Ok, after finding this site/forum today we realize we did not educate ourselves properly to be beardie parents and some critical mistakes have been made. Hopefully it's not too late...
On Friday we bought a 5-1/2 to 6" beardie from Petsmart (I know...I know...don't get me started...). We have been told he is just a few weeks old. The extent of our education/preparation was a 10-minute discussion with a neighbor that has a beardie, and we also made the huge mistake of listening to the advice given at Petsmart, some of which we now realize was very bad ("small screw-in uvb bulb is fine"..."give him meal worms"..."use ultra violet bulb for night heat"...3-4 crickets/day is enough to start"...). We also probably have handled our beardie way too much.
Our little guy has barely eaten for 5 days now...only confirmed/seen consumption has been one skinny 1/2" meal worm and one small cricket. (He may have eaten slightly more...unclear...). We have spritzed him with water 2-3x/day, which might be the only thing keeping him alive. He still looks/moves ok, but it's clear he's in dire need of eating.
The tank setup is decent (30 gal tank covered on 3 sides, with a few nooks and crannies, incl a cave, a shallow bowl of water, and a couple of elevated features), although the basking area may have been a bit too warm (have infrared gun...will adjust 100w bulb height tomorrow). We also now understand we need to increase the uvb lighting...hopefully we can pick up a T5 UVB setup tomorrow. At least we have jetisoned the purple uv bulb night heat light...
We cleaned out all food from his tank tonight because most we wanted to remove any remaining meal worms and did not want our beardie to get stressed by bites from crickets overnight (most of which were probably bigger than the space between his eyes anyway). The thinking is to reintroduce a few of the smallest crickets we can find in the morning.
So, what else should we do besides fix the uvb situation?
Syringe feeding?
Other insects besides super small crickets?
Any help appreciated.
On Friday we bought a 5-1/2 to 6" beardie from Petsmart (I know...I know...don't get me started...). We have been told he is just a few weeks old. The extent of our education/preparation was a 10-minute discussion with a neighbor that has a beardie, and we also made the huge mistake of listening to the advice given at Petsmart, some of which we now realize was very bad ("small screw-in uvb bulb is fine"..."give him meal worms"..."use ultra violet bulb for night heat"...3-4 crickets/day is enough to start"...). We also probably have handled our beardie way too much.
Our little guy has barely eaten for 5 days now...only confirmed/seen consumption has been one skinny 1/2" meal worm and one small cricket. (He may have eaten slightly more...unclear...). We have spritzed him with water 2-3x/day, which might be the only thing keeping him alive. He still looks/moves ok, but it's clear he's in dire need of eating.
The tank setup is decent (30 gal tank covered on 3 sides, with a few nooks and crannies, incl a cave, a shallow bowl of water, and a couple of elevated features), although the basking area may have been a bit too warm (have infrared gun...will adjust 100w bulb height tomorrow). We also now understand we need to increase the uvb lighting...hopefully we can pick up a T5 UVB setup tomorrow. At least we have jetisoned the purple uv bulb night heat light...
We cleaned out all food from his tank tonight because most we wanted to remove any remaining meal worms and did not want our beardie to get stressed by bites from crickets overnight (most of which were probably bigger than the space between his eyes anyway). The thinking is to reintroduce a few of the smallest crickets we can find in the morning.
So, what else should we do besides fix the uvb situation?
Syringe feeding?
Other insects besides super small crickets?
Any help appreciated.