Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My beardie,Ramses, has been acting different these past few days. He hass been spending more time in his cave and has not been eating as much. He'll usually eat 5-6 crickets a day, he used to eat 10-15. He's never eaten alot of greens, but now he'll only eat them if I hand feed him. He's about a year old and he's 18 inches long. He's been pooping normally though, about once a day.

For Example: A couple days ago I got up and he was in his cave, he stayed in there for almost 3 days until I pulled him out and set him on his basking log. By the end of the day he was back in his cave.
Yesterday I took a picture of him when he was just laying on the ground sleeping near his basking log, and today, this morning, he was still on the exact same position. He seems to still be very alert andwhen I take him out he walks around a bit. But when he's in his cage he just dosn't do much of anything. Am I overreacting? Is he just extra tired? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Sorry about the long post
Emily

Wow Emily...sounds like my gal! See my "scared beardie" thread. It may help!

Hey Niddy, thanks! I did read your thread and this...

"gotta pull her out of her cave every day up to her basking spot. (otherwise she'll stay in there all day...she's always sooo cold!) She even hates this (the moving part). Once she's there, she'll bask for the rest of the day. Any suggestions for this? "

...sounds exactally like him!(except he doesn't mind very much when I move him)

so is the "take away his hide" what I should do?

> > > "so is the "take away his hide" what I should do?"

Hi Emily!
No, that's not what niddy was saying. She was commenting (practically in awe) about how Ramses' symptoms are identical to her beardie's, Bindy.

Troubleshooting 101
One of the first things you do when troubleshooting something is look back to see what changes were made within a day or two of the onset of the subject's change.

In your case, were there any visible changes made to Ramses' setup (basking light, temperatures, etc...), change of food that you feed him, etc...?

Look for a trigger point. Once you find this, then you will know how to go about getting him back to his ol' self.

The removal of the hide in niddy's situation was just an extra step to force her beardie into getting her body temperature up to the ideal temperature range. It may well be a good idea for you to do the same thing but ideally you want Ramses to make that choice on his own, not having to force it. Since your situation hasn't been going on as long as niddy's I'd hold off on removing the hide, focusing more on "why" it doesn't want to bask in the basking spot you've provided.

It took quite awhile to come up with the conclusion drawn in niddy's case. Me & here discussed it for several weeks before I told her to join here to enlist the help of others. It was a long, draw-out, process of elimination, in her case. And even still we were unable to pinpoint an exact cause, but niddy will get that figured out because she's addressing some cage furniture theories, one-by-one.

You said he was pooping normally, does this mean that his poop isn't runny or really stinky?

Take your time and try to come up with any kind of changes in his environment that took place within a day or so of the time he started acting different. It could be something as simple & not obvious as the temperature of the room his setup is in being warmer than usual.

Is there more traffic in his area?
Switch from one substrate to another?
New beardie's in the same room?
Double-check cage ambient temps & basking spot temps. Make sure he's not dehydrated.

Hang in there!
HH
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

Dumb question.....Do beardies hybernate?

They Brumate which is about the same thing. Usually starts in late November till late Feb. or early March. But how long really changes from dragon to dragon. Some never do. Many books and people say they don't the first year but you never know. I had one brumate last year for 4 months and she was only 4 1/2 months old (16", 240 gram) when she started.

I see that BDlvr already answered your "not so dumb" question.

Brumation is sort of a type of hibernation. In referrence to Bearded Dragons, it's also known as "winter shutdown." It muddles this ol' mind of mine if I try to get much more detailed than that. Brumation (brumate), I'm pretty sure, is reptile specific, maybe even including amphibians, too.

The word 'brumate" is not found in typical dictionaries, only in scientific dictionaries with biology/herpetology definitions.

Here's a definition from: Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

"Brumation: The "cooling" a snake by lowering its temperature for usually 2 to 4 months to approximate conditions during the winter period. This is not the same as the true hibernation of mammals. Brumation triggers the physical changes that stimulate egg production in females, sperm production in males and the breeding response necessary for successful captive propagation."

For a mind boggling view of hibernation, which gets into some serious detail about poikilotherms, ectotherms, endotherms, etc..., click the following link & then follow the links within it. It really is interesting and very informative, but deep.
www.answers.com/topic/hibernation?cat=technology

Catch ya later!
HH
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

Is your lighting on a timer? Is it 14 on and 10 off? The only thing I thought of to add to HH's post.

