I have a baby bearded dragon. I am guessing she is 4 months old because she is about 8 inches long. I am also guessing she is a female. I have her in a digestible sand substrate, her basking temp is 34C (about 87F)
Up until now I have been feeding her gut loaded crickets and collared greens, but someone who I trust(ED) for reptile advice told me to feed her superworms since they have more nutrients. I am just going to break down what happened:
Wed:I fed her superworms that night and then turned the heat light off shortly after. I realize this is bad for two reasons, one I have learned not to feed a baby superworms, bad for her. And two, she needed the heat and UVB rays to digest
Thurs: She threw up the super worms. They were undigested in big chunks. She didnt eat anything else. I noticed that her toes began to twitch
Friday: I wasnt around much so I Didnt notice anything. She ate a few crickets and no salad.
Saturday:I took her out for a bath. At this time I noticed her muscles were twitching, and after the bath she was twitching violently. It broke my heart to see her in so much pain. So I did some research and decided it was MBC (hopefully not paralysis from the food being too big). I bought a high calcium powder and mixed it with water and fed it to her through an eye dropper. By the end of the night wasnt twitching much
Today (Sunday): minor twitching
The sand that you have is not digestible. It is known to CAUSE impaction. The little particles are consumed and they build up in their tummies until nothing can move through. Ditch the sand as soon as possible!!
What kind of UVB source are you using? Type like a florescent tube/coil? Brand name and the number on it?
Do you supplement the food with calcium/mutivitamins when you feed them to your dragon?
What type of UVB do you have on her?
Get rid of the sand I use Indoor/Outdoor Carpet or Textures Tiles sand no matter what kind is dangerous.
How is she doing now? Calcium Sryup is the best you can get for giving Calcium plus most of the time it is sweet and the dragons will take it more willingly.
If you think she might not have enough Calcium in here I would look into buying Phoenix Worms these are VERY high in calcium and dragons love them they are also a good size for babies.
Thank you for answering!
I posted that on Sunday, I have not noticed an twitching of the muscles since then which is very relieving. We did get her to poop sunday night by putting her in a bath and pushing on her tummy, which was also relieving. And she tried to poop on me on monday but didnt have enough (have you ever heard of that? She always tries to poop on me!)
Ill get rid of the sand, carpet (if it is acutally LIKE carpet) seems hard to clean, what other substrates can I use?
I also think her basking temperature isnt warm enough, but the light sights ontop of her tank which is about 5 inches from the highest log she can climb on.I am afraid if I get a warmer light,it will be TOO warm
I use two daylight bulbs which I alternate between:
Exoterra - Daylight Sun Glo Halogen neodymium lamp
and
Exoterra - Tight Beam Sun Glo Basking Spot Lamp (which I thought would be warmer but it isnt!)
Could you get a ZooMed Reptisun 10.0 UVB Floro Tube? The Exo-Terras are NO good the Reptisun is the best tube bulb out there for UVB I use them and Mega Ray Heat/UVB bulbs.
This is one of thebest prices out there and a great site to deal threw
What's another bulb, Ive bought like a million of them (beacause they break)! Haha, what type of holder do you put that in?
Also, I have a night time bulb because I live on the top floor of an apartment building and do not feel the need to heat my apartment because everyone else does, but its too cold at night for Sebastian. What bulb would you recommend for that? The one I have keeps it at about 77F and is blue so it doesnt make my room too bright.