Beardies Growth

Question

2 months old  

This is him today   Hi. First off I'd like to thank you in advance for any help, advice or suggestions to help out my Cooper. He is a 7 month old Fancy. To let you in on a few things first,  I do have now 3 1/2 years of knowledge and care for Beardies since I do own another named Brutus. He is healthy, and all is well with him. With Cooper, I practiced the same level of care, attention, feed and warmth as I did for Brutus. However, he is 7 month old now and is still very small in size. Looking back at pictures of Brutus, he much bigger than what Coopers stands at now which is not much bigger from when I bought him as a baby. (Pictures attatched)

So, about the things I can tell you that seem healthy.... He eats. Boy does he eat. He will eat smashed grapes, collard greens, spinach. Mealworms, crickets, apples he loves. He also drinks his water which has his calcium provided in his water. So it's not as if he doesn't eat/drink. He poops regularly he sleeps when he needs to. He moves around his tank. He likes to be handles and held. He sleeps at the top of my shirt at times too. Now the visible issue I see is that the middle of his body sinks in and his sides are arched. He shakes at times uncontrollably. And like I stated the biggest thing is he does seem to be growing at all and I'm afraid he is either in pain or won't live long or various other things. I want to help him as much as possible. Please, any advice, insight I would greatly appreciate.

Thank you
Mel

Answer
Hey Mel, i am glad to see that you are taking such close care with your bearded dragons. Now you should only be feeding your dragons grapes occasionally, maybe once a week. Around the age of 7 months is when he should  be getting much bigger than when he was 2 months old. With proper calcium intake and proper diet, he should be growing fine. It seems that they are getting a very healthy diet from you. I would be concerned about the "arch" that you have discovered and the uncontrollable shaking that seems to be going on. You need to consult a vet right away, if he is getting a proper diet along with proper heating and lighting then it shouldn't be something that you are doing wrong. Please get an appointment with your vet.