Please Help! My beardie won't poop...

[guptacos]

Please hear me out, I know that there are other topics about beardies not pooping, and none of them helped me. My beardie is about 13 months old (I've had him for 7), 17 inches long. his tank is 12" high by 30" long and 12 inches wide. Has a crushed walnut shell substrate, a strong flood lamp as a heat source, and a coil UVB lamp. I know that coil lamps are bad for him, and I bought a ReptiSun 10.0 bulb for him, but I can't find a good mount. If you know of one, please tell me. His temperatures reach about 105 on the hot side, and mid 80s on the cold side, with the lamps on for 14 hours a day. I make sure he always has a full water dish, and that his food dish is filled with his freeze-dried grasshopper/mealworm/cricket medley (I don’t dust the food). I feed him fresh kale about twice a week. His tank has a rock under the basking light, and a stick to climb on. When I first got him, he pooped either every day or every other day. Now, he rarely poops. He didn't poop for a week, so we gave him a bath, and he pooped. Then he went another week without pooping, so we gave him another bath, which didn't work, but he pooped after eating raw shredded sweet potatoes. Now, he hasn't pooped in 2 weeks and I'm really concerned. I don't know if he's impacted, is brumating, or something else. He doesn't seem very active, but his back legs seem fine and he's alert. He eats only every few days, and doesn't move around a lot. He just lies down on the side with the heating lamp doing nothing. I’m also not sure if he’s drinking any water, and I don’t mist his tank. Right now its spring for us, and he’s been like this for about a month. Please help! What’s wrong with him?

 

[Melody12]

Hi. If you've got a walmart around you, you can buy a fixture at Wallyworld. Just take out the plastic covering the light and install your Repti-sun 10.0 tube light in there. You can hang the fixture inside the tank using command strips.

Second: Remove all the walnut shell bedding from the tank. This is guaranteed to give him an impaction and will cause major problems.

The best substrate you can use is either paper towels, repticarpet, newspaper, or slate tile. Using calci-sand is highly dangerous too so avoid that too. Don't listen to what the pet stores try to sell you. They'll tell you that all the stuff they need isn't really healthy for them.

If he's an adult bearded dragon, they don't always go every day. Sometimes they'll go every two to three days. If he's not going in weeks poses a problem. There's some simple things to use as a laxative for the beardie.

Babyfood applesauce
Olive Oil, Vegetable Oil (On the top of his nose. Should lick it up.)
Babyfood Prunes
100 % canned pumpkin. (Not the ones used for pie.)

 

[guptacos]

Thanks for the help! I didn't have any of those, but i did have sweet potatoes, and so i fed him some of those and he finally pooped. I'm going to go and get repticarpet today.

 

[guptacos]

P.S. for anyone else reading this, I found out that I was feeding him wrong. As a juvie, he needs 20% greens, and 80% prothein (insects). but as a 1 year old, he now needs 80% greens, and 20% insects. after changing his diet, he's pooped every day so far