Squirmles has a seasonal split personality. Right now he's the Carnivorous Couch Potato and spends most of his time coiled up in his Kleenex box or buried in his little pile of fabric maple leaves. Then usually around Ground Hog Day he turns into the Amazing Solar Powered Snake -- hyperactive, anorexic, and hormonal. He usually goes for an extra long time without a shed in the late winter, and then usually right after his first shed of the year it's like someone flipped a switch -- he goes crazy, and when we try to feed him he looks at us like, "Wrong one of the 4 F's, folks. Drop a lady snake in here and see what I do." Then later in the summer he slowly settles back down and starts eating again. We used to take him to the vet because I was worried about him not eating, but he usually checked out healthy otherwise. I'd had my suspicions about what was going on for several years, and then finally someone wrote in to the Q & A column in Reptiles magazine saying they had a corn snake and they didn't know whether it was male or female, but every spring "it" would get hyperactive and refuse to eat. Hmm... that sounded familiar. Answer, not quite in so many words, but the gist of it was: "You've got a male, and he's horny. It's mating season." The article went on to suggest altering the snake's artificial photoperiod to trick his hormones into thinking spring was over, but I decided not to try that. As long as it's something natural and as long as it's not endangering his health, I figure it's best not to mess with it. I keep both of our reptiles' lights on 12 hours a day year round, but they can probably tell what time of year it is by the light coming in the windows, especially here in the subarctic where there's a huge variation from summer to winter.
You probably know to be careful where you place Olympia's new heat panel, so there's no risk of thermal burns. (Forgive me if I'm overstating the obvious :wink: )
Puff is a lousy shot with his tongue, and since he tested ADV positive about 3 years ago, we've been concerned that the adenovirus or some other opportunistic infection might be eating away at the wiring in his brain. He tends to strike too high and too far, so roaches often run under him and end up crawling around on his underbelly, and crickets hop all over him. Sometimes he gets frustrated and seems to give up and just sits there. It had been getting progressively worse, and a few months ago my husband made some videos of his pathetic attempts to catch bugs and tried to email them to our vet, but due to technical difficulties she wasn't able to view them. Then in the meantime my husband got the "bright idea" (pun intended) to set his UV lamp on top of the feeding pen (we take him out of his tank and put him in a big plastic storage tub, otherwise the crickets would get away from him and hide behind the "furniture" in the tank) and he's doing much better. So apparently, it's got something to do with his vision -- he seems to need bright full spectrum light with plenty of UV in order to see what he's doing. I tried looking in his eyes with a penlight and didn't see any obvious cataracts, but I don't have a practiced eye so that doesn't prove anything. But we're getting by ok for now.
His laziness seems to be selective. He's not too lazy to chase bugs, but he is too lazy to go "downstairs" and eat his salad. We keep it at the cool end of the tank so that it stays a little fresher, but he ignores it, and stays up on his basking platform most of the time. If we didn't hand feed him greens, he'd probably be perfectly happy to be a strict carnivore.
Bearded dragons may not be able to speak English, but they can definitely communicate. I suppose you got Mufasa's message loud and clear: "I'm going back to sleep whether you like it or not." :lol: