Weird breathing and shedding

[KendrickLamar]

I am beginning to get exhausted from the worry surrounding my little guy and the feeding routine difficulty. The background is I bought him at PetCo. They said he was over two months but I believe he is much younger. Perhaps 5-7 weeks, but he could be younger. The PetCo enclosure was poor. Very large crickets and meal worms, very small, crowded and dirty.

Today after he fed he puffed up his beard area as he took a deep breath and then opened his mouth slightly to exhale. He did this several times. I am not sure if he was upset or if he is having trouble breathing. He has no discharge or anything like that, but he is shedding on his tail. Yesterday he only ate about 8 crickets, which is a lot more than what he ate the previous two days. This morning he went crazy when he saw the cricket cage so he was obviously hungry, but he only ate 3 or 4. So it appears he has an appetite but it is low. I think part of it is the amount of time it takes for us to get a cricket to him.

He was very active yesterday in the evening before going to bed early at 8pm (we turn off the lights at 11pm and on at 9am). This was after we switched him from the zilla coil UVB light to the Reptisun 10.0 tube UVB light.

Am I worrying for no reason or should I take him to the vet? I feel like a trip to the vet while he is so small may stress him out. I have noticed his beard and belly have become a lot darker over the past couple of days. I just wish I knew if it was because we are handling him too much (we take him out each time he feeds and then before bed to remove all crickets) or something else.

 

[destiny1998]

Hi. How long have you had him? If you have only had him for a few days he can still have relocation stress. That can last a week or 2. Since you changed the bulb to a good one I doubt that's the problem. Does he have a bright white basking light?