Wow, guys thanks so much for all yor help! Now to answer a few questions...
Ramses has been in the same cage for the whole time I've had him, about 4 months. Nothing in there has changed except that about a month ago my old UVB light burnt out and I got a new one. The new one doesn't get the cage quite as hot as the old one did. At it's hottest th old one got the hot part of the cage to about 115. The new one, at it's very hottest gets it to about 109. Actually the "cool" part of the cage is still a bit too warm, upper 80s and sometimes even the very low 90s. I'm still working on that because it was fine with the other light.
The onlty change in his feeding was that now he's eating 1" crickets not 1/2 or 3/4 as before.
I have no other beardies and not many people come in my room very often(not sure why...maybe cause it's messy and full of creatures...)
Bdlvr, I don't have a timer but his lights are on for 13-14 hours a day
did I miss anything?

Thanks again guys!

Emily

Emily,
You need to get the those temeratures down, ASAP. The basking area for adult beardies should be 100 - 105 degrees and the cool end should be between 80 - 85.

Don't take away his hide. In fact, I'd put the hide as far on the cool end as I could, for the time being, at least.

Sounds like Ramses is trying to escape the heat or the light, maybe even both. (I can hear some people saying, "Well, duh! The light's producing heat so of course the beardie is trying to get away from both, the two are one." Not so fast, read on.)

You said that you changed the UVB bulb and said that the UVB bulb produces heat. If it is actually a UVB bulb that produces that much heat, its a mercury vapor bulb.

If mercury vapor bulbs are placed too close to an animal the UVB rays can be too intense, sometimes causing eye problems, among other things. If this is the case, Ramses may be able to handle the heat from the bulb, at least for short periods of time, but not the intensity of the light rays.

If, by chance, you're mistaken on the bulb type, it could be one of the "Full Spectrum" spot lights commonly sold for lizards. ESU makes one and I can't think of another brand right off hand. They generally come in different wattages, like: 60-watt, 75-watt, 100-watt.

These bulbs cause a lot of confusion because of their "Full Spectrum" label. They're not actually full spectrum, they only produce UVA, not UVA & UVB. These bulbs are commonly used for basking sites which also acts as a source for overall heat.

If all of that is elementary to you, I apologize, I didn't intend to insult your intelligence. However, all of that info isn't in vain as there will undoubtedly be someone reading in the background that wasn't aware of it.

Anyway, back to Ramses:
With such high temps in his cage its important to make sure he's not deydrated. A couple of good 30-minute soaks should do the trick.

At his age & size, full-grown crickets won't be too big. That is, as long as you're not feeding him "Texas-style giant jumbo gumbo extra large" crickets that are 5-inches long. LOL!

Get yourself one of those $6 timers from just about anywhere (except from a petstore where it will cost you at least twice that). You'll be soooooooooo glad you did.

Quote - "I have no other beardies and not many people come in my room very often(not sure why...maybe cause it's messy and full of creatures...)" - Unquote

Ha! Ha! Your room? Heck, that sounds like my house. LOL!

Here's you a good care sheet, probably the best one out there, in my opinion, at least.
www.dachiu.com/care/abeard.html

Have a good one!
HH
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

wow, thanks alot HH!

the temps: I think the temp problem can easily be fixed as I am using two lights. One is a 100 watt Powersun MV bulb, the other is a normal house light bulb. I was using both to keep the tamps up. I knew that for babies they needed to be hotter(115) but I wasn't sure when they stopped being babies. I think I said he's a year old, but He's closer to 10 months if that makes a big difference at all. And the normal high of the day is 105, only if it's really warm outside(and therefore in my room, since I'm upstairs) do the temps get to 109ish. So what should the high be?
Anyway, back to the lights, I bet if I turn off the normal light temps would go down, and I'll soak him tonight. He has a water dish in his cage 24/7 but the only time I have ever seen him use it was the day I brought him home from the expo.
What is a good way to tell if he is in need of water?

Sadly enough my parents wont let me expand out of my bedroom, however, to help my cause I did end up moving my bed into my walk-in closet. Now I have more room for cages!

You are really helping alot, thanks!
Emily

First off, I'll post an excerpt about life stages from "The Bearded Dragon Manual" by - Vosjoli, Mailloux, Donoghue, Kilngenberg & Cole:

Hatchling/Juvenile: Birth to about 8 inches in length.
Subadult: 8 inches to adult. (aprox. 12in.)
Sexual Onset/Young Adult: 12 - 16 inches. This stage lasts through the first three years of breeding.
Mature Adult: Fourth year of breeding until 6 - 7yrs old.
Old Age: Usually by by 6 - 7yrs.
Pages referrenced: pg. 13 - 15

This is a really good book that I think every beardie owner should have.

