Tired and not eating enough

[mafoo]

For the past month or so my 1 and a half year old bearded dragon has just not been himself. He is not eating his superworms, I cant seem to get him to eat his proper amount of salad, and he seems tired. Some days he will seem happy and run around and eat good, but most of the time he is just drowsy and doesn't want to do much.

I have been thinking of a couple of things that would be causing this and I know for certain there is a few problems going on. The first thing would be I cant get him to eat enough salad. I try to feed him around 10 small superworms a day and try to feed him salad but he just wont eat enough. I would hate to cut back on the superworms as I absolutely cannot find the proper vegetables for him so I have to just stick with very little variety. His salad normally consists of collard greens and kale as that is all I can find for him that is supposed to be good.

Another issue I would think would be his uvb lamp. Yesterday I took him out and let him sit on the window in the sun and look outside and afterwards he lightened right up and was in an awesome mood. I would think that maybe this could be because he got more uvb from the sun and this made him feel better, but I am not sure. I just ordered a new arcadia light for him as his current one is around 10 months old and needs replacing. I don't think this is the problem, but it cant hurt to add this in.

The last thing I can think of is him not getting enough of his vitamin and calcium dusting. I normally dust his superworms which seems to work fine, but when he wont eat much of them it causes a bit of a problem. Im going to try and get him to eat some worms with this at least 3 times a week, but with the amount he is eating I don't know if this is enough.

Also from reading on this site I see that them trying to brumate can cause things like this but I honestly dont think that is it. He has his moments where he is happy and eats good so I just cant see him trying to brumate right now.

Right now I am unsure on what else I can do for him to make him feel better as fast as possible. From previous experiences on this forum I thought it would be a good idea to come here and see what you guys can come up with to help me and my dragon out.

 

[Goodtruant]

UVB could be it, they also need to be warm while getting UVB in order to process vitamin D3.

UVB light will not pass through glass. Taking your beardie outside for some real UVB rays is really good for them. Direct sunlight has more that 10 times the UVB a reptisun 10.0 light will put out, so they don't need to be out for very long to get a good amount of UVB.

Variety in the diet is really good for a beardie also. Try some crickets, dubia, or some horn worms!

Good luck! Keep us posted!

 

[mafoo]

Okay so here is an update on him. I still haven't gotten his light in since it I'm out here in Canada ordering from the US. Not much has changed except he is eating even less, in the past few days he hasn't ate any superworms but I did get a couple bites of salad out of him. He still seems lively and happy whenever I take him out in the sun since I figure he enjoys looking outside but that's about the only time.

One concern I have is how much sleep do these guys usually need? I try and get him an even 12 hours of sleep every night although I'm unsure if he sleeps fully through it as there is a little bit of noise in the house that could wake him up. I don't know how light of sleepers bearded dragons are or if each is different, but it could be a possibility I would think.

Another thing I am wondering about is how they react to the weather outside. I know from experiences with all the frogs I owned that when the weather outside changes like when a storm comes there mood totally changes. I've been noticing this ever since I got my dragon that whenever a storm comes he will get in a bad mood, not eat, and just want to hide in his log. He doesn't like change at all so I think he may just be sensitive to this kind of thing? I'm not sure, any opinions on this would be helpful.

Im just going to keep waiting for the light to come in and then go from there. I figure if I get one issue fixed I can start working from there and get him happy.