Nalak's Acting... Off

[ameliamelia]

Hello! About two weeks ago my significant other and I picked up out 7 week old bearded dragon baby. He looked healthy, and we were told him and his siblings were eating crickets too fast to catch up with and loved dandelion greens. He is in a 55 gallon with two zoo-med reptisun 10 bulbs that span the entire tank and a heat spot that stays around 110. He is on reptile carpet with no sand. The usual "just moved in" stress was obvious and he ate very little the first few days. Then he started eating his mealworms. The mealworms were just until our phoenix worms came in because the shipping was late. He seemed healthy, eating insects and pooping normally, though he wouldn't really eat any veggies or even fruits. He wouldn't, and still wont drink out of his water dish, so we started giving him more frequent baths. He just sits very, very still through out the whole thing, not drinking anything or even trying to escape. When the phoenix worms arrived we were SO excited, hoping this new, healthy, exciting food will perk him up. He wouldn't get near them. For a few days we waited, just left the bowl with them in there. We knew he really hated them when he jumped on the greens (that was a one-time deal, hasn't happened again). We didn't want to starve him so we went out and got another tub of mealworms. Minutes after they were put down they were gone. Is it better to make him eat a food he wont try and worry about starving him than to give him a nutritionally lesser meal? And here is why I'm posting to behavior, he always has stress spots. He never goes to his basking spot, instead he's always hiding. He doesn't run if we try to pick him up, and will fall asleep on my chest, enjoying the warmth, but he acts really upset. He always seems like he's frozen with fear. If we just leave him completely alone, no handling at all, I am worried he will become anti-social, but I don't want to make him too stressed. He's not acting sick or skittish, which is what I've only read about, just weirdly distant. I have never owned a lizard before, just a lot of furry animals who could always use extra snuggles. Any advice about what we can do to perk him up will be great, or even a tip on how to get him to eat his phoenix worms. Thank you so much to anyone who read all of this, I love my little Nalak and I want what makes him happy! Bonus, a picture of our guy when we first brought him home.

 

[Mistyck]

Mealworms have the ability to cause your dragon to become impacted. In other words, they cannot properly digest the chitin on the mealworms. Besides that there is almost no nutritional value to mealies.

Only thing you can do is try different feeders and see what the dragon takes to.

To address the stress marks... What are you using to measure the temps with?

You should be handling him, no matter if he likes it or not. Or else you will wind up with a dragon who doesn't like to be handled.

How often do you give baths?

 

[ameliamelia]

The impaction was the reason we were planning on only using phoenix worms, mealies were just grabbed as a one day substitute. I think he's too small for Dubai roaches, and the silk worm site is always out. Should we just do crickets? We were hoping to avoid that. We have a temp gun my SO has from his industrial job, so it's very accurate. I'm happy to force him to hang out with me, I was just worried it would overly stress him. I'm glad to hear otherwise. We were originally going to do them every other day, but with the lack of drinking moved it up to every day.

 

[Mistyck]

Nah, He's big enough for roaches I fed roaches to my dragon when he was just a baby, you just have to get the right size for them.

He's probably stressing a bit because he might have a tummy ache from the mealies.

Good deal on the temps and the baths. Keep up with handling him...

 

[ameliamelia]

Ok! Thank you a lot. He's been pooping normally so hopefully the mealies haven't done too much damage. Roaches are your recommendation for food? Any good places to get them?