Need help!!!

[Jacob1289]

Hi everyone, I've owned my bearded dragon for about 6 months. She started out on a salad/cricket diet for 5 of those months, and now she is really big. She got tired of crickets, and wouldn't touch anything but worms, so I bought superworms because I heard they could be a staple food. She ate those for a while, along with wax worms, and now she seems to only want to be on the cool side of the tank and she doesn't want to bask as much anymore. I have a reptisun 10.0 inside of her tank, and I have a 75 watt basking bulb in her tank which reaches 100 degrees about because it's really hot here. I used to have a 100 watt bulb, but I feel that was too hot and I wanted to try this 75 watt bulb that I just bought today. She doesn't touch her salad anymore, and won't touch superworms anymore. I read that bearded dragons should be 16 inches before eating them, so I measured and she is that long. I just don't know what the problem is. I hope she isn't impacted. She only poops every 2-4 days and she doesn't want to drink water as much either. I just need help.

 

[AHBD]

Hi Jacob, can you post pics of your girl + her set up ? Here's how :
https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/ Then use thev XIMG to upload pics

It might be just a phase [ and by the way, not pooing for a few days can be normal ] but it would be good to check a few things. How old is your Reptisun bulb ? If it's getting older it may not be putting out as much uvb which could affect her appetite.

 

[Jacob1289]

The uvb is only 2 months old. I read online that if they are dehydrated, they will try not to eat. Do you think this is the case? She is a perfect weight, not loosing any weight, but her skin is shriveled. I have to force her to drink from a dropper but even then she doesn't want to open her mouth. I don't want to hurt her by prying her mouth open.

 

[AHBD]

Yes, some won't eat if they are dehydrated. You can just drip the water on her snout, don't force it. It may take a minute or so but just drip, stop, repeat on the end of her snout. You might add just a tiny bit of unsweetened apple or grape juice to get her interested but only just a tiny bit of juice diluted with mostly water. Or you can soak her in about 2-3" lukewarm water for 10 minutes and dribble a bit of water on her snout once a week.

 

[Jacob1289]

Ok thank you for the reply. I will keep you updated. She used to drink when she was a baby and then stopped for some reason. I'm just afraid she isn't getting the multi vitamin or calcium because she is refusing to eat :/

 

[BeardieBoyWonder]

About feeding your beardie certain sized foods, only beardies that are fairly young/small would it matter. Otherwise you can feed your beardie many diferent sized worms because they chew their food. I say this because some people say "dont feed a beardie food unless its the length between their eyes." Which is ridiculous.