# Bearded dragons head is turning pink/white!



## Keri8989

Hi all,

We have a bearded dragon called Brian. We bought him when he was 2 months old and is now 6 months old. Recently the side of his head has changed colour. Sometimes it looks pink and sometimes it looks white. I know the majority of people will say 'he's about to shed' but I mean it's REALLY a different colour, not just lighter loose skin. He has shed his body three times since we have had him and his head twice so I know what way the skin usually looks during a shed. I am pretty concerned because it seems like the pattern has disappeared from the affected area also. I noticed this starting about two/three weeks ago. I mentioned to my partner but he kept saying he couldn't see a difference. Well now he does see the difference. 

Brian is usually very active and alert but this past week he has been sleeping alot. He is eating a few less crickets than normal but still a reasonable amount. This may be him going through brumation but as this is our first beardie I am not 100% sure. Before people begin to ask what temps etc are could I please get some help on the colour change of his head? I have searched every forum available and can't find a solution. This forum won't let me upload a photo so heres a link to it: Why has my bearded dragons head turned pink/white? - Yahoo UK & Ireland Answers


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## Rogue665

Keri8989 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> We have a bearded dragon called Brian. We bought him when he was 2 months old and is now 6 months old. Recently the side of his head has changed colour. Sometimes it looks pink and sometimes it looks white. I know the majority of people will say 'he's about to shed' but I mean it's REALLY a different colour, not just lighter loose skin. He has shed his body three times since we have had him and his head twice so I know what way the skin usually looks during a shed. I am pretty concerned because it seems like the pattern has disappeared from the affected area also. I noticed this starting about two/three weeks ago. I mentioned to my partner but he kept saying he couldn't see a difference. Well now he does see the difference.
> 
> Brian is usually very active and alert but this past week he has been sleeping alot. He is eating a few less crickets than normal but still a reasonable amount. This may be him going through brumation but as this is our first beardie I am not 100% sure. Before people begin to ask what temps etc are could I please get some help on the colour change of his head? I have searched every forum available and can't find a solution. This forum won't let me upload a photo so heres a link to it: Why has my bearded dragons head turned pink/white? - Yahoo UK & Ireland Answers



We need this kind of info to determine what it could be and what to suggest.
size of viv (mostly because of the temp question being able to thermos-regulate, can't do that in small vivs)
basking temp + uvb % and what source?
cool end temp? 
over heating what kind of stat do you have?
is your heat and uvb on for at least 12 hours and off at night the other 12 hours? beardies thrive from day and night routines
diet?
Does look like a real lose of pigment though, possible morph showing up.


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## Keri8989

Rogue665 said:


> We need this kind of info to determine what it could be and what to suggest.
> size of viv (mostly because of the temp question being able to thermos-regulate, can't do that in small vivs)
> basking temp + uvb % and what source?
> cool end temp?
> over heating what kind of stat do you have?
> is your heat and uvb on for at least 12 hours and off at night the other 12 hours? beardies thrive from day and night routines
> diet?
> Does look like a real lose of pigment though, possible morph showing up.


His viv is 38 gallon with a large rock, climbing branch and hide. We plan on building a bigger vivarium with different levels etc over the next few months. Its hard to tell different temps with hot and cold in this tank because its not very long. We have a digital thermometer on the cool side that usually reads 28-33. So we assume the hot side would be little more than that, like I said its not a long vivarium. He doesn't really climb up his branch for heat and doesn't go to his hide on the cool side until its bedtime. During the day he lies directly underneath the basking light, but under his branch so he is still in the shade. The basking light and UV are both turned on at 7-8am and turned off at 10-11pm. That's maybe a bit long but we also have him out in the living room quite a bit. I'm not 100% sure about the uv bulb but the basking bulb is a 100w komoda daylight spot (recommended by pet shop). For his diet he gets fresh greens every morning which he has only recently started eating more of, and butternut squash every other day. He gets breakfast lunch and dinner same time as us which is just crickets (calcium dusted) at the minute. Not tried him on other live foods yet. I know he is definitely not dehydrated as I drop water in his mouth everytime i bath him (he avoids his water dish.) When we first had him he pooed everyday but recently its every 2 days. The bath helps with that. I'm interested by your 'morph' comment. What does that mean?


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## Bowells

Okay a couple of things I feel I need to address if you want to have a healthy and happy beardie.
*Temperature* is super important you're going to want to make sure his basking point is around 43c and his hot side should be around 33c your cold side should be around 25-28c. Your temperature on your cool side shouldn't be varying by 5c in the daytime as if you're properly using your thermostat you should only see a couple degrees difference.

