"Old age" diet?

[peera]

So as many of the regulars probably know, I have a rather old dragon, Gibby is at least 8 1/2. Recently his pooping has wound down, along with his appetite & he's been pretty lethargic. He always brumates lightly, but this is pretty early. I've been trying to get applesauce into him, but the only way I've found is to smother supers in it & make him fish them out & that may be defeating the purpose a bit plus he's only interested in about 10 a week right now. Never been interested in salad, less so now than ever, and I can't even handle the thought of force feeding him. He is still basking when he actually eats, and his basking temps are about 100* with the Accurite, he won't go near it if it gets hotter than that. His ReptiSun 10.0 is about 3 months old. He's on tile, so not impacted.
Anyhow, my issue is that after 2 weeks without pooping, with baths, he finally pooped an enormous, horrible poop today. The urate was nearly 2 inches long, white & soft on the final half inch, yellow in the center inch, and gray? on the end half inch. I know the yellow comes from to much calcium, so I'm going to cut him down in that area. I'm not including a pic because I just wanted it out of the viv & didn't even think of taking a picture before it was wiped up.
So do you think that given his advanced age, I'm going to need to make some permanent changes to his diet to make it easier for him to poop, or is it just brumation to blame? Or, god forbid, could this be the beginning of the end? By changes I mean applesauce a few times a week, or seeing if I can blend the supers & some crickets & greens into a slurry & trying to tempt him into eating that. I know switching him to a softer worm would probably be a good idea, but my boyfriend balks at the idea of paying the prices for silkies or butters, and he is the primary breadwinner around here. My roaches won't be ready to feed out of for at least another month, but maybe if he's the only one eating them I can manage.
I'm kind of at my wit's end & would appreciate a little bit of help making my old dude more comfortable.

 

[peera]

Bump

 

[Jiffy]

Good morning. bumping up for you

 

[peera]

Morning Jiffy, thanks for the bump.

 

[beardie parents]

I don't know much about beardie's health issues, other than what I've read here. I think there could be a problem that you couldn't see that has been going on for awhile. We found out with one of our first two beardies that sometimes when they slow down on their eating there could be a health issue.

My suggestion is to get him to a good herp vet. The vet will probably want to do blood work to see what could be the problem. We did that with Miss O but sadly it was to late because before the Dr. found out what the problem was, she'd died. I hope you can get your's into a good herp vet in time.

Lori

 

[EclpsPrinc]

Our older man, Max seems to really appreciate Silkworms. When he eats those, he just seems more lively and his poops are real nice and healthy looking.

 

[peera]

Thank you, both of you.
I know I should get him to a vet, the thing is that our herp vet is 3 hours away so I do try to see if I can get help around here first, and there's absolutely no way I'll be able to get him there before next week.
As for the silk worms... well, I'll talk to the man of the house, but I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is. Gibby is his favorite though, so maybe he'll be willing to open his pockets for him.