brumation

Question
QUESTION: Hello,

We (meaning I am the responsible adult and my 8 year old daughter is the owner) have an adult bearded dragon.  Sandy is about 4 years old, best guess, when we got him the reptile shop said he was about 3.  He typically eats squash, greens if he HAS to, and crickets.  We've got the UVA/B light suggested by the bearded dragon boards and a basking light, his temps are right on target.

Last week he went into his hide and didn't come out for a couple days.  When he came out, he didn't eat much and mostly just hung out in his basking hammock.  Saturday he went into his hide again and hasn't come back out.  My research suggests he's brumating.  What is less clear is what I/we are supposed to do to support him.  Do we keep feeding him?  Reduce his lights?  Just keep on as normal and let him do what he needs to do?  He doesn't look to have lost weight, but he hasn't pooped in over a week.

ANSWER: Hello Amy,

Just to confirm...which UVB light are you using now?  What type of basking light are you using?  Is it a bright white light or a colored light?
Just making sure nothing else is going on before you let him fully brumate.  Sandy is old enough, at age 4, to brumate though.

You can shorten his days, to say an 8 hour day, if he is truly brumating & sleeping a lot.  Does he show any interest in food at all, or is he sleeping all of the time now?
A lot of times, you can just turn off the UVB light, but leave a basking light on in case he gets up & wants to warm up.  
Monitoring his weight is important, to make sure he does not lose any weight.  If he gets up & seems hungry you can feed him a little bit, but make sure he basks that day to digests his food.  He would probably get up in order to to the bathroom in a few days.  If he hasn't eaten much he wont go to the bathroom.  But if you feel he has eaten enough to have gone to the bathroom, you can try giving him a warm bath to see if he will go to the bathroom then.
If he doesn't get up at all, then you can check on him every few days, to make sure he is doing fine.
It can be a stressful time for you when you don't know what to expect.  The best thing that I can tell you is to keep a watchful eye on things like dehydration, weight loss, etc.

If you have other questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Tracie

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks, Tracie.

Sandy turned himself around this morning and tore up his paper towel to partially cover his face.  His eye (I can usually see only one when he's hiding) has been open occasionally, but he's not moving around or coming out.  He ate a little bit of squash over the weekend and spent some time basking.  I can certainly keep offering a small amount daily, that's no big thing, unless it's better not.

His UV lamp is a Reptisun 10.0 in a ZooMed fixture, and his basking lamp is a standard 100W household bulb in a tall clamp style hood.  Both lamps rest on top of his screen.  His hide is in the cool side of the tank, and his hammock and logs are on the hot side.  His hammock is about halfway up the side of his 55 gallon tank, so when he's basking he's pretty close to both bulbs.  How long do they usually brumate?  I can understand the impulse; if I could hide under a rock and skip most of November I probably would!

Answer
Hello Amy,

They can brumate for a week, or a few weeks, or up to several months.  It greatly varies from dragon to dragon.
If you offer him something, he will eat it if he wants.  If not, then I wouldn't worry about it too much.  The main things are to make sure he doesn't lose too much weight & that he stays hydrated.
His lighting sounds fine.  In the future you may want to consider trying to mount the Reptisun 10 tube bulb underneath of the screen top to get better exposure for him.  The screen will filter out up to 30% or more of the UVB exposure.
Yes isn't that the truth!  Too bad we can't brumate with them!

Let me know how Sandy is doing.

Tracie