Hey guys, Heather here from Tye-Dyed Iguana and today we're going to talk about how to tell
if your bearded dragon is healthy. This video is going to give you several of the different
things you should look for when you're giving your bearded dragon a health check. These are the things
that we look for when we give our animals, our bearded dragons, health checks at our store.
And we're gonna use one of our breeder females here, who is super, uh, clingy and really wants to
stay like this. We're gonna use her as an example to show you guys what health signs to look out for.
So, let's go ahead and get started. All right, so we've got our female here.
The first thing to look for in a healthy bearded dragon, is to look at its weight and
size. In a healthy bearded dragon you want to see a nice plump belly, and as you can see she's
got a very nice plump belly, not too fat, you don't want them to be obese. But uh, yeah, and you want to
make sure that the spine isn't sticking out, uh, you can see the spine here, but as you can see,
she's got fat on each side of it, so it kind of actually goes inward, so. She's like the exact
opposite of the spine sticking out, so. For sure. And then you also don't want to see hip bones,
not too prominent hip bones. Now this specific female, she always shows a little bit of hip bone
right there, during breeding season. But uh, yeah, you don't want to see them protruding out too much.
You don't want to see like the bones jutting up like this, kind of outward, you don't want to see
that. That means that they're too skinny, and for the rib cage, you shouldn't see the ribs
sticking out much at all. Sometimes when they puff out you can see their ribs under the skin, because
when they flatten themselves out then they kind of stick out, but otherwise when they're relaxed,
you just don't want to see their rib cage sticking out. And a good sign of weight as well, is looking
at the arms and legs, making sure they're nice and plump. You can see she's got nice fat little
arms there. Nice little biceps, I see your biceps. Yeah, you want to see a nice little amount of fat
on their legs and their arms. Yeah, you're good. You don't want to see, like super sucked in
skin, like, you don't want to see any hip, leg bones or arm bones poking out, or like poking out
through the skin, that would show that they're thin, so. She's got nice plump arms. Yes, you do.
And then another good indicator of health is the eyes. You want to look for nice, bright, clear eyes.
If they're holding them closed, stuck together, it usually means they've got some
discharge. You don't want to see any discharge, or any wateriness of the eyes. That can indicate like
an eye infection or something, so you definitely don't want to see that. So if you just check
their eyes, make sure they're nice and bright and healthy. Let's look at this other eye, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, your eyes are beautiful. And then you also want to make sure their eyes aren't swollen.
We've seen some before, where they get problems with their eyes, you see swelling
like underneath there, or above there, and then their eyes swell, so. You don't want to
see that, you just want to see a nice, nice normal eye. And also, uh, check for redness.
If you see any redness or irritation, that may also be a sign of unhealthiness in the eyes, um,
if you see like, like redness where the whites of the eyes should be, uh, that might just be, they
might have gotten something in their eye or there is an underlying issue, so. Yeah, just look for out
for redness, wateriness, and discharge. Another thing you should check is the joints, like the
elbows right there. You don't want to see any sort of swelling. So, if this joint here was kind of big,
bigger than the arm and leg, kind of bulging out and everything, that would be a sign of swelling,
and the swollen joints is a sign of metabolic bone disease. So that's something you definitely don't
want to see, so. Yeah, I feel your little knee bone right there, so. Yeah, her joints are very healthy.
They don't bulge at all. Yeah. So, that is definitely something important to look for in a bearded dragon
is how healthy their joints are. Now the next thing you want to observe in a bearded dragon as far as
their health goes, is their activity level. You want to look and see if they're nice and alert,
you want to see if they're active. She's very curious, she's kind of moving her head a lot,
just kind of looking at me, checking me out, um, you want to make sure that their head is
held up and everything. If you ever see your bearded dragon laying down, acting lethargic,
especially with their head down, eyes closed, and a black beard, if they have a black beard acting
like that, that's definitely a warning sign, so. You definitely want to look at their activity level
make sure they're acting normally and everything, so. That is just another way to tell if a bearded
dragon is healthy. Now something else, of course, in a bearded dragon that shows if it's healthy or not,
is their appetite. You want to look and make sure your bearded dragon is eating normally,
eating what they normally eat, whether it be greens, crickets, they eat mostly their bugs,
so. I'm just giving her a few turnip greens here, but if you've got a dragon that's eating normally,
about every day or every other day or so, for an adult, then you know they're doing pretty darn good,
yes. Yeah, appetite, loss of appetite is a really good tell that something's wrong, they're not, if
they're refusing food and not wanting to eat, that's a good sign that something's wrong. The
only exception to that is, during winter some of them brumate, and they do stop eating altogether
and stop pooping, because they've stopped eating, and they do rest a lot.
