Eating once or twice a day

[Brandi]

My Beardie is abou 9-10 months old now, he has always ate his crickets at 9am and again at 5:30pm, lately he seems to only eat in the morning, not in the evening...., is this normal as he gets older?? Also, he very rarely eats his fresh greens and fruits anymore???

Also, he has not shed his skin in several months, is this normal???

Thank yoU!!!!

 

[Germ]

You seem really confused about the age of your BD. April 15 you said 4 months old, 3 weeks later on May 8th, he was 6-7 months old , confusing. If you are using the 10-15minute rule that was suggested to you a few months ago, I would think that you have nothing to worry about. They know better than we do, what they need at any particular point & time. Out function is to make sure that the choices are there for it to make. If it's eating & pooping, generally there is not much to worry about, their appetites will vary throughout their life. Fruits should not be part of the staple diet anyway & be kept only fed as treats.

If it has not shed in the past several months that means it has not been growing & could be cause for concern. Would you please post clear pics of your setup, showing your lighting relationship to the rest of the enclosure. Give us your husbandry specs, such as Basking Spot temp, Cool Side temp, what type of thermometer you are using to take the temps & exactly what points in the enclosure that you are measuring them from? The Brand & type of UVB bulb you are using, what you are using for a heat bulb? Do you provide night heat? What type of substrate. What is it's Day\Night schedule. What is it's regular diet, specifically & how many or how much. How long is your BD?

Answering these questions accurately will help give us an idea of the situation there & a pic is worth a thousand words. This will enable us to more accurately help you out.

Good Luck

 

[Brandi]

I am sorry about being confusing, we got him a week before Christmas, and he was estimated to be 4-6 weeks old!

I will take pics and post them, He is eating and pooping regularly, just not eating as much as he use too!

 

[Brandi]

Spikey is 18 inches long from head to tail, his head and body are 8.5 inches long! His heat lamp and UVB are on from 7:30a.m. till 9:00p.m. his UVB bulb is a 10.0 UVB Exo-Terra Repti Glo, his heat lamp is 150 watt bulb, we have not been using a heat/night lamp at night! I believe you can see in the pics what our temp. gauges are, our heat side is about 95 and his cool side is 65! Spikey mainly eats greens, romaine and spinach, crickets daily, usually about 15 in the morning and evening, but, lately just morning! I appreciate your help and info! Please ask any other questions, and I will try and give you an answer!!! I am concerned now, since he hasn't shed............Thank you!!! There are 4 pics below!

 

[Pat B]

I am curious as to why your hammock is flat against the side???? How is he going to lay in it????

 

[Brandi]

They listed it as a ladder, so my son puts it that way, and he actually will cling to it, up by his heat lamp!

 

[Pat B]

Ok....that is pretty cool! Takes up less room than using it has a hammock!! I might try it and see what the little beardie does....

 

[Brandi]

Hehehe....I might have to try the hammock way and see what he does! Thanks!!!

 

[NaTasha Brinkley]

OOOh... i have a pretty good idea of what Germ is going to say when he sees your pics.... LOL. "Those aren't the right thermometers, you need one witha probe placed right on the basking spot". And I'm not 100% sure about the spinach, but I don't think you are supposed to feed it to beardies b/c of high levels of vitamin A or something which isn't good. Also, romain is a LETTUCE not a dark leafy green. Also also, 65 is too cold for the cool side, it should be more around 80 degrees. The basking temp might need to be higher, too. I know it's supposed to be in the 105 to 110 range for babies, older beardies may be different, but I thought it was supposed to be at least 100 degrees. However, I'm still learning a lot myself, so don't take too much merit in my advice. Let's wait to see what Germ says. : )

 

[Germ]

Although, I do very much like the 'look' of your enclosure, it is pretty. Not very practical, the thing is to get it functional. I'll start by the Hammock\Ladder issue you & Pat were talking about ... The cut of the angles of a Ladder is different than a Hammock & it is smaller. A Hammock can be used as a Ladder, but because of the cut of the angles, a Ladder doesn't work so well as a Hammock, as it doesn't fit well into a corner.

As Natasha mentioned, I am going go into the Thermometers . That type of thermometer does not give you the required temps in the right places. They are also notorious for being very inaccurate\dysfunctional & yours seem to be a prime example of that, with both the temp & the Humidity. Lets start with the humidity readings, the gauge on the left is giving quite high humidity readings that look to be in the 60%-65% range while the gauge on the right, approximately 20" away, is reading 20%. One, the other or both, are giving you false readings. There is absolutely no possible way that in that small of an enclosed area, that there is a 40%-45% difference in relative humidity, impossible in that short distance & small space. My suspicions are, that with the Water bowl in there, the humidity gauge on the left is the closer to being the more accurate one. And for this reason, I recommend remove the pool completely, or at least the water out of it. This is for 2 reasons, if your BD even uses it, the splashing around getting in & out of it will wet the sand, providing a haven for bacteria growth. The second reason is that it will raise the humidity in the enclosure & why I suspect the gauge on the right to be giving the more accurate High reading.

Now the Temperature readings between the two thermometers is an altogether different story. I suspect the the one on the right to be the more accurate one for giving the temp where it is mounted & because the temp readings of the one on the left, is cooler than most people keep their homes in daylight hours & looks like it may not be working at all, unless you live in an igloo. There is no possible way that the temps anywhere in that enclosure is in the low 60s F with a 150W light throwing heat into a 40 gal enclosure. As I said, the thermometer on the right is likely a reasonably accurate temp of the glass at 95F half way up the wall, but your BD is never going to spend any amount of time half way up the back wall, so why take the temps of the glass there. Glass mounted thermometers give more the temp of the glass, which is affected as much by the outside ambient room temps as the inside enclosure environment, so really don't give accurate readings even if working properly. I have no doubts that it is much hotter at the Basking Spot, directly below the heat bulb, where the temps should be read. This is why a digital thermometer with a sensor\probe, that can be placed or attached directly at the Basking Spot is necessary, to get accurate readings at the point that it should be read.

