Stressed out dragons and tips to help

I received an email from a friend of mine a couple days ago asking about stress and what it can do to her dragons. She had put her new 6" baby in with her 2 older 12" juvie dragons. They were not letting him eat and were just bullying him around. He had also developed diarrhea and was losing weight. Luckily they never caused him bodily harm.
Thankfully, the solution to her problem was simple. A simple separation from the larger dragons and a nice quiet vacation from commotion and stress. He immediately ate once there was no longer competition and shes going to keep an eye on him to make sure his stool returns to normal.

Anyone else have some situations and tips to share on how to reduce stress?

Sure, biggest one is don't house dragons together especially of different sizes (you've already hit on that one). Even with similar sized dragons it's rare that they actually get along without 1 dominating the other. Sometimes you can get away with 2 females of similar size but you still need to have a backup cage for instances when they don't get along so you might as well just run them separate to begin with. (enough on that subject)

Leave them alone for the first couple days and let them acclimate to their new environment. Too many times people try to rush playing with their new lizard right after they get them. Beardies absolutely hate change so let them be for a couple days and then slowly start handling them.

Beardies hate change so try to leave their cages in a set configuration and not be changing it around all the time.

If they are freaking out because of their reflection in the glass you can cover it from the inside with a background or go the cheap route and tape up some computer paper on 3 sides. Usually you can take down 1 side at a time slowly over a couple weeks and they will get used to it.

The mere sight of another dragon (or any lizard) can cause them to stress out so you may need to configure your cages to block the view.

If you do snakes also and they're not used to it the sight of a snake or even the smell of a snake can really make them freak out.

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head right now, I'm sure there are others. Stress is very dangerous though with beardies and can cause parasite blooms among other things so limiting the amount of stress is important.

Originally Posted by heartmountain

Stress is very dangerous though with beardies and can cause parasite blooms among other things so limiting the amount of stress is important.

I think she caught the issue in time to avoid a vet visit. She plans on going to the vet in the next couple weeks and getting a fecal done anyway. Better safe than sorry.