Brumating?

[Lesw]

Hi everyone, we have a rankins that's about 1 year old, his behavior has been normal up until the last couple of weeks when he suddenly started to move away from the warm part of the terrarium and usually end up in a cold corner. We're constantly moving him back to the warmth whenever we find him in the cold because his body is usually very cold and we're not sure he has the energy to get back to the heat. Apart from this behavior he is still eating normally.

Is this a sign of brumation?

Thanks

 

[Dwayne]

I ask this because I have a very large tank in height and size. I felt because of how tall it is, and where his basking spot is, that he needs more. I positioned it according to the UVB chart and its about 20+ inches from his basking spot. If this is too much UVB then I can adjust down but I'm just asking for insight.

Also I have his hottest spot in the tank at 55 Degrees but his basking spot is 41 and 35 degrees on the cool side during the day. I'm confident that these are his typical temperatures and if he wanted a little more heat, he can get it if he wants it.

I say all of that to say this..... believe he is going through brumation but not entirely sure. He has been acting sluggish, his eyes are barely open sometimes, he doesn't want to eat a single thing and hasn't ate anything since last week. He was twitching a couple of time; which has stopped. He still wants to bask but mainly for about 1-2hrs once we get home. I have a camera and I check on him quite a bit during the day to see his routine but mainly just staying on the cool side.

Any thoughts? I don't think he is sick or anything and I'm not too concerned as I am going to the vet tomorrow, but just double checking to see what you might think!

I have attached a picture of my old setup as this is all I could find currently on my phone.

 

[Dwayne]

His Temperatures are in Celsius not Fahrenheit.

I totally get the UVB aspect though.

Should I get rid of the tank or just fix it better?

 

[Dwayne]

55 Degrees is the hottest it gets and that converts to 131 Degrees Farenheit

 

[Dwayne]

Its taken with a heat gun, and no its not, its not 131. I meant it can get that hot but I have a thing that turns it off when it does. His temps are usually 110-115 degrees. I'm in Canada.

 

[Roo’s Mom]

I have a question about Brumation, should my beardie be covered with some sort of blanket during brumation and how many hours a day should he have the heat light and the UV light turned on. Sorry, I couldn’t figure out how to start a new conversation.

 

[Roo’s Mom]

I have a question about Brumation, should my beardie be covered with some sort of blanket during brumation and how many hours a day should he have the heat light and the UV light turned on. Sorry, I couldn’t figure out how to start a new conversation.

 

[Roo’s Mom]

No, he is a year old, not a baby. I’m sure he is brumation, he’s bee sleeping in a hideout for about 5 days now. I just didn’t know if he needed the UV light since he would be covered up anyway. Thanks for the info, there are so many different opinions out there on this subject.

 

[Lesw]

It could be --- can you post your tank and lighting --- he should be basking if hes eating -- it is not good for them to eat and not bask --- what are his basking temps and how are you taking them ? infrared heat gun stick ons or digital probe?

Hi, very sorry that I didn't respond to you the last time because our Rankins (actually a Pagona Henrylawsoni) seemed to have changed his behavior back to almost normal but I should have responded as it was rude of me, so I apologise.


But we have another problem now regarding appetite so this time I include full details, I hope.

All glass terrarium with inbuilt 3d rock from local terrarium/reptile specialist.

Terrarium is 100cms X 50cms X 40cms although because of the inbuilt 3D rock structure actual depth is around 30cms.

Inbuilt rock structure has 3 levels at the left and right hand sides but on the right the middle level is lower.

Top level left is at 10cms from heat lamp and 20cms from UV TL (temps are 45°-50°C)
Middle level left is at 25cms from heat and UV TL (temps are 32°-42°C)
Lower level left is at 50cms from heat and UV TL (temps are 25°C)

Top level right is at 15cms from UV TL (temps are 27°C)
Middle level right is 40cms from UV TL (temps are 25°C)
Lower level right is 50cms from UV TL (temps are 24°C)

Temps taken with IR temperature gun and checked against known reference.

Lighting is at the left hand side is a 80W basking Spot from Reptech 75W
the middle and right hand side are two Zoo Med Reptisun 10.0 T5HO UVB 30 cm 15W TL lamps.

Henry is 1 year old 24cms tip of tail to nose and weighs 92grams.

His diet has been mainly dubias as he is still very reluctant to eat vegetables despite continuous attempts.

After my first post we had tried moving him every time we found him in the cold and he slowly seemed to be coming out of it and was getting back to normal.

However, in the last few weeks his appetite has slowly decreased to the point now where it's non existent. He is still drinking and I've been giving him Fluker's Repta+Boost in an attempt to encourage his appetite. We keep trying to tempt him with dubias, vegetables, blueberries but no luck.

He had been pooing normally but with the decreased appetite the poos have become less often and smaller in size to the point where they are now almost tiny, although we didn't see anything unusual when he was producing them.

He basks a lot but can still be active, seems quieter than before but still fairly normal behavior apart from the appetite.

I'll upload 3 photos following this text, the first is the terrarium although we've changed the lighting slightly since this was taken as the basking spot is now on the left and UV TLs on the right.
The second photo shows "Henry" on his basking spot on the left middle ledge.
The last photo is a shot down the terrarium showing the two TL UV lamps.

Any comments, advice would be appreciated
Thanks

 

[Lesw]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Normally he stays on the left hand middle ledge. I've seen him on the top left a couple of times but it's not long before he's gaping and he moves again. As for the top right under the TLs, I've only seen him go there to get across the top of the terrarium followed by a decent at the other side. I did originally have the TLs behind a mesh which you can see in the photos but as the lamps are now about 6 months old I was worried he wasn't getting enough UV so I recently cut the grill away (but I can replace it if necessary).