Now we get to the UVB, by the size\length of the Bulb, I am going to guess that it is a 25W Repti-Glo 10.0 & is the right bulb for being mounted above the screen. The problem is that your BD will be receiving very little, if any at all, usable effective UVB at the closest distance that it has access to it. UVB bulbs only have a limited useable, effective range, does not radiate as far as the visible light does. The maximum useable effective range of a NEW, UNFILTERED (No Screen) Repti-Glo 10.0, is 20". A fine screen can & will reflect\block\filter as much as 50% of it's useable strength, seriously cutting down the effective distance. Very little, if any will ever reach the floor. On top of this, as a UVB bulb ages, it's strength dissipates fairly quickly & is why we must regularly replace them. If yours is older than 6 months old it must be replaced, NOW.

That being said, what has to happen is, you must setup a basking spot that is within 8" from the center of the UVB bulb, for it to be effective for 5-6 months when filtered through a screen. Those wide domes you are using are also not a practical choice, as they won't allow the UVB bulb & the Heat bulb to be close enough to each other, to both cover the Basking Spot effectively & this has to happen.

Now to the shedding or lack of ... You have a nice, large, beautiful BD for it's age. I commend you on that

. This could very well be why it hasn't been growing & shedding lately. I would suspect that it went through some serious growth spurts & must have been shedding quite often, but then reached it's plateau, slowed or stopped growing & is why it hasn't shed for some time now. It will quite likely grow a bit more, maybe an inch or 2, possibly more. But this will likely only happen over the next 3 to 4 months, as it has pretty much already reached full size early & is also likely why it is not necessary for it to require as much protein any more, therefore the reduction in appetite. So I don't believe you have anything to worry about because it has been a long time since it last shed or the drop in appetite. It also doesn't sound like you have actually kept a record of when it shed last, it may not be quite as long as it seems. It will shed when it is ready too, not much you can do to induce a shed anyway, other than bring your husbandry & set up to par.

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Example of a Basic Setup: Showing the recommended Basic requirements, proper Temperatures & the points at which they should be measured from, in Red & the optional choices that are actually used in this particular example enclosure, in Black.​

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Read more: http://www.beardeddragonforum.com/index.php?threads/basic-bd-care-sheet-a-place-to-start.5177/#ixzz23OsLoS5a​

I know like it sounds like I'm really picking your setup apart, but these changes are necessary to provide for your BD, in order for it to have a long & healthy life. By the way, the Temp Gun type Thermometer that I use, is not suitable for use in a full screened top enclosure, in that instance, as previously mentioned, a digital with a sensor\probe is needed. Example of one Digital type ...

Now to your greens feeding menu ... Romaine Lettuce does contain a small amount of Calcium, but like most greens with the word 'Lettuce' in the name, very little else, as it is mostly moisture. Spinach is also not the best of choices, as it is quite high in Vit A, goitrogens & oxalates that has been said to bind their calcium intake & can render the majority of it unusable. Better choices are dark leafy greens, such as Collard Greens (High Calcium to Phosphorous ratio), Mustard Greens, Dandelion Greens & Turnip Greens, to name a few. Please refer to the Nutrition Chart below for a very good color coded chart of what is good & not so Good to feed.

A few good links that you may find quite helpful & informative ...

Basic BD Care Sheet - A Place To Start

Bearded Dragon --- Exclusive Care Info Library

Beautiful Dragons Nutrition Chart

Is Bearded Dragon Co-habitation a good plan?

Holy Crap! I think I wrote a book!!! Hope you will take at least some of this to heart, as it is all in the best interest of your Beautiful BD ...

Good Luck

 

[Brandi]

Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!! I take it all to heart, I am very attached to this Beautiful BD!! I dont think you are picking my set up apart, I am a first time BD owner and want to do it right so he lives a long healthy life! I will for sure make the changes I need!! What size fixtures do you recommend for the heat and uvb....??? Can I buy the digital probe therometer at the pet store??? I appreciate all the time you are taking in helping me, pet stores are kind of useless when it comes to knowledgeable people/info! Thank you again, so very much!!

 

[Germ]

Yes you likely can get a digital thermometer at the petstore, if I'm not mistaken, they are reasonably priced at Walmart & found in their pet department, even if they are listed for fish tanks, they are the same thing.

For lamp fixtures something similar to these would work much better, these particular ones are rated for 100 watts ... If you raise your basking spot & measure your temps in the right places, I am reasonably sure that you will not need the 150 watt bulb to provide the proper heat.

 

[Brandi]

Great, thank you!! When you say raise the basking spot, do you mean so he can climp up closer to the lamp/heat source???

 

[Brandi]

Also - what do you recommend for the bottom of their homes????

 

[Germ]

Yes on the raising or using a higher basking spot so it can get closer to the UVB bulb, then adjust the the type & wattage of heat bulb accordingly. What is in there, appears to be Play Sand, or Repti-Sand if it is, that is fine. If it happens to be Crushed Walnut Shell or Calcium-Sand, that is not good & should be removed.

 

[Brandi]

Ok, cool! Thank you so much!! It is Repti-sand!