not really eating

for the past week my bearded dragon has not been eating, she will sometimes eat the greens but no insects at all, i dont no her age but she is just a little over 10 in and im feeding large crickets. any suggestion on what i should do???

Has she been eating well recently and has just stopped eating all of a sudden? Or have you noticed a gradual decrease in her eating habits? Also, what are the temps and what kind of substrate are you using? Also, have you been giving her baths to help with using the bathroom?

-David

yes just stopped all of the sudden, her daytime temps are 95 to 105 and at night around 80,she is housed in a 30 gallon tank with heatpad, water bowl, tree, and hut, also she has a 150 watt mercury vapor light and yes i give her a bath once or twice a week and she is on fir tree bark.

You might want to re-consider the substrate they can eat it and become severely impacted. I highly recommend using non-adhesive shelf-liner it may not be the nicest/prettiest but super easy to clean and it is reptile safe! If you want to use a substrate that is more natural to their habitat in the wild I would say use playsand, you can get a 50lb bag at Lowes' for like $3.

Isn't there some reason that play sand isn't recommended?

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Originally Posted by Rapture

Isn't there some reason that play sand isn't recommended?

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Calci-sand is not recommended. The package says it's safe and can be digested when infact it cannot. Playsand is much safer, although if eaten has the same affect. I wouldn't recommend putting any dragon under 15" on playsand in all honest. But as the saying goes, "to each their own."

-David

My beardie died suddenly and was on play sand. I'm not saying it was that that killed her but I'm playing it safe with my little rankins now, they're on newspaper with lots of folded up soft paper towel on top and a bowl of dirt to dig in.

How big was your beardie? Was it at least 15" it takes some time for them to get used to the sand and not try to eat it. I always monitor my new dragons when I first put them on sand. If there's a problem back to shelf liner they go!! :)


David

Edit: Sorry didn't read clearly

~mike

NEVER use crushed walnut shell as a substrate. Don't know if you were considering this or not, but never use it. My beardie got impacted two weeks ago and I had to spend those two weeks giving him warm baths, belly rubs, oil, and all sorts of things to get him to pass the shells. He passed half of it and today we went to the vet because his health suddenly took a nose-dive and they took him to surgery. He survived surgery but wasn't going to make it very long and they put him to sleep. Just a warning. I've heard ceramic tile works nice, as well as astroturf.

If your beardie is not eating, I'd take it to a vet. A lot of the time when an animal stops eating for no apparent reason, there is something wrong. That is why we took Tyke to the vet in the first place. He had stopped eating for about 2 days and had become lethargic (spelling). We figured something was up and it turned out serious.