Some Help Please

[hendy264]

Hello everyone, Im new here and have been reading through the posts. I have two Dragons about 6 or 7 months old, one much larger than the other and as I have been reading the bigger of the two is more dominant, always on top of the smaller one. They both were eating every day, pooping and all the usual stuff BD's do, then out of the blue they stopped eating crickets, and again as I have read, this is quite normal.I vary the diet cabbage seems to be the only veg they will eat and have fed them on rovio worms,locust and hoppers. The larger of the two will eat the worms, but the smaller will not eat anything. I have noticed the lack of poop in the viv, but then if they are not eating then they will not poop !!,the larger has pooped today, as I have been watching them off and on all day. the smaller has not pooped, but again has not eaten either. Im getting concerned for its health. I should say, I have read here and there all diffrent things some say dont use sand, dont use wood chips (Aspen) other say yes use them. My problems started when I changed from a mat to the Aspen and sand Aspen at the hot end and the sand at the cold end, they poop at the cold end and my thoughts were that it would be easier to keep clean as the mats were starting to smell after 2 days. I do have 3 of them to change,,,,I have since decided to change back to the mat. I am hoping that the smaller one has not eaten sand, if this is the case what can I do to help it, bye the way the larger I think is Male and is called Elkie, and the smaller I think is female and called Brook, I am of course quessing this but when we purchased them from a breader we were pretty sure what was what.
Any help or advise would be much appriciated

[perfectly_flawed]

First thing you need to do is separate them. Dominance never gets better and always gets worse. The smaller one will have a miserable life if kept with the bigger one.
Next thing is to double check your temps and UVB according to our caresheet. Cabbage isn't a great choice for their salad. You can find good, healthy choices shown in green on this site http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html
I'm assuming that by mat you mean reptile carpet? It really does tend to stink quickly. You can use textured ceramic tiles instead. They hold heat well and are very easy to keep clean.

[Luthien]

Defiantly get them off of the sand! As already said textured ceramic tiles work the best! That's all I use for my beardies and their happy, don't smell and keep heat quite well for the night time hours.

Check out the nutrition guide already given it has wonderful ideas and really let's you know what you should and shouldn't be feeding.

Separate your beardies, you should never house 2 beardies together. These are very territorial creatures and will fight and stress each other out. In the wild the only time beardies get together is to mate. For the first week keep their tanks side by side to reduce stress and then move their tanks so they can not see each other any more.

Double check your temps, 100-110F for the basking and 75-85F for the cooler side. Also make sure you have a UVB source for them. Don't forget calcium and vitamins (very important), for the age of your beardies you can dust their food with calcium and vitamins every second to third day.

If your afraid your little one has eaten sand try to get him/her to drink some water by dripping water droplets on his/her nose. Also give him/her a bath and massage the stomach and just above the base of the tail in the water.

If you want to make sure of your beardies gender take a look just under the tail, males will have 2 bulges with a valley going vertically in between them and females will have 1 bulge going horizontally.