BlueTheBeardie
Member
I bought my girlfriend a baby bearded dragon for Christmas that she named Blue after the dinosaur in Jurassic Park. He's young.. probably about 5-6 inches long counting his tail. I don't know what gender he is so I'm going to refer to him as a male for now. He's started acting bizarre ever since the first few days we got took him home. We did a bunch of research before-hand to make sure we could give him the best and most accurate tank setup possible. I'll list what we have below:
-30 Gal Tank - 30x12x12
-ZooMed 100w Basking Bulb
-24" ZooMed T5 UVB 10.0 bulb
-Brown "Carpet" substrate .. not sand
-The hot side of the tank gets around 102 degrees with the basking spot maybe a few degrees hotter
-The cooler side of the tank gets around 82 or so
In Petco, he had energy, ran around his cage, looked at stuff attentively moving his head. Now we've had him for about 2 weeks and the only time he's ever really moved or open his eyes fully was the first day. He sits still all day and rarely open his eyes. We offer him fresh greens everyday with an assortment of calcium-dusted mealworms, calciworms, and dubia roaches to try and see if he likes different things but he won't even open his eyes to look at them. The only way we can get him to eat or drink now is using liquid through a syringe which he does not take much of either.
He has this weird behavior where he fully straightens his front legs and will put his head fully pointed UP towards the sky (with eyes closed), or his head is fully DOWN towards the floor (with eyes closed). Never straight ahead. He frequently opens his mouth like he's "yawning" every so often.
The other day I was walking by his cage and could not see him. I found him UPSIDE DOWN in between his food and water bowls. At first I thought he was dead but saw his chest was extending rapidly like he was breathing super fast. (I know reptiles have trouble breathing upside down). I said WHAT ARE YOU DOING? and he quickly flipped over like he was startled and sat right side up again. If he was conscious enough to get startled by my voice, why didn't he just flip himself over?
One more thing I want to mention is the first day when he had energy he noticed we were putting dubia roaches in his tank and he eagerly ran over. He had two roaches but then bit onto a food "pellet" that came with the starter kit and starting shaking his head violently and rubbing his mouth against his food dish. I grabbed the pellet and it was so hard I could not break it with my fingernail. I only put this in there to see if he liked it and because it came with the ZooMed starter kit but now I know better than to ever feed him this food. Ever since this his mouth area has turned black/green and his jaw doesn't look like it closes fully on this side.
Sorry for the long story but I wanted to give a accurate description of what's going on. If anyone has any clues what's going on feel free to share. My only other idea is bringing him to a emergency vet. If anyone wants pics of his enclosure or behavior let me know!
-30 Gal Tank - 30x12x12
-ZooMed 100w Basking Bulb
-24" ZooMed T5 UVB 10.0 bulb
-Brown "Carpet" substrate .. not sand
-The hot side of the tank gets around 102 degrees with the basking spot maybe a few degrees hotter
-The cooler side of the tank gets around 82 or so
In Petco, he had energy, ran around his cage, looked at stuff attentively moving his head. Now we've had him for about 2 weeks and the only time he's ever really moved or open his eyes fully was the first day. He sits still all day and rarely open his eyes. We offer him fresh greens everyday with an assortment of calcium-dusted mealworms, calciworms, and dubia roaches to try and see if he likes different things but he won't even open his eyes to look at them. The only way we can get him to eat or drink now is using liquid through a syringe which he does not take much of either.
He has this weird behavior where he fully straightens his front legs and will put his head fully pointed UP towards the sky (with eyes closed), or his head is fully DOWN towards the floor (with eyes closed). Never straight ahead. He frequently opens his mouth like he's "yawning" every so often.
The other day I was walking by his cage and could not see him. I found him UPSIDE DOWN in between his food and water bowls. At first I thought he was dead but saw his chest was extending rapidly like he was breathing super fast. (I know reptiles have trouble breathing upside down). I said WHAT ARE YOU DOING? and he quickly flipped over like he was startled and sat right side up again. If he was conscious enough to get startled by my voice, why didn't he just flip himself over?
One more thing I want to mention is the first day when he had energy he noticed we were putting dubia roaches in his tank and he eagerly ran over. He had two roaches but then bit onto a food "pellet" that came with the starter kit and starting shaking his head violently and rubbing his mouth against his food dish. I grabbed the pellet and it was so hard I could not break it with my fingernail. I only put this in there to see if he liked it and because it came with the ZooMed starter kit but now I know better than to ever feed him this food. Ever since this his mouth area has turned black/green and his jaw doesn't look like it closes fully on this side.
Sorry for the long story but I wanted to give a accurate description of what's going on. If anyone has any clues what's going on feel free to share. My only other idea is bringing him to a emergency vet. If anyone wants pics of his enclosure or behavior let me know!