Hi guys! New beardie mom here. I've never owned a baby before so everything has been quite a learning experience. Our little guy arrived through FedEx on November 23rd so it's been about 5 weeks and I still cannot get him to eat regularly. He's 3 months old now. This is our setup:
4x2x2 melamine enclosure.
Wood on the cool side, a stack of sandstone/slate rocks for his basking area.
Temps are 82-84F cool side, 104-108 on his basking rock, taken with an IR temp gun and digital probe thermometer.
UVB is an Arcadia T5 12% in a Sunblaster fixture.
Some days he will eat 2-3 roaches, no greens. Most days he refuses to eat anything at all. He was eating dubia out of a bowl at the breeder and did eat out of it the first day or two, but won't anymore. When he did jump in the bowl, he'd eat one or two roaches and then jump out and run away. He has since stopped jumping in the bowl at all. I count the roaches before I put them in the viv and at the end of the day, they're all still there.
I tried a separate feeding enclosure once and he hated it. Tried letting them loose in the enclosure but he ignores them. Tried BSFL instead of dubia and he wouldn't touch them, so they all ended up dying. Tried hand feeding and he would take maybe one but then no more. He's also recently started attacking his basking lamp, jumping at it and then falling on the viv floor. Not sure how to stop that or why he's doing it... He won't drink water from a syringe or in his bath either. He just seems awful stressed and unhappy and I can't seem to ease it. I do have two dogs who spend their day in the adjacent room. Could they be stressing him out that much? Or is this still relocation stress? Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading!
4x2x2 melamine enclosure.
Wood on the cool side, a stack of sandstone/slate rocks for his basking area.
Temps are 82-84F cool side, 104-108 on his basking rock, taken with an IR temp gun and digital probe thermometer.
UVB is an Arcadia T5 12% in a Sunblaster fixture.
Some days he will eat 2-3 roaches, no greens. Most days he refuses to eat anything at all. He was eating dubia out of a bowl at the breeder and did eat out of it the first day or two, but won't anymore. When he did jump in the bowl, he'd eat one or two roaches and then jump out and run away. He has since stopped jumping in the bowl at all. I count the roaches before I put them in the viv and at the end of the day, they're all still there.
I tried a separate feeding enclosure once and he hated it. Tried letting them loose in the enclosure but he ignores them. Tried BSFL instead of dubia and he wouldn't touch them, so they all ended up dying. Tried hand feeding and he would take maybe one but then no more. He's also recently started attacking his basking lamp, jumping at it and then falling on the viv floor. Not sure how to stop that or why he's doing it... He won't drink water from a syringe or in his bath either. He just seems awful stressed and unhappy and I can't seem to ease it. I do have two dogs who spend their day in the adjacent room. Could they be stressing him out that much? Or is this still relocation stress? Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading!
