My Young beardie won't eat

[davehutch]

Hi

I'm new to this site and am looking for help. We brought 2 young beardies about 3 weeks ago and at first they both were eating fine. Now the male dragon is eating well and is very active. The female won't eat anything, is not growing and looks very frail. She started eating better than him but now we can't seem to get anything into her. I fear we may lose her.

I have a 4 ft Viv with UV light and heat lamp. We have play sand as a substrate.

Please offer any advice you can.

 

[Elora]

This sounds like exactly what happened to me. Are they housed together? If so its not that uncommon for one of the babies to become stressed out from the other beardie and stop eating and growing. I really recommend that you separate them or create a divider that cant be seen through. I almost lost Skyler. He started to hide every time it was feeding time and he wouldn't eat. he stopped growing and even stoped moving. A week after I put him in a new tank (and after a lot of force feeding and tears) he finnaly started to eat and bask again. I never saw them fight but one day I came home and one of them was missing a toe and the tip of his tail. I wish the pet store wouldnt have told me that they could be housed together.

What kindof UV light do you have?
What are the temps? (what do you use to measure them)

 

[RioReptiles]

OH my. Seperate them. We lost one of our first dragons 8 years ago this way and had no idea why. You don't want that to happen. Losing a beardie is terrible.

 

[davehutch]

Thank you for your comments. She still won't eat. I think we need to split them up so I may have to pick up another set up tomorrow. Not the cheapest way to deal with it but don't want to loose her. Hope the new viv works.

 

[dreshany]

I also have a 4ft cage and was told that having a large enclosure when they are small can freak them out. I have since divided my cage in half and put in a brick divider. It has helped my youngin to settle in. Can you tell us a little about your set up and what you are feeding them?

 

[Elora]

You may want to try force feeding if she has gone more than a week with out eating. It sure saved Skyler. Its not as scary as it sounds. You can get a plastic syringe or eyedropper and but some babyfood in it. I used squash. If you touch it lightly to the side of their mouths they may A) open their mouth in defense and you can put a drop in to get them started eating it or B) they will lick it and eat it as you slowly push some out. When i force fed Skyler i had to get him to open his mouth by getting him annoyed. I just kindof lightly pressed on the sdie of his mouth with my fingers and he would open his mouth and i would quickly put some baby food in. after a while he started eating it on his own! and then in combination with not being around the other beardie anymore he started to come alive again!

 

[davehutch]

Thats really good advice.

We took the male beardie out today and she ate 4 crickets. I think it is probably a combination of several things so tomorrow I am going to get a smaller viv. I think it's important for her to be on her own most of the time so she can put some weight on. Our male Rex is twice the size of Lizzie as he eats anything and everything we give them. I will may make sure she eats some baby food also until she gets used to her new viv and fattens up a bit. Hopefully we can integrate them again when she is feeding reguarly herself. My wife thought she had died and it was really upsetting so will do anything to prevent that from happening.

I will keep you posted as to her progress.

Thanks again.

 

[Elora]

Please do not try and intergrate them again. If theres a problem now its not going to go away. Unless you plan on breeding them it will be better for everyone that they stay apart

Glad she actually ate! Please post us some photos!!!