So, brumation is one exception to the to the usual rule of a good appetite.
Yeah. Now to go along with their appetite, you want to make sure they're having no digestive issues.
Do pay attention when your dragons do go to the bathroom. It may be kind of gross, but it's very
important sign that they are doing well, is what their poop looks like and how often they go poop,
so. Our dragons they go poop about once a day, uh, some dragons they wait a couple of days or
go every other day. But if you have a dragon that hasn't pooped for like a week, then there might be
something wrong, it could possibly be impacted and that means that they just can't go number two, and
they have it trapped in their belly. And usually you can feel that, if you put your hand under their
belly and kind of feel with your fingers, you can, if you feel something hard, like really hard there
in their stomach, that's usually a good sign they're impacted, so. Usually with that, you
might have, you'll probably have to get a vet to look at them, and they can help you out.
As for their poop, if it's runny, has blood in it or something, there could possibly be something
wrong, especially if they have like diarrhea and stuff, there could be some digestive issues there,
so. Just make sure they're nice fully formed poops, and they'll of course have the white
urate with them. Yeah, that's one thing to look out for, is their digestive health.
Here is a pretty big one, uh, you want to look at their skin health. You want to look for any
blemishes, any type of sores, discoloration, and you don't just check on the back. An important place to
check is on the belly, because that is where they usually get messy the most, and where most people
don't see it if something starts. So, you want to make sure that you check their belly every so
often, uh, and check their chin - oh, she doesn't want me to check - you want to check their chin, their
chest, just underneath there and everything, um, if you do see like a patch of rough scales, that
are discolored, especially if they're discolored black or like a ugly yellow color, like a really
dark yellow or something, um, that could be a sign of yellow fungus. The, uh, yellow patches.
And yellow fungus is a really nasty, uh, disease in bearded dragons, it eventually kills them.
It's not, doesn't have a great survival rate, so. It is just a very bad disease, that basically just
takes over the whole skin. Treatment is no fun, they get shots for it. Most of the time it doesn't
even make it go away, and it's just something they eventually die of. Um, yellow fungus is
usually caused by like a really dirty environment, like a very dirty, that you don't keep it clean
or something, and also it's very contagious, so if your dragon is around another dragon that has it,
they're very likely to get it, so. Yellow fungus is something you definitely don't want to mess with.
That is a very bad disease. And then as far as the black blemishes go, that can just be
a sign of a skin infection. Yeah, just look out for any discoloration, you do get bearded dragons
that have yellow coloration, like I know some citrus beard dragons have yellow coloration
on their scales naturally, so. That's nothing to worry about, you're just looking for like
growing patches of, like a, cloudy yellow, uh, kind of chunky, crusty, yeah, it does get really crusty,
the skin gets really crusty with yellow fungus, so. That's basically what you want to look for.
Then when you're giving your bearded dragon a health check, make sure they don't have any injuries,
any cuts, scrapes, or anything, uh, that sometimes then people put stuff in their cages that
they could possibly injure themselves on, they could catch a nail on, or something, tear a nail.
Look, check their tail, make sure it's nice and pointy and that the tip isn't broken off
or anything, sometimes when they go into shed, uh, the the tip of the tail is kind of hard to shed,
and if it gets stuck it can cut off circulation, you can end up losing the tip of the tail,
so. That's an important thing to look out for, to make sure the tip of the tail is free of any shed
skin, and just an overall check of just looking for any types of cuts, or scrapes, or sores. You just
don't want to see any of that. So yeah, that's about it as far as the different signs of a healthy
bearded dragon, and some things you should look out for when you do your own health check at home.
So thanks for watching everybody, and we'll see you next time. Bye bye.