Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 7 month old male dragon who until about 3 weeks ago was a very aggressive eater. Over the past 3 weeks he has become less interested in eating. First he started ignoring the crickets and then his greens and finally his mealworms. He has had regular bowel movements but has had none for the past few days. Temperatures did not change, nor did the lighting. I have tried increasing the temps the past week with no discernible effect. His food consisted of the usual, dusted crickets, greens and a few worms. He does not appear to be in any distress as he still colors up real nice. The reptile vet here is essentially clueless about dragons (used him before.) This wouldn't be brumation would it?
Any help is appreciated.

He's a bit young for brumation. Have you had a fecal done recently? A heavy parasite load would show the same symptoms. Also lose the mealworms, way too much chitin in their shells that is not digestable creating an impaction risk. Get a current weight on him and monitor it closely, if it is brumation he should lose very little if any.
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Heart Mountain Herps

Mine was younger than 7 months (more like 5 I think) and both went to sleep for like a month or so. Now they are awake and eating galore!!
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Cheryl

My beardie is 9 months old and doing about the same thing. Kinda like brumation, but not totally. He sleeps a lot lately. He did not eat or poop for a week or more. We tired bathing him to get him stimulated, but after that he went right back to sleep. He appeared to be losing weight but then one evening he pigged out on crickets, pooped, and was very active. Now he appears to be sleeping a lot again. I am worried about him. He is eating a little, and sleeping a lot.

I had read that juveniles can go into a partial brumation, just sleeping a lot and not eating, but not totally sleeping. That seems like what my beardie is doing.

As winter has set in the house is not as warm at night. I have the heat lamp on, but he prefers to hide under his rock during the day. Any suggestions would be helpful.

My first dragon brumated last year as a 6 month old. It was also a partial brumation, but she lost little to no weight. In fact, when she re-energized for spring, she gained a huge amount back. She looks almost pregnant because of her size, but isn't. Now, at 1 and a half years, she is fat as ever. I didn't let the mini-brumation worry me. As long as your dragon doesn't lose a lot of weight, and isn't too lethargic all the time (for juveniles) they should be okay.