Loss of appetite, loose poop?

[JenessaDent]

Hi,
My beardie Odin has a very sudden loss of appetite.....he went from eating 50+ crickets yesterday (pretty usual), to not even wanting to look at his food today. Added to that he has loose poop, and not a lot of it, which is also pretty unusual.
He is 4 months old
His enclosure sits anywhere from 102-105 with 16% humidity. Basking area is 104 right now, cool side is 83 degrees
His UVA/UVB comes from a T5 HO 10.0 Reptisun (2, straight 22" bulbs)
His food is calcium and multivitamin dusted once a day, on the crickets
Substrate is tile and reptile carpet
He seems to have pretty normal energy when I take him out
He is preparing to shed on his back legs and tail, its been a long time coming
His fecal matter and urates are both normal colors, and not very stinky (till you get up close of course.....then it smells like....well, poop and urates)
He is basking like normal
I do not believe he has any parasites, the woman we got him from had him checked before we got him, she said he had a clean bill of health, but I have not yet taken him to my vet.
Any ideas what is going on? Could a need to shed cause him to have loose poop and a greatly decreased appetite?
Thanks for any input

 

[CooperDragon]

What are you using for a basking bulb? The temps sound good. Sounds like there is plenty of UVB available. The change in mood/appetite could be related to the shed. That is known to cause moodiness. A loose poop may just be an upset stomach if it only happens once or twice. If it isn't unusually smelly I wouldn't worry about that for now. If he had 50 crickets yesterday then I wouldn't worry about the appetite yet either. The fact that he has a normal energy level when he is out of the tank is also a good sign. I'd just wait and watch for the time being. As a side note, I recommend dusting with calcium 5 days per week and multivitamin the other 2. I don't think you need to dust with both every day.

 

[JenessaDent]

I have 2 72w (total combined wattage) floodlights, you can see it in a few of my other posts with the pics of my enclosure. I'll switch over to that dusting schedule, and see if that helps. I did notice that there was a tiny bit of yellow in his urate, so I do need to cut down on the calcium for sure, particularly now that he is getting bigger. The fifty crickets is pretty normal for this guy though, he's got a hard to match appetite, and can blow through 150 crickets in 4 days, and act like he's starving to death between each feeding. Thanks for the advice

 

[CooperDragon]

Lol geez, I don't miss having to keep that many crickets on hand. The flood lights will be fine. I don't think there is anything to worry about unless this phase continues for a while.

 

[JenessaDent]

Yeah, it sucks, but he's still young so he needs all the protein he can get. Plus I don't think he's ever had anything else, so I'm not sure he would be willing to switch over to any type of worms. I've heard they are much easier to keep though, crickets are kind of a pain in my butt. Thank you for the reassurance and the advice. I'll probably take him into the vet as well, just to make sure that the woman who sold him to me actually did verify that he did not/does not have any parasites or anything. We got him to eat a few crickets tonight, but I am still worried about the unformed stool.