Most of the greens mentioned are difficult to obtain here (Netherlands) he used to like andijve but he never ate much and everything else we tried he ignored even when we stopped feeding him insects for a while. When we got him he was on crickets but we had two sessions when he got parasites and then he lost interest in the crickets so we started with the dubia, which he loved. He's has phoenix worms before which again he loved at first but later ignored. By the way I forgot to add we dust all insects with Reptical.

As for the poop, was never nice smelling but never that bad. Normal according to photos on internet with urate at the end. Mooist but not runny.

As you mention we only had parasite problems when he was on crickets and I've heard dubias are less likely to have parasites.

Will keep trying to get him interested and will source out some alternative feeding option and if necessary it will have to be a trip to the vets.

Thanks again

 

[Lesw]

No worries, he's still happy to drink water in droplets from a syringe which I do several times a day. Bathing, I've done it more often over the last week or so to try to encourage poops along with the occasional drop of olive oil. But I've read that bathing Rankins isn't always so good for them so I've only done it every now and then.

I'm still a little concerned about you comments over the TL UV lamp closeness. Do you think I should replace the mesh over the lamps, it will probably half the UV reaching him or put some kind of shade to block UV to the top ledge. I'm just worried if I do that, he'll go up there and not get UV.

When we first got this terrarium it was equipped with 2 sockets left & right and we were advised to use an HID UV lamp for combined basking/UV and just put a lower output lamp in the other side for a cooler temp. However, we found out the UV levels & temps were incredibly high directly under the HID so he avoided it and the HID UV created such a narrow spread in the terrarium that anywhere else he wasn't getting any UV at all which is why we changed the lighting to TL after research.

Thanks by the way, excellent link you gave me for beautifuldragons nutrition it will be very useful.

 

[Lesw]

I think you meant HID, I think other companies make these but the one recommended by the terrarium specialist was from Reptech a Dutch company I believe. The specialist swear by them and have been so impressed that they replaced most of their own reptile lighting with this type but unfortunately it didn't work out for us.

Here's the lamp description from the Reptaech website (original was in Dutch so I translated it)


Reptech HID UV lamp 50watt
The Reptech HID UV lamp is based on the High Intensity Discharge technology with optimum UV radiation. Ideal lighting for amphibians, reptiles and birds. Pure daylight (5000K) has a full light spectrum with an essential ratio of UV radiation (UVA / UVB) that guarantees appetite, activity, colors, calcium absorption by making vitamin D3. Due to the lamp there is a considerable increase in the breeding success.

The Reptech HID UV lamp ensures high UV stability with optimum quality compared to other lighting such as fluorescent lamps and UV energy-saving lamps.


Unfortunately the lamps are quite expensive and require an additional ballast to run which also adds to the cost.

As for the top ledge, unfortunately it's part of the back wall and cannot be removed. I'll see how it goes but maybe I can come up with a way to stop him going up there.

 

[Lesw]

TL stands for Tube Luminescent / Fluorescent (Light) so just standard Fluorescent lighting and the research was just reading all I could from recommendations in setting up terrariums.

 

[Lesw]

And when I say "standard Fluorescent lighting" I mean of course UV Fluorescent.

 

[Lesw]

He had a poo this morning, tiny about 1cm brown/black & 0,5cm urate perfectly formed, just very small but then again he's not been eating. He has been drinking though, so I would have expected the urate would have been more or maybe they don't correlate that way.

Because of the poo I assume I can rule out a blockage or could that still be an issue although I've seen no other signs of any kind of impaction.

Apart from that he's active, glass surfing sometimes, basking others and being his usual inquisitive self, but he's still not interested in eating. If I show him food he licks his lips but then shows disinterest.

 

[Lesw]

Nothing voluntarily, if pushed he'll reluctantly accept about 1 cc of Flukers Repta-boost from a syringe which is about a third of the amount he should eat at his weight. I will keep monitoring his weight and keep offering food, his weight has dropped a little to 89 grams at the moment so he's loosing about 2 grams per day.

 

[Lesw]

Parasite test being done, will get results over an hour or two. Also obtained small quantities of waxworms, crickets & silkworms just to test his appetite as I know they're not staples.

He just snapped up two small waxworms so he seemed to like that idea.

However, I have a question: He's always had what seems a strange eating habit in the last few months even when in good health and it's the same regardless of it being dubias, crickets or worms.

He will happily eat two of whatever very hungrily but then just ignore more.

Is this normal for Pagonas in general?

 

[Lesw]

Thanks again for the advice. By the way the test came up squeaky clean, so at least it's not parasites.

 

[Lesw]

No I just dropped the poo sample off with reception so nothing more discussed that the parasite check. I assume blood work will have to be discussed along with a full checkup with their reptile specialist which requires an appointment, probably at the earliest sometime next week.

Weight today was 90 grams, so he's put a gram back but with these small differences, hydration even having a poo can make a weight difference. The 2 gram loss was a very rough estimate, I had been only been weighing him occasionally over the last few weeks and only seriously now his food intake has dropped to such a low level. I am now monitoring his intake/weight daily and will see how it goes over the weekend.

He's eaten another 2 waxworms, yes I know they're only "candy" but if it will stimulate him to eat other things it's heading in the right direction. I tried the silkworms but he closed his eyes. Coud be he just wasn't interested at that moment so will keep trying.

 

[Lesw]

Today, only one silkworm and a small piece of "Rapashy bug pie". Weight is static at 90 grams. Have noticed small amount of shed under mouth and top of chest, I know this has impacted his appetite in the past but maybe this coupled with the brumation behavior before has had an effect.
Anyway I will keep monitoring over weekend and make an appointment if appetite doesn't significantly improve.