So I have a 1 year 4 month old dragon, Pippin. I believe Pippin is female, though I don't know for certain. Tank is about 70 gal, warm/basking side stays around 90, cool around 60-70. Currently she is underweight, and has a very hard time with food intake. Unfortunately our vet is closed currently due to a Covid-19 outbreak, so I can't take her in to get looked at. She has always had a problem with eating but recently it has become little to no food intake. I suspected for a while she might be burmating, but upon offering food about once a week (dried mealworms, as keeping crickets has been hard with such a sporadic diet) she would sometimes eat absolutely ravenously. Now she won't eat anything at all. I don't quite know if this is burmation or a health problem, because she has had a similar problem the whole time I've had her.
Pippin has always had problems with eating vegetables. Every time I try to break her into them, she just will not do it. She will go a long time without eating, to the point where I get concerned about restricting further, and leave the veggies sitting there every time. I try a variety (yellow squash, butternut squash, green beans, broccoli, kale, collard greens, carrots) and nothing sticks, even when I remove protein from her diet and restrict to just vegetables. She will only eat crickets, dried mealworms, and hornworm, so crickets have made up most of her diet. She will no longer get up to chase the crickets herself, and when she does try, she has trouble catching them as though she cannot see them or is too tired to catch them.
She also doesn't bask anymore, starting around July (5 months ago). She will sit under a shade I have on the basking side of the tank and sleep all day. I've been ensuring the temperature is at least 80, usually around 90F. When I thought she might be burmating was when she moved herself under a hide on the cool side of the tank. I moved her once to weigh her, and she never went back under the hide, she just stayed where I placed her under the warm side hide. She also does not sleep, she remains awake .
Im concerned about her health, because I 1)cannot tell if she is going through burmation 2) am concerned about her eating habits overall. What can I do to help her? How can I get her energy up enough for her to be an active, happy, healthy lizard?
Pippin has always had problems with eating vegetables. Every time I try to break her into them, she just will not do it. She will go a long time without eating, to the point where I get concerned about restricting further, and leave the veggies sitting there every time. I try a variety (yellow squash, butternut squash, green beans, broccoli, kale, collard greens, carrots) and nothing sticks, even when I remove protein from her diet and restrict to just vegetables. She will only eat crickets, dried mealworms, and hornworm, so crickets have made up most of her diet. She will no longer get up to chase the crickets herself, and when she does try, she has trouble catching them as though she cannot see them or is too tired to catch them.
She also doesn't bask anymore, starting around July (5 months ago). She will sit under a shade I have on the basking side of the tank and sleep all day. I've been ensuring the temperature is at least 80, usually around 90F. When I thought she might be burmating was when she moved herself under a hide on the cool side of the tank. I moved her once to weigh her, and she never went back under the hide, she just stayed where I placed her under the warm side hide. She also does not sleep, she remains awake .
Im concerned about her health, because I 1)cannot tell if she is going through burmation 2) am concerned about her eating habits overall. What can I do to help her? How can I get her energy up enough for her to be an active, happy, healthy lizard?
