Please help!!

[Gandalfthebeardiee]

Hi! I just want to start off with saying I have a vet appointment scheduled however it is 3 weeks out, and they said if I need an emergency visit I can give them a call, but before I do that I have a few questions to see if it is urgent. I have a 9 month old female bearded dragon, over the course of the past few weeks, going on a month, her appetite has greatly decreased. She is not interested in anything, not greens, not banana (her favorite), not roaches, not crickets, not even superworms (she used to go crazy for supers). She is alert and very active during the day, running all over the house (supervised of course) every chance she gets. Her last poop was Thursday, I believe, however it was just a urate. I felt her belly there is nothing hard or lumpy so I do not think it's an impaction issue. I thought that maybe since she was not getting as much calcium as she needs that maybe that is what threw her off, so over the past 2 weeks I have been giving her the appropriate dosage of liquid calcium 3 times weekly and liquid multivitamin twice a week. I do feel better shes getting the supplements she needs, but it doesn't seem to help her appetite. Another thing I noticed about 2 weeks ago is she would open her jaw real wide and it would make a popping/crunching noise. She has a reptisun 10.0 t8 mounted in her tank and I have measured UV levels and they are very good. I do not believe this is MBD, I felt her jaw and it feels solid, not rubbery and it doesn't hang open etc. However, she stopped opening real wide so I thought that maybe it was a phase and everything was sorted out until tonight, I gave her some blueberry and when she'd chew she would open wider than usual and a clicking/popping noise would come from her mouth. (I caught this on video, if you guys want/need to see it I can upload to YouTube and post the link). Anyways, at this point she has lost 10 grams in a week (went from 375 to 364) I just would like some advice as to if I'm overreacting, need to see a vet asap, what I should do about her not eating and losing weight. Anything would help! Thank you.

 

[Claudiusx]

Hi there,

So no appetite but being very active?
Is she glass dancing a lot in the tank? And running around a lot when she's out?

-Brandon

 

[Gandalfthebeardiee]

Hi there,

So no appetite but being very active?
Is she glass dancing a lot in the tank? And running around a lot when she's out?

-Brandon

She does not glass dance at all, but when she wants to come out she will patiently wait at the front of tank for a bit until someone comes and see her. When she does come out she will run around and explore and eventually she calms down a bit and will hit in a high up alert position. We don't keep her out very long though, just short periods through out the day. But yes, she's active and alert, but refuses to eat anything. I thought I could wait it out, but im starting to get concerned.

 

[KarrieRee]

Losing weight is not good --- please post the video link from you tube of the jaw thing we need Tracie to take a look and AHBD to see what they think
Karrie

 

[Gandalfthebeardiee]

Losing weight is not good --- please post the video link from you tube of the jaw thing we need Tracie to take a look and AHBD to see what they think
Karrie

https://youtu.be/wClDE1FWMyg

Btw the purple/red stuff along her jaw and beard is just blueberry!!!

 

[AHBD]

Hi there, the clicking or smacking noise is just her over exaggerated chomping , trying to get every last bit of the blueberry which is a tiny food item but beardie's love the taste. As for the loss of appetite it's likely just a phase, many dragons do this as the get in to the sub adult stage of life.

 

[Gandalfthebeardiee]

Hi there, the clicking or smacking noise is just her over exaggerated chomping , trying to get every last bit of the blueberry which is a tiny food item but beardie's love the taste. As for the loss of appetite it's likely just a phase, many dragons do this as the get in to the sub adult stage of life.

Okay thank you so much! As for her not eating, should I wait it out until I see the vet? She hasn't eaten anything in a while (going on 2 weeks) and she lost weight so I'm a little worried about that. I saw on another thread someone fed their beardie chicken and squash baby food until they saw their vet, is that an option or should I try to steer clear from doing that?

 

[AHBD]

Baby food would be O.K but something much better would be Repashy grub pie sold at some pet stores. Whatever you can get her to eat would be O.K. as long as it's healthy.

 

[Gandalfthebeardiee]

Baby food would be O.K but something much better would be Repashy grub pie sold at some pet stores. Whatever you can get her to eat would be O.K. as long as it's healthy.

Thank you so much! I will see if I can find the grub pie!

 

[AHBD]

You're welcome, try not to worry. She's probably fine.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

She is very cute, just smacking her lips or jaws after eating something. A lot of them tend to
do that.
I agree, baby foods or the repashy should help to get some nutrition into her.
If she has lost quite a bit of weight it would probably be good to get her into a vet to have a
fecal done if you can.

Tracie