Getting Your Bearded Dragon Ready for Brumation
If you’re new to caring for a bearded dragons, or reptiles in general, you might be worried the first time your pet goes into brumation. At first, it seems like there might be something wrong with your pet’s health. But it’s actually just getting ready to take a long winter nap. Brumation is normal and healthy, but you need to prepare properly to make sure your pet stays safe while it hibernates.
In this article, we’ll talk about how to prepare a bearded dragon for brumation, and what to do while it sleeps the winter off.
What Is Brumation?
In a nutshell, bearded dragon brumation is the reptile equivalent of hibernation. During brumation, a bearded dragon will drop its body temperature and metabolism and enter a deep sleep. They may burrow or enter their hide to cool off and might not emerge for a long time. Sometimes, they will wake up to drink water, sometimes not.
Brumation is a very unpredictable process - some beardies never brumate, others brumate every year. Sometimes brumation lasts just a few weeks, sometimes it lasts several months.
Most importantly, brumation is not what it looks like, namely a life-threatening illness. All the symptoms are the same (at least at first). Your pet will become lethargic, its appetite will slow, and it may stop pooping.
When you see the signs, you’ll know it’s time for a trip to the vet.
How Often Do Bearded Dragons Brumate?
Like we mentioned, brumation is kind of chaotic and unpredictable. The question of “how often” depends entirely on the individual bearded dragon. Some go their whole lives without brumating. Others brumate annually.
The timing of brumation is more predictable. Beardies normally brumate in the winter, as a way of conserving energy during the cold months. But in some cases, they may brumate in the summer. Be sure to check your UVB bulb. If it goes out, that might trigger your beardy to brumate. If it stays out, your beardy will develop a nutrient deficiency.
What is certain is that brumation only happens in adults, and typically happens more with elderly beardies. Juveniles are chock full of energy and don’t brumate. So if you’re noticing your juvenile bearded dragon showing reduced appetite and lethargy, it’s almost certainly a health problem and not brumation.
How Do I Know If My Beardy is Brumating?
Bearded dragons respond to brumation the same way they might respond to impaction. You’ll notice your beardy not eating, not pooping, and probably moving much less. They will probably spend more time sleeping, too.
Any time you notice this kind of behavior, it’s time to call the vet. Your vet will probably do a fecal swab to test for parasites and other illness. If your beardy is healthy, chances are it’s just going into brumation.
But it’s imperative that you check with your vet first, as only they can say for sure.
Preparing for Brumation
Brumation sounds simple, but there are actually a few things you need to make sure you take care of before it starts. If your beardy isn’t set up right, it could have health issues when it should be taking a relaxing nap.
We already covered this, but it’s important enough to re-state that the first step is a vet checkup. Your vet will confirm that your pet is going into brumation, and will probably start over the next few weeks.
Your next step is to reduce the frequency of feed crickets. You’ll want to taper down the size of meals as well as how often you give them to your beardy.
You also need to adjust the climate in your bearded dragon's light schedule slightly. You will want to reduce your UVB lamp from the normal 12-14 hours to 10-12 hours, down to 8-10, and finally down to around 6-8 hours per day once they enter brumation.
Reduce the light time each week or so as your beardy winds down. This will make sure they can still regulate their body temperature while helping their metabolism slow into its reduced rhythm.
The last step is to prepare your beardy for sleep with one last poop. Once your beardy’s metabolism slows, any food left in its digestive tract can actually start to rot, so it’s important to make sure their gut is empty. You can encourage this with a warm bath. By this point, your beardy should be much less active and its habitat should be on a 6-8 hour per day UVB timer.
What to Do During Brumation
During brumation, your beardy will probably be dead asleep in its hide for weeks at a time. But you still need to keep an eye on it to make sure it isn’t losing weight and has what it needs.
Once your beardy is fully brumating, you can wind down your husbandry. Every week or so, you will want to take your beardy out of its hide and weigh it. Again, you need to make sure it doesn’t lose more than 10% of its body mass during brumation.
Despite the fact that it isn’t eating, its heart rate and metabolism are so slow that it probably won’t lose much. Keep an eye on its tail and fat pads to make sure it doesn’t look famished.
After weighing your bearded dragon, you can also give it a bath. Some owners do this every couple of weeks. You should offer it water and you might even want to offer it food, although it will probably refuse it.
After weighing, bathing, and drinking, you should set your beardy out to bask. If it’s still in brumation, it will go right back to sleep and resume its low-energy routine.
Eventually, your beardy might just stay awake while basking and go back to eating to eating and behaving normally. Or, you might notice it emerge from its hide, ready to get back to normal life. At this point, you will want to ramp back up the timer on your UVB light and start doing meal times again.