Your uv lights are also super important. It should be a tube rather than a coil with 30% uva, 10-12% uvb and NO UVC. The reptisun 10 or arcadia 12 are the two recommended and best UV lights on the market so you should make sure you have one of these as a lot of other brands are known to provide incorrect wavelengths needed for optimal vitamin d3 synthesis. These need replacing every 6-12 months depending upon your brand + strength of bulb ( t5>t8 )

Try not to have him out of his vivarium for more than an hour a day.

You're upgrading your vivarium size so I don't need to address that.

Make sure you're also providing a multivitamin 2x a week and calcium 5x a week.

Try to provide a bit more variety to his diet as giving him the same old stuff is likely to make him nutritionally deficient.

Health problems generally don't arise if you're providing the correct husbandry/care so this is most likely the cause of whatever issue you are having.

A morph can come in two varietys either colour or structural, these are genetic differences in the beardie's colour or differences in things like their scales/nails.

I hope you are able to make some adjustments for little Brian and I hope you understand I'm not trying to have a go or anything, I'm just trying to teach you as quickly as I can about how to help Brian out so future issues don't arise. Best of luck to you.


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## Keri8989

Bowells said:


> Okay a couple of things I feel I need to address if you want to have a healthy and happy beardie.
> *Temperature* is super important you're going to want to make sure his basking point is around 43c and his hot side should be around 33c your cold side should be around 25-28c. Your temperature on your cool side shouldn't be varying by 5c in the daytime as if you're properly using your thermostat you should only see a couple degrees difference.
> 
> Your uv lights are also super important. It should be a tube rather than a coil with 30% uva, 10-12% uvb and NO UVC. The reptisun 10 or arcadia 12 are the two recommended and best UV lights on the market so you should make sure you have one of these as a lot of other brands are known to provide incorrect wavelengths needed for optimal vitamin d3 synthesis. These need replacing every 6-12 months depending upon your brand + strength of bulb ( t5>t8 )
> 
> Try not to have him out of his vivarium for more than an hour a day.
> 
> You're upgrading your vivarium size so I don't need to address that.
> 
> Make sure you're also providing a multivitamin 2x a week and calcium 5x a week.
> 
> Try to provide a bit more variety to his diet as giving him the same old stuff is likely to make him nutritionally deficient.
> 
> Health problems generally don't arise if you're providing the correct husbandry/care so this is most likely the cause of whatever issue you are having.
> 
> A morph can come in two varietys either colour or structural, these are genetic differences in the beardie's colour or differences in things like their scales/nails.
> 
> I hope you are able to make some adjustments for little Brian and I hope you understand I'm not trying to have a go or anything, I'm just trying to teach you as quickly as I can about how to help Brian out so future issues don't arise. Best of luck to you.


Hi thanks for the info, why should he not be out for more than an hour a day? He loves to get out otherwise he just glass dances most of the day. What do you mean by multivitamin twice a week? Is this another powder? I will speak to my partner about getting a new uv bulb as I'm not sure of the strength of the one we have. The only thing I do know is that it is a tube. When you say more variety do you mean with veg or live foods. I honestly don't know what other veg they eat and I'm not sure what age they are supposed to start eating worms or locusts. Hopefully we can get the new vivarium built sooner rather than later so we can be sure of the temps. I understand you are just trying to help out, which I am grateful for, thank you.


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## Bowells

> Hi thanks for the info, why should he not be out for more than an hour a day? He loves to get out otherwise he just glass dances most of the day. What do you mean by multivitamin twice a week? Is this another powder? I will speak to my partner about getting a new uv bulb as I'm not sure of the strength of the one we have. The only thing I do know is that it is a tube. When you say more variety do you mean with veg or live foods. I honestly don't know what other veg they eat and I'm not sure what age they are supposed to start eating worms or locusts. Hopefully we can get the new vivarium built sooner rather than later so we can be sure of the temps. I understand you are just trying to help out, which I am grateful for, thank you.


He shouldn't be out for more than an hour a day because he's more prone to infections when his body temperature falls irregularly during the day which you can generally tell by feeling them and observing how dark they get. The multivitamin is another powder yes and it provides vitamins A, D, E among other essential nutrients. 

Variety should be given in both live food and veggies I tend to link this site in nearly all of my posts as it's incredibly useful among bearded dragon owners:
Nutrition Content

It is colour coded and I would only feed the greens and blacks just to be on the safe side but try to avoid foods with high oxalates as these deprive your beardie of calcium.

The general rule of thumb when it comes to any food is that it shouldn't exceed the distance between your beardie's eyes and I'd stay away from some worms as they tend to have a hard chittin shell and are quite fatty but phoenix worms and silkworms do make for a very tasty treat.

