food squash or prunes.. Whatever your beardie likes the most out of any of those natural laxatives you can let him eat as much as he wants. Hold off feeding insects for now because if he is impacted, that will add to it.

 

[Skindo]

I agree with Smaug's advice and you can also use sugar free applesauce, baby food squash or prunes.. Whatever your beardie likes the most out of any of those natural laxatives you can let him eat as much as he wants. Hold off feeding insects for now because if he is impacted, that will add to it.

Thank you both so much, one of my questions about it was wether or not I should stop feeding him if he is impacted so thank you for answering that. My only other question for now is how long I should reasonably wait if he does end up needing to go to the vet? I said earlier that I didn’t want to but if I have to of course I would I’d do anything for him.

 

[KarrieRee]

Thank you both so much, one of my questions about it was wether or not I should stop feeding him if he is impacted so thank you for answering that. My only other question for now is how long I should reasonably wait if he does end up needing to go to the vet? I said earlier that I didn’t want to but if I have to of course I would I’d do anything for him.

Please try the remidies posted above- the vet will do an enema and we always want to avoid that they often end in disaster

 

[AHBD]

They almost never need a vet when they are constipated unless they've eaten a foreign object or in rare cases a lot of substrate. Just use the natural laxative foods we mentioned, give extra warm baths and make sure that your temps. are appropriate. Can you post pics of your tank + the lighting, also mention the temps. ?