Strange Behavior?

[DwighttheDragon]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, and whether this behavior is normal. Dwight, our 5 1/2 month old beardie, has been going crazy the last few days, to the point where he is missing meals because he is too pre-occupied with his glass-surfing and general tank destruction. Breakfast (12-15 big crickets and a few munches of collard greens) seems to be fine, but that's been pretty much it the last couple of days. Though if I do throw a 'treat' superworm (freshly shed), he will immediately eat it.

He physically seems healthy, 14 1/2" long, 252g, and no real stress marks, although he does sometimes get a black beard while he does this. He also head bobbed at his own reflection for the first time yesterday. We have taken him out to run around, but that doesn't seem to help when we put him back in.

Below is a picture of the set-up. Its a 40 gal, 10.0 reptisun tube, 100 W halogen backing bulb. It gets up to about 110 at the basking site, with ambient around 85 on the warm side down to 72 on the cool side ... measured with a digital thermometer. There is also a CHE for the cold days. The substrate is shelf liner. I did try to swap out the tree for a stone basking spot, but he would have none of that. He gets straight up angry if his tree is missing, even if its for a 10 minute cleaning.

I guess I'm just wondering if this is the equivalent to a beardie teenager, or if something could be wrong with what I'm doing.

Thank you very much!

 

[Gail]

He is at the right age for teenage tantrums. You could try letting him out to roam so he can burn off some of that energy. I wouldn't worry as long as is is eating some and otherwise acting normal.

 

[DwighttheDragon]

Thank you for your response!

He has had quite a bit of roaming time, and even got to come outside with us Saturday, which he loved.

As if he knew about this question, Dwight decided to have decent lunch of about 10 lg. crickets and 2 worms, just to make me look silly.

 

[DwighttheDragon]

I wanted to update this as he seems to have changed his behavior once again. He is now on a cricket boycott. He won't touch them. He'll eat worms with not much issue and he will eat collard greens. I guess I'm just worried that hes not getting enough protien. I have some silkworms coming on Wednesday so I hope he likes those.
I should also note that we upgraded to a 75gal tank with a 100W basking bulb, and we still have a 22" T5 Reptiglo 10.0 tube. Temps and everything seem good.
I'm probably worrying about nothing as hes grown a full inch and gained 40g since I started this post, but I am worried he will start to lose weight if this continues.

Thank you very much!

 

[CooperDragon]

Do keep an eye on his weight, but it's good that he's eating something. The worms should be enough protein for a little while. The silks are great feeders to offer. Try mixing in some squash pieces with the collards as well to offer a little bit more balance. If he remains active and gets something in his belly then I wouldn't worry too much about the cricket strike as it's likely related to the mood changes.

 

[DwighttheDragon]

Thanks for the response, I'll definitly do that. We're also going to try not offering crickets for a few day and then reintroducing them and something 'new'.

Here he is basking after happily eating a huge collard salad and a few phoneix and supers this am.