SCARY! Help!

[melissa102787]

I was giving all my beardies a bath because they are all starting to brumate... Everything was normal as usual. All of a sudden, my male went bonkers and dove his head under and started blowing bubbles and acting crazy, so I quickly grabbed him and wrapped him in a towel. His eyes were both completely BULGING out of his head and started to get a little purple on the bottom eye lid. It seems different than the "normal" eye bulging that they do occasionally. It has been 10-15 mins and they are still bulging out of his head... What the heck happened?! I can't find any info about abnormal bulging... Has this happened to anyone else??

 

[Jiffy]

How is he acting now? I know that on one of my beardies, his coloring under his eyes has a purplish tint to it. I am not sure about the eyes bulging out for that long though

 

[yentlequible]

Maybe he had some sort of allergic reaction?

 

[discojan]

Were there any chemicals or residual soap in the water?

 

[melissa102787]

I wanted to update - after some time, his eyes went back to normal. And there was no soap residue that I know of, I'm very careful with keeping chemicals away from the beardies.

However, he is still odd. He does his eye bulge thing every day. Some times a couple times a day... None of my other dragons do this so frequently, in fact, I have never heard of one doing it so often. He is very healthy, gorgeous looking dragon. But I cannot find any info about bearded dragons having this behavior every single day. I have only had him for a month or so now.

He does not appear to have anything wrong with his eyes. He had a fecal check recently. He is somewhat brumating and isn't eating much at all. I'm baffled by his behavior and worried.

 

[melissa102787]

I took some pics real quick so you can see what I'm talking about ( warning, he looks super creepy when doing it)

 

[AHBD]

Did his eyes JUST start looking that way after that one bath? Any possibility there was fecal matter in the water ? Also, when you say they were starting to brumate, were they actually going to sleep and you pulled them for a bath? Because in a sleepy state a dragon should not be put in the water....reflexes and body temps. are way off, making for easy drowning or breathing in of the water. He looks a bit thin as well....I would bump his temps. to normal and not let him brumate in that condition. If his eyes stay like that for long periods, I would take him for some bloodwork. If it only happens briefly for a minute or so, that's normal.

 

[melissa102787]

I just took this pic, you can see what he looks like with out his eyes popping

His eyes popped before the bath, but I never noticed it being so frequent. I have only had him for 4-5 weeks or so now. When it happened in the bath is freaked me out because he dove under water with his chin on the bottom of the tub blowing bubbles acting crazy. It only lasted a couple seconds though because I scooped him up as soon as he did it. His eyes remained bulged for a while after, I'm assuming he was scared/stressed. That was the first time I realized maybe it is not normal. I'm still not sure if maybe he just likes to do it or something. Sometimes he does it for a minute or so. Other times he does it for 30 mins. It is really strange.
He had a bath yesterday in the sink and was fine.

The bath water was clean, I had just drained and put some new water in, it was not too deep either, enough to cover his vent and part of his back but to comfortably stand in it. He is only partially brumating, he doesn't want to eat ( I offer food all the time and ONCE in a while he may eat a wax worm, but no crickets or veggies) however he does bask a little. Only part of the day before he goes to the cool side of his enclosure. I had turned on his light to let him bask a bit before I put him in the water, so it wouldn't be too much of a shock for him.

I'm not sure if I can stop him from brumating, I've tried raising the temps and he hides. He had begin brumating when I got him.

 

[AHBD]

Actually, he looks fine there, and if I had seen that pic I wouldn't have said he looks too thin to brumate, he looks fine. And most beardies do the eye-popping now and then. By the way, water itself dries the eye out, so it may be just getting water in his eyes. Well, brumation temps. should be about 63-67 degress, with lights on only 7-8 hours a day....you can cover the hide they go inwith a small piece of newspaper [ they can easily come out from under newspaper compared to a towel ]so the lights don't disturb them. You can turn my lights off for brumation, but some people are nervous about that. I don't offer any food or water unless they are awake and active. Brumation is for sleeping.....partial brumation is just a slow down where they sleep off and on and may drink a bit, but usually don't eat.

 

[melissa102787]

Yeah I was looking at the other pics and he does look really bad/sickly in them, I'm a horrible photographer. He is actually really pretty when he fires up. He is a pastel orange w/clear nails. His name is Euli( pronounced U-LEE). Other than his strange eye behavior, he seems overall very healthy.

I put a thin black sheet on his hide out( it is a hideaway log) to make it darker, he wouldn't go near it after lol. So I took it off. I actually put a shoe box with a hole in it tonight to see what he does. I can hear him in there digging on the card board. I think he is a little finicky. My other dragons seem a lot more laid back.

His tank is about 65-66 degrees, warmer when his light is on(this is the cooler side). His basking spot is 95-97 degrees.
Can they partially brumate all winter? Or will they all eventually go into a steady sleep? I made another post about brumation in the general section. I have had my oldest dragon for four years but never gave him a proper brumation( I was unaware of it actually...). HE( Iggy)is actually the one giving me the most trouble, he is still eating/basking every day and the only who isn't partially brumating/brumating.

 

[AHBD]

That sounds fine, and the shoebox is a great idea. Well, every dragon is different, and partial brumation is fine, some will just completely conk out, and others don't seem to want to sleep at all, others sleep on and off. The dragon will decide....but again, only healthy dragons should be allowed to brumate and be off food for any length of time.

 

[Slave2Scarlett]

I'm a fairly new beardie owner and have found most of my info out here on the forum but i've really never researched the whole brumation thing... When do they start doing that? And is it a must?

 

[AHBD]

It's not a must, but many will automatically slow down because they can feel the change in temps. and other cues....some won't do it at all, and some beardie breeders induce it because the dragons are more readily bred after brumating. As long as the dragon is near adult size, healthy and of good weight, there's no problem. Some younger ones may get sleepy as well, it's usually O.K, too, but they must be checked on more often, and not allowed to sleep for months as the older ones sometimes do.They don't have the weight to spare, which is what gets the bigger dragons through.

 

[discojan]

66 seems a bit cool. It's ok, for nightime when there are no lights on (but no cooler!) which is what you seem to be suggesting here, but during the day the temps should be higher--- 80-85 on the cool side and 100-105 on the hot side.

Bulgy or not, your buddy is a very cute dragon!

 

[AHBD]

The temps. for brumation should be below 70....that's totally normal, what she listed and the way she has it set up is for brumation. Normally the cool side would be 80 when not brumating, but that would be way too high for brumation.