So you do have a mercury vapor UVB. I'm pretty much ignorant about 'em due to my reluctance to try new things. Yeah, I know they're not exactly new, but neither am I, (hint, hint) (old school). LOL! Just check to make sure the distance from the basking spot is within recommended range. I don't know where to tell you to find that info right off hand.

Depending on the wattage of your incandescent, you might can use a lower wattage instead of completely eliminating it. Since we've not reached the heart of summer yet I'd expect those temps to climb a tad bit more before they start to go down on their own, as far as your room's ambient temp goes. But there again, that depends on your A/C (air conditioner) settings, too.

I feel that the only place your cage should reach temps above 105 is directly in the beam of the basking site, clsoest to the light, away from any surface or low-level ambient temp. 105, maybe 107, max. I feel 109 is too high for adults. Fine for babies, juvies, like you said, but not for adults. One of the factors, or costs, of using mercury vapor UVBs can be the difficulty in achieving good basking temps without getting too high ambient temps. It's usually not a problem if the enclosure is large enough, but few are.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not meaning to bad-mouth mercury vapor UVBs, some people swear by them, love 'em. They just throw several wrenches in this o' hillbilly's old school of thoughts. Ha!

My setups are geared towards basking spot temps. I use one spot or flood type bulb per setup for both basking & overall heat. My basking site for my 10-month old male beardie is 105. Right now I'm using a 65-watt flood light aimed at a rock for a basking site. That puts the ambient temperature on the hot end (outside of basking beams) to about 95. The cool end is 80 - 82. That's just what works for this setup I'm using for this beardie (tank size, ambient temp of room, distance from basking light to basking surface, etc...).

There are even some setups that work well with just a single incandescent bulb placed near a basking rock or limb. Of course, this calls for the bulb to be placed inside the enclosure, which for most setups, can be an inconvenience.

Sorry about all the rambling there. I'll try to stay on course from here on out.

Water dish:
Heh, this is something that I think our beardies are scratching their heads about, wondering why we keep putting a bowl of water in their desert. Ha! Out of 4 beardies, I've only seen ONE drink from a dish. My adult male used to soak & defecate in his dish for a few months when he was younger, so I know that he benefited from it some.

Some people mist the beardies, some mist the walls for the beardies to lick, some use an eye-dropper, and some just soak their beardies for 30 minutes a few times per week and don't even bother with a water dish in their cage.

I like using an eye-dropper. By placing a few drops on the end of its nose, it lets me know if its in need or desire of water. Usually I'll sit there & slowly squeeze out a drop at a time for them to lick until they walk away.

Another thing to consider about getting a timer: Not only does it make it easier on you so that you don't have to manually do it, it turns the lights on/off at consistent times, making it better for the reptiles. The lights come on at 7:00 am day after day, not 7:00 am one day, 7:30 the next, etc...

You're sleeping in your closet in order to have more cage room? Wow! You're gonna make some reptile man a FINE wife some day. LOL! Will you talk to my wife about it? Ha! Ha! My wife told me that the best she'd do would be to put me & my reptiles out the door. I think she meant the door going to the outside, not the closet.

Take care!
HH
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

Well, I have MVB and am still not a believer in them. But anyway, they need to be a minimum of 18" from the animal. Zoo Med sells a stand that is adjustable so that you can move the light higher/lower. A timer is very important. Most of the way that animals sense the changing of the seasons is by the change in the day lengths. In your case the day lengths are kinda random (within reason obviously) and may be confusing your dragon. Possibly causing an early brumation.

Like HH said you need to get those temps down. I assume that you have him in a cage that is too small. I find it difficult to get temps. right on even in a 4' x 2' enclosure which is the minimum recommended size for an adult. The ambient temp. on the HOT side should be high 80's to the very low 90's. Away from the spot beam mine run about 88, nearer to the beam 91. So your cool side temps. are actually warmer than my hot side. With your setup he has no ability to cool down and thermoregulate.

I think the temps. are your primary problem and should be corrected right away. He's hiding and not eating because he is just plain too hot.

yeah! so temps are the problem, that should be realitivly easy to fix.
If I turn off the other light(oh, and I looked on the box of my MV bulb and it is 160 watts) then the hot temp is 99, As far as I can tell thats the closest he can get to the bulb, which is almost exactally 18inches from the bulb. And he only goes there sometimes. His fav. place to bask is about 25 inches from the bulb.

