Reptile & Amphibian Forums

im worried my beardie might have impaction. he's allways got his legs extended and he's not very active, only once in a while and he goes to sleep b4 his lights are even out, he's about 5 and a half months old. when i take him out of his cage his active but other than that he just basks alot with his legs extended out

Is he going to the bathroom daily? Can he move his hind legs at all? What kind of substrate do you use? These are the things to consider.

If he can't move his hind legs at all, or isn't going to the bathroom at all, that's when you start to worry, and take him to the vet ASAP.

I will tell you though, extending the hind legs occasionally is pretty normal. Mine both do it all the time, the little one is doing it right now. I think it's just comfortable. If he can still move his hind legs and go to the bathroom normally, then I think you just have a lazy lizard who likes to stretch.
-----
1.0.1 bearded dragons (Ocho / Domo-kun)
0.1 kingsnake (Rio)
1.0 ferret (Playstation)
1.0 cat (Wally)
0.1 dog (Tima)

yes, he is poopin on a regular basis, yeah he sure can move his legs when there's a cricket or worm to catch, i use washed playsand i bought from home depot

thanx a lot, that took a huge load off my chest

If you want to take one extra precaution against impaction.... take the dragon out of it's cage to feed it, so that it can't accidentally swallow the sand. That or eliminate the sand all together. At 5 months he might be ok to swallow a tiny bit of sand here and there, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.
-----
1.0.1 bearded dragons (Ocho / Domo-kun)
0.1 kingsnake (Rio)
1.0 ferret (Playstation)
1.0 cat (Wally)
0.1 dog (Tima)

2 things:

1) a young BD has to do a lot of sheding and eating which takes a lot of energy. so they *must* bask a lot to digest that food and make new tissue (bones, skin and so on)

2) if you see any signs of the young dragon slowing down, eating less etc... take a poop sample in a bag to the vet and have it tested for parasites.

for example my dragon seemed mostly ok but just slowed down and one day got someting stuck in his mouth... so I got him to the vet and found he had a ton of coccida in his gut.

after treatment he almost doubled in size, his appitite went from almost gone to back like when he first started ....
if I had not done that he would still be small and i'd never have figured it out...
-----
This space reserved for future use...