Brumation

[Dawn White]

I need advice on how to care for bearded dragons during brumation. He is about 10 or 11 months old. He has been acting lethargic, not basking, going to bed an hour early and getting up 4 hours later than normal the next day to go to the cool side , only eating a couple crickets. He has been like that for 3 days now. Current pic below. Thoughts?

 

[Hdrydr31]

Good question.. More than likely he won't fully brumate, typically if it's their first cycle they will just try it out and get super lazy. slow down on the eating, tend not to bask as much, slow to come out of their hides, early to retreat to their hides.. Some will do this for a couple of weeks at a time then will come out and act semi normal then may go down again.. They are all different and no 1 brumation is the same typically..

Let him do what his body is telling him to do, change the lighting to keep the same times the sun comes up and goes down. So you can adjust when your lights come on/off.. Don't let him sleep more than a few days if he's eaten as you don't want the food to rot in his belly so make him poop. Since when they brumate their body systems REALLY slow down so digestion and absorption of foods slows causing foods to rot causing infections. Keep a salad in their in case he does come out and wants to be up again and is hungry it's there. Make sure you take him to your exotic vet and get checked along with a fecal sample.. This should be done in the fall and spring as you don't want a sick dragon or one with parasites to brumate. If they have parasites and brumate the parasites take all the nutrients from the dragon and can cause the dragon to loose what they need to sleep safely and have caused many dragons to not wake A healthy dragon should not loose but a small amount of weight if any. If he checks out and is healthy let him do what his body is telling him to do. If he goes into his hide just peek in on him every few days and make sure he's ok look for breathing (this can be very hard to see) some of us have been known to poke them, touch their feet lol they will either pull away or give you the stink eye for messing with them.. haha

Some people will bring them out to weigh them and see if they want any water then will put them back in their hides.. Some say just let them be...Remember it's harder on us than it is on them... hope that helps

 

[Dawn White]

Thank you very much. This helps ease my mind a little.