Beardie Newbie

[Hailie]

It took him about 3-4 days to eat. What I do is I put a paper towel under his food in his dish so he can see the contrast in color. That seems to help

Thanks. I'll try that!

 

[ARUTLOSJR11]

Welcome... I too am new and this forum (and those within it) has been soooooo helpful and welcoming. Congrats on your first bearded dragon. They seem to be fun.

 

[Hailie]

Thanks again for everyone's advice. It's almost been a week and I have yet to see my dragon eat He does however poop once every day so he must be eating, right? I'm just not sure when he's eating. His cage is in the home office where my husband works from around 9~5 and he's never seen him eat once and we've even tried putting him in a separate container with chopped veggies and crickets. And he basks all day. The only time he's remotely active is at night before he sleeps right after he's been held during the nightly uneaten cricket sweep. When I put him back in the tank he's suddenly alert and runs around a bit, tried to jump into the desert display on the back of his tank, then he crawls up his log and sleeps.

Do you think he still just needs a little time? I'm working on getting a higher UV bulb for him. Is a florescent light stick fixture from a hardware store adequate or is ReptiSun the way to go?

 

[PatsyB]

I believe that people have gotten fixtures from the hardware store and used them with the the Repti Sun 10.0 HO bulbs. Make sure that the fixture you get supports the wattage and voltage of the bulb that you are going to be using.

He has to be eating something if he's pooping

 

[Hdrydr31]

Yep if he's pooping then he's eating I've heard of some that are shy eaters they are also super quick at eating as well so maybe you have a very stealthy dragon

 

[Hailie]

It's hard to imagine him as stealthy because he seems to sleep all day! But it's good to know he is eating, albeit secretly... Now I just hope that he'll perk up a bit.

 

[Hdrydr31]

he will in time he's still new and figuring things out..

 

[Hailie]

he will in time he's still new and figuring things out..

That's just what happened! Update: Fish is doing well. He's active and eating regularly. Still working on the veggies but baby steps Thanks so much for everyone's help!

 

[Hdrydr31]

Glad to hear that "Fish" is eating (is that his name?) As young dragons they don't eat as much greens as they will once adult.. My Izzy never ate her greens the only thing she did was poop on them! lol Now she likes greens yet I'm still learning what all she likes, and she hasn't shown any interest in other veggies or fruit, so I'm still experimenting on that end.
What I do is I weigh her every couple of days to 1 a week just to make sure she's gaining...

 

[Hailie]

Good point about the weighing. Yes, his name is Fish because that's what my husband and I were intending to get when we went to the pet store! We'd talked about bearded dragons before but my husband said he wanted a fish tank instead so we went to look at fish but he changed his mind as soon as he saw the dragons. He has no regrets (or reservations about handling and feeding crickets) so it worked out great. We called him Fish as a joke but the name stuck

 

[Hdrydr31]

Very cute!