Juvie Beardie Refuses Food

[MiniSskunkZz]

Hi Folks!!!

Let me tell you about Frye's set up before getting to the issue at hand.

Tank size is 40 gallons, 36" x 18" x 18" with reptile carpet, some drift wood and a hide.
He has a Reptisun T5 HO 10.0 which runs the whole length of his tank.
Frye's warm side stays between 90-97 F and his cool side stays around 82 F. He has a ceramic heat emitter for the past couple months because my place does get pretty chilly during the night and so far Frye's overnight temps have been staying around 75-79 F.

I adopted Frye late April when he was two months old, once he got settled in his new home he was always so happy to eat everything put in front of him (which was mostly crickets dusted with calcium with d3, kale and dandelions) and pooping on a daily basis. Mid September when he was 7 months old I introduced him to superworms, which he was loving but that is also when I started seeing a decrease in his appetite and has since stopped shedding (and seemingly growing), his bowel movements also slowed down to pooping once every 7-10 days. I replaced his UVB bulb and also turned to this forum for some help.

When I lasted posted a topic here Frye was 20" nose to tail and weighed 465.8 grams on October 21st. On November 19th he weighed in at 420 grams, at that point I called my local exotic vet to have him looked at. The vet could not find any blockage, looked in his mouth and everything looked fine. They did want me to bring in a fecal but unfortunately Frye didn't poop (still bathing and waiting on a poop to bring into the vet). The vet could not find anything obviously wrong with him, sent me home with a critical care food to feed him with a syringe which he ate but the small bag of food is now gone and I'm still seeing small weight loss (4-5 grams a week) and Frye still refuses any and all food. I've tried feeding him his crickets, supers, hornworm, silkworms, waxworms and phoenix worms. This whole time Frye has been a very active dragon so I never really considered brumation an option.

Only the past day or two he has been sleeping more in his hide, but I'm still very concerned for his weight loss and lack of interest in food. He is my first beardie and I'm pretty concerned. I will try to post some recent pictures of him and his setup asap.

Any advise is greatly welcomed and appreciated!!!!!

 

[CooperDragon]

That's a tough one. His setup sounds good. His weight loss isn't huge but if it's continuing to trend downward it may be a sign of a problem. Him being active and alert is a good sign. It's possible he's going through a phase between growth spurts and just doesn't want food but those don't tend to last more than a month or two from what I've seen. Did the vet do any blood tests? That may help show how his systems are functioning.

 

[MiniSskunkZz]

Unfortunately the vet did not do any blood work. Frye did leave me a nice big poop yesterday so I just dropped that off to his vet for parasite testing so I should get a call in a few days with results.

 

[CooperDragon]

OK perhaps that will give some clues. Hopefully the fecal test is clean though. Please keep me updated.

 

[MiniSskunkZz]

Hi!!!

Just an update on Frye! I got the results of his fecal and vet said he had moderate amounts of pinworms.... sooo they gave me 2 syringes with panacur, I'm supposed to give him one now and the second in 14 days and we agreed to do another fecal after the treatment.

Here's hoping this is what is causing him to not eat.

 

[CooperDragon]

OK good. Pinworms are usually not too bad and are even left untreated a lot of times if they are low in count. Panacur tends to be pretty effective treating them and isn't too harsh on their systems. Hopefully that will do the trick =)