Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a small bearded dragon, he is something like 8 months..well...maybe a little younger, or older. I'm not sure exactly. I bought him in October of Last year, and he was probably normal size for selling. Anyway, I am concerned about him. He hasn't grown a whole lot. He is around 8-9 inches head to tail. He eats just fine, he's in fact a little pig, he will eat and eat and eat. He loves veggies more than crickets for some reason and I try to supply him with as much as I can...which is more than enough for him. From what I know, his stool looks pretty normal. Its almost all black with a little white tip. He hasn't had any strange bowel movements, except when I change something in his diet and he doesn't like it. He's active, he doesn't act sick at all, and he hasn't grown in a long time. He sheds normally, though he seems to disregard his tail sometimes, so I help him.
What could cause him not to grow? I would assume if he had some sort of parasite or disease he would show signs by now. His stool just looks to normal. Is it possible that I don't have a Beardie at all and a Rankin's instead? He puffs up some times, but I don't think I have seen him use the typical "beardie threat" stance. His neck just blows up with air so he looks big, but it doens't fan out like a beard.

Thanks for any help you can provide,
Shaun

ya know, when carrick was just a young guy, he ate great, acted normal and healthy, even had good stools, but his growth was very slow, he went from growing like a weed to almost stopping completely, i took him in for a routine exam and fecal and the vet said he had never seen such a large coccidia load ever, needless to say we had to treat him. So sometimes ya just never know, he showed no sign aside from the slow down in growth, that he was loaded with coccidia, he ate like a pig, looked wonderful, but it was still there, so it is a possibility with your dragon. Also, what are you feeding? do yousupplement with calcium with D3 and a good multivitamin? what kind of veggies do you serve? what proteins does he get? what kind of lighting do you have ? that might help in taking a guess.

Some dragons do just stay small, its just how it is, due to whatever factor from when he was developing in an egg till now, some have said that inbreeding can be a cause of smallness also, you can ask around the board about it, i know some have good information on this.

Hope that this helped some......

On crickets I supplement with the calcium supplement and the multivitamin supplement. He gets all the needed vitamins from there. Normally I just give him spinach and romain lettuce. I never feed him iceberg type lettuces. Sometimes he will get carrots, but he doens't like them much. I've fet him grapes and he seems to liek those. I try to avoid items that are red because the last time he tried tomato, his stool had chunks of tomato in them. He has had squish in the past and he didn't mind that much.

Mostly just supplemented cricket and Veggies, which he likes veggies 90% more than crickets.

If there is a risk of the coccidia, and may just take him in to a vet to have him checked out, jsut to be on the safe side.

As for lighting, right now he is getting real sunlight from an open window. In Cali there is really no need for his light bulb to be on, its hot enough during the summer here. He gets a good amount of sunlight.

If he does have coccidia, what are the chances of him surviving with treatment? Did yours fair well? I just don't want to make him suffer if his chances are too slim to survive. I know some of the methods needed are daily cage scrubbing and using newspaper or something for substrate..he'll be really bored . But if it is for his health, he'll have to deal with it, if it is a he..not sure...LOL.

his chances should be very good, its treated with sulpha drugs, you have to be sure to keep them well hydrated while on their meds and disinfect everything in his enclosure daily if you want to get rid of it. Yes using something like newspaper is best so you can get rid of it daily, rubbermaid bins are excellent to use during treatment, use one, while the other is disinfecting overnight, then change with the other in the morning and disinfect again. My lil guy came out just fine from it, during the treatment time i think he grew 2 inches, that was over a week period, he thrived on the albon, and made it through with no problems.

this is the dragon im speaking of, his name is carrick. I have also treated my other dragons with Albon and they did just fine.

i live in san diego california, well acutally encinitas, you will still need a basking bulb indoors to get a basking spot up to at 105-115, he needs a gut temp of 103 to properly digest his food. You really need to be sure he has the correct temps in his enclosure, should be 85 ambient temp on his cool side. Does the calcium supplement you have contain D3?

As for his greens you want to feed things like collard greens, its a very good base to a salad, from there you can add escarole, endive, turnip tops, bok choy, then some swiss chard, mustard greens etc for variety, you can offer carrots here and there also and things like raspberries as a nice treat. Romaine really isnt very good, just a step up from iceberg, and spinach should be given sparingly.