His cool temps, with out the house bulb are aound 86, insidehis cave its a bit cooler. Will this work?
his cage is 2.5 ft. tall with 4' by 2' floor space. My amazing Dad made the whole cage. It open at the to(wich makes it a bit difficult to clean, but I have discovered that since I can fit inside the cage cleaning has become easier)It is all wood with a glass front and half of the top is glass. Maybe I can get a picture, I'll try.

The reasoin I use MVB is because there is a box that sits ontop of the cage and inside are two places to screw in light bulbs. So I can't buy the long tube bulbs, there is no where to put them. Does that make sense?

So, I'll go with the new temps and see how things go, unless there are any objections...?

Thanks a million HH and BDlvr, from me and Ramses!

It sounds to me that you need some cool side ventilation. Mine have a solid top with sliding glass doors and in the summer I slide the doors open somewhat and put a piece of a shelf in to vent the cool side more, otherwise it would be too hot like yours. I'm attached a pic. so you can see. Since yours is made of wood maybe your dad could cut a hole on the cool side and then install something like a heat vent cover.

Tough to say on the 86 thing. I'd be unhappy with that but it may be the best you can get. If you don't A/C and the room temp. is high seventies or low eighties then you'll never get it down to 81ish.

Since your enclosure is 30" tall I'd install a 4' fluorescent fixture inside on the back wall 20" or so up from the substrate and use a Zoo Med Reptisun 10.0. A 4' fluorescent is only 40 watt so you will save over the 160 watt MVB and it will give overall better lighting to your whole cage. Sounds like right now there is no lighting on the cool side. Then you can use a regular flood light bulb to provide hot side temps.

I'm working on the timer thing and I'll talk to my dad about a vent, I'm sure he could do it. I've got the cool side down to 83 with the hot still at about 100. Thanks for all your help!

Emily

Glad to hear you're making some progress, just keep chipping away at it. I've got confidence that you'll figure something out soon. At least you've given him a lower temperature range to choose from.

I've got a hunch that you're most likely going to have to install some vents or do something about your MV/UVB, one. If its an all-enclosed cage you might can use a well-positioned room fan to get the surrounding temps a tad lower. Maybe, maybe not.

I can't remember whether or not your cage has any vents now, if not, I would put a few on every side possible. I'd rather close off a vent if its not needed than not have one when needed, like now.

So I don't vent too much, I'll hold off on venting about vents. If you decide that you want to vent, let me know & I'll vent about your venting options. (Heh, that was a brain teaser for me.) I'm almost finished gathering materials to start building several cages for beardies, snakes, monitors, and a few other creatures, so I've learned a lot about what's out there to choose from. Which reminds me, tell your dad I might need him to come give me a hand.

Take care!
HH
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

Just stopping by to see how things are going for Ramses & yourself.

take care!
HH
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

That's a nice looking enclosure, BDlvr. How do you like the angled front versus the traditional flat ones. Any difference in the way the sliding glass doors function?
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

The angled front is great because the dragons don't climb the glass. I got the idea from Rob Dachiu, Dachiu.com, when I was last at his and Vickie's place. No problems with the glass sliding at all. My angle is 75 degrees. The other thing is they look great when stacked. I'll post a pic. when they're all done. Another week to 10 days. Biggest problem is that work keeps getting in the way of my personal projects. lol.

You did a nice job on them. Can't wait to see the pics of the latest ones. Looks like the main material is melamine,is the front 3/4-inch thick?

I bought 2 sheets of 3/4 melamine & 9 sheets of 3/4 cabinet-grade plywood to build cages with. I love natural wood but also like the less work that you have with melamine.

> > > "Biggest problem is that work keeps getting in the way of my personal projects. lol."

LOL! How well I know! The cages I'll be building have been in the plans for nearly a year and a few of them are a few months past "needed."

I think it would be a good idea for me to start a thread on cage building so I don't distract from Emily's situation here. I've got a few Qs I'd like to ask you since you've "been there, done that." Keep an eye for it.

Catch ya later!

Emily,
Sorry for hijacking your thread! Ha!

Later!
HH
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

The fronts are 3/4" composite board, secured with a power nailer and then painted. The best part is the "cricket corral", another Rob Dachiu idea. It's an area along the front edge surrounded by 2 1/2" boards covered with aluminum tape that the crickets can't climb and has a shelf liner substrate. The rest on the cage is sand.

I built the prototype in April in my family room. Have been trying to get the others done since then. lol. The prototype is the one pictured with the dragons in it and I am making a few changes in the final design. Right now there are 3 others almost completed. 2 in the family room and 1 in the living room. Can't wait to get my house back. lol. Had to rework my terrariums to make space for them so that took some time. The shelves that hold up the light hoods above the terrariums are all custom made by me from poplar and stained.