The supreme live food feeder for beardies is dubia roaches, they're up to 7x meatier than your similar sized cricket, far more nutritious, easier to keep contained, provide better calciumhosphorus ratios and I know my beardie goes crazy for them. They can be pricey so if you're willing to fork out the initial investment you should look into breeding your own which can sustain your beardie's appetite long-term and even prove to be profitable with a large colony.


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## Keri8989

Bowells said:


> He shouldn't be out for more than an hour a day because he's more prone to infections when his body temperature falls irregularly during the day which you can generally tell by feeling them and observing how dark they get. The multivitamin is another powder yes and it provides vitamins A, D, E among other essential nutrients.
> 
> Variety should be given in both live food and veggies I tend to link this site in nearly all of my posts as it's incredibly useful among bearded dragon owners:
> Nutrition Content
> 
> It is colour coded and I would only feed the greens and blacks just to be on the safe side but try to avoid foods with high oxalates as these deprive your beardie of calcium.
> 
> The general rule of thumb when it comes to any food is that it shouldn't exceed the distance between your beardie's eyes and I'd stay away from some worms as they tend to have a hard chittin shell and are quite fatty but phoenix worms and silkworms do make for a very tasty treat.
> 
> The supreme live food feeder for beardies is dubia roaches, they're up to 7x meatier than your similar sized cricket, far more nutritious, easier to keep contained, provide better calciumhosphorus ratios and I know my beardie goes crazy for them. They can be pricey so if you're willing to fork out the initial investment you should look into breeding your own which can sustain your beardie's appetite long-term and even prove to be profitable with a large colony.


Ok I will check online for the multivitamins as we don't buy much in the pet shops, they charge a fortune. Yeah I have heard the rule about the size of the food before, but then I watched videos online and the worms look alot longer than the distance between the beardies eyes :S We have tried to breed the crickets but have not had any luck so I won't get my hopes up when we move onto roaches lol. I'll definitely check out that link as I'd like to try him with other foods so thank you for providing an accurate one. I still don't see how all of the colour and patter has faded though :S I didn't think it would be anything to do with his daily routine I thought maybe he had gotten an infection or something. I haven't found anything even remotely similar online. His parents were citrus and sandfire gold (I think) does this have anything to do with the 'morph' possibility? Does that mean the white could spread? Sorry it probably sounds dumb but I still don't fully understand why he would go from green, black and orange to white.


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## Rogue665

Keri8989 said:


> Hi thanks for the info, why should he not be out for more than an hour a day? He loves to get out otherwise he just glass dances most of the day. What do you mean by multivitamin twice a week? Is this another powder? I will speak to my partner about getting a new uv bulb as I'm not sure of the strength of the one we have. The only thing I do know is that it is a tube. When you say more variety do you mean with veg or live foods. I honestly don't know what other veg they eat and I'm not sure what age they are supposed to start eating worms or locusts. Hopefully we can get the new vivarium built sooner rather than later so we can be sure of the temps. I understand you are just trying to help out, which I am grateful for, thank you.


This is usually a sure sign of inadequate husbandry, it is vital for them to thermos regulate which you said he can not do (no difference in temps because tank is far too small)
He should have
Vivarium 4x2x2 minimum
Basking area aka raised rock/log temperature 110-120f below uvb tube 12%
Warm side 90-95f
Cool end 75-80
repashy vit + calcium is a decent supplement to sprinkle on live or fresh every other day
Variety in food is key especially live, crickets/locust/morio worms/dubia roaches make sure all is hydrated and gut loaded.
He is so young this is where it is vitally important to promote good growth and no deficiencies.
Honestly if i was you, I'd get a new viv within days.


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## Keri8989

Hi just thought I would let you know that we went to a reptile specialist and he said Brian is fine. The colour turned out to be shedding but I don't feel bad for worrying because it looked like the white was layers deep. The specialist said the husbandry was fine as we were intending on making a bigger vivarium. Brian had worms and a bit of sand in his poo so he has had his worming medicine and vivarium steam cleaned. We tried him on some other foods but he's really set in his ways lol the only thing he likes a lot is apple. We have finished his new (5ft) vivarium and now just waiting on his uv light arriving but he seems to like it  I'll upload some pics in an album if I'm able


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## Keri8989

Brians old and new vivariums


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## Turnermator01

I cant help you on your Beardy problem but nice new viv. 

Where did you buy that? Or was custom built??


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## Keri8989

Thanks! We just bought the wood from B&Q for £5 and built it ourselves  The backdrop is from a seller on eBay. And the bark is from beautiful Scotland lol! Took a few weeks to make but all in all it only cost £25


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