"On crickets I supplement with the calcium supplement and the multivitamin supplement. He gets all the needed vitamins from there. Normally I just give him spinach and romain lettuce. I never feed him iceberg type lettuces. Sometimes he will get carrots, but he doens't like them much. I've fet him grapes and he seems to liek those. I try to avoid items that are red because the last time he tried tomato, his stool had chunks of tomato in them. He has had squish in the past and he didn't mind that much.

Mostly just supplemented cricket and Veggies, which he likes veggies 90% more than crickets.

If there is a risk of the coccidia, and may just take him in to a vet to have him checked out, jsut to be on the safe side.

As for lighting, right now he is getting real sunlight from an open window. In Cali there is really no need for his light bulb to be on, its hot enough during the summer here. He gets a good amount of sunlight."

Thank my mom for that. She insists on being a no it all about my lizards. I told her I needed the light on, but she insisted it should be off...sigh. I'll turn it on again. I need to get a stand for it to hand off of. I don't have the right bulb right now so I turn it on and hang it high above so it doesn't burn him.

D3 is one of the vitamins. You name it, it probably is in that little thing of dust.

My problem with buying the escarole and other lettuces is that the store in town only sells them in HUGE bags. He's only one lizard and he doesn't eat enough food to make that bag last. It goes rotten quicker than he can eat it. We can get big bags of assorted Romain, Spinach, and some other collard greens and such. It has just a little of al lthe stuff he can eat, but that tends to waste too. I might give a look at the local produce store, though this is the biggest hick town in all of the West Coast.

I'll make some changes for him. Now, I am using a 100 Watt bulb because I bought it on accident. I hang it a couple feet above the top of the cage giving sometihing like 3-3.5 feet of distance from him on a rock to the light. Should I just get a smaller wattage bulb and levae it on top of the cage closer to him? Like a 40 watt or something of that nature? And, from personal experience, it is best to leavre the lights on during the day right?

Thanks again

you should get a digital thermometer, can get them for like 20 bucks at radio shack, to measure your temps. how big is his enclosure? that will help to know what wattage light you need for him. For my 4x2 enclosures i use 100 watt lights for the basking spots, but then also a UVB light and a plain florecent light just to make things nice and bright for them, for the one 2x2 i have i use a 65 watt bulb, these bulbs are giving me basking spots of at least 110 in each of my enclosures and i have it set up to where they have a gradient temp at the basking area from 105-120 depending on where they want to sit, some like it hot and some dont like it that hot

lights should be on in the daytime, no ligths at night or heat unless your tank falls below 65, then you can use a ceramic heat emitter if you need it.

there was a post further down on keeping veggies fresh, i would type it in the search on the forum and read the post, people had some good suggestions.

I have a temperature taker thing in my cage, which I think is 50-60 gallons. Something like 3.5x1.5 or something close..more than likely a 4x2, but I can't be sure.

When you say Thermostat I assume you mean something that will control the temperature for me, turn on and off the lights for me. Do they make those for cage use? What I mean is, we have a thermostat for the air conditioner, but do they make thermostats that plug into the wall and detect the temp in hot area of the cage and turn the light on and off as needed? if so, I can use that for my leopard gecko as well. 20 bucks at radioshack? I'll take a look at it and see what I find. If not, the local pet store more than likely carries them, they are an awesome store. They are a chain I think, but not like Petco or Petsmart. I think they are a California chain. The are called Lee's Feed and Western Store. They carry almost anything, and a pretty large reptile department for such a small area. They have been doing a major Kingsnake sale lately .
I'm making my BD a vet appointment for like monday or tuesday if I can. I would rather be safe than sorry. My last beardie died from impaction I believe, but he showed no signs of it...just suddenly stopped eating, and I got sick with cancer at the same time and my family couldn't figure the problem out. I instantly went away from sand and straight to fake grass.
I don't use sand anymore, they don't need that much realism...too risky.

yes get him to a vet.

also you can add to the veggies by using some frozen mixed vegitables, just pop a spoon full into a microwave if you have one, let them cool down to just warm.

green beans, lima beans, peas, carrots and corn can be found is most frozen mixes, I take the green beans and the carots and cut them up just a bit more as they can be a bit to big.

try it.

also I was thinking my self of chopping up some colard-greens and just freezing them and doing the same as other veggies?

see how that works.
-----
This space reserved for future use...

have you ever had a fecal exam done on the lizzard ?

it could just be bugs internal parasites easy fixed with panacure.

if the stools aren;t runny and smell foul don jum to its coccidia right away

mat