Hi all, I acquired a Bearded Dragon today from my brother, who no longer wanted to care for her. I saw her when she was first bought, at about a year of age, and she was fine then. She came from a small pet store, which hand-raises all of their animals from babies. This particular lizard had been bought by someone before, along with a male. According to the store owner, these people kept the two together, but weren't feeding them properly, and the lizards started attacking one another. So Missy was for sale at half-price, as she is missing some of her toes, and half of her tail. At this point, she is probably about 6 years old, and around 9 or 10'' in length. Having taken over her care now, she is acting very strange. She seems disoriented, and when I fed her some crickets, she seemed to have a hard time catching them. Her head sort of..."bobbled" when she would dart at the crickets, and she frequently missed, even when they were right in front of her. At one point, she tried to run after a cricket, and sort of tripped over a piece of wood and flopped around before righting herself. She seems to have trouble moving, and jerks about when she tries. Her diet has consisted entirely of crickets and Romaine lettuce. She was getting crickets once a week, if lucky, with Romaine more frequently. She has not had a water dish in her aquarium for several years now - I added one immediately. Her prior water source was wet, dripping lettuce. When my brother remembered, her crickets were powdered in Fluker's Repta-Vitamin powder. The jar says it contains Beta Carotene, Vitamins, Minerals, Amino Acids, Trace Elements, and Potent Color Enhancers. Her enclosure is a thirty gallon (I think), glass aquarium. The substrate is ESU Reptile Lizard Litter. The bag says it contains white fir and eucalyptus chips. The only thing in her aquarium besides the substrate is a piece of wood, about 6'' long, and a fist-sized rock. Her lighting is made up of three bulbs, which I tried to get as much information off of as possible. One is a flourescent, 24'' Exo-Terra Repti-Glo light, of 20 watts, which says 8.0 UVB. The second is an ESU Bright Light, of 60 watts. The third is what looks like a black light, the same size as the 60 watt Bright Light. I have the flourescent and Bright Light on during the day, and the black light at night. My brother had been leaving all of the lights on, day and night. There is some sort of heating pad, adhered underneath the glass, on the Bright Light side of the aquarium (the right-hand side). The flourescent runs the entire length of the aquarium, and the black light is on the left-hand side. There is a small, round thermometer stuck to the glass on the left side, almost at the top of the aquarium, and it is pointing to 80F. What my brother had been doing for feeding, is buying 25 crickets or so at a time, and dumping them all in the cage at once, and letting Missy eat them at her leisure. I mimicked this today, which was when I saw Missy's strange behavior appear. I also soaked her in warm water this evening, at which point she spent a good 2 or 3 minutes drinking. She's always been a rather docile lizard, rather content to just sit in your hand, but at least she used to move around in her tank. Today she spent the whole time on one side of her cage, the left side (black light side). She seems reluctant to move, although at one point she had a fit of spinning in a tight circle over and over before stopping. This fit probably lasted 10 or 15 seconds. I thought she might be dehydrated, which was why I soaked her, in the hopes that she would drink (she did). I've also now read that Romaine isn't terribly nutritious, so I will be buying something better. I'm really worried about her, though. I'm wondering if she hasn't got some sort of neurological disease, or a tumor somewhere. Or maybe it was just poor husbandry that's caused this - I really don't know. She's never been to a Vet., so I don't even know if there's one around here for reptiles. Your help is greatly, greatly appreciated! Now that I've taken over her care, I want to do the best I can for her, poor gel.
RE: Just got dragon, it Hi. It sounds like with Missy's poor care before she was lucky enough to find you, that she has probably acquired MBD (Metabolic Bone Disease) which typically stems from a lack of calcium in the diet. The first thing I would do is to find a qualified reptile vet. Please see http://www.herpvetconnection.com or http://www.arav.org to find a qualified reptile vet in your area. You may also want to let us know where you are located (closest major city and State you live in) iin case there is a member in your area that can recommend a vet. Seeing a vet at this point is the best thing you can do. She is likely going to need prescription strength calcium to help get her back on track. She needs to be seen ASAP. While you are waiting for an appointment with the vet, start by reading the caresheets provided on this site, located at http://www.reptilerooms.com/Sections+index...es-secid-1.html You will need to get her a bigger cage. A 55 gallon would be *ok* but a 65 gallon or larger would be best. Please get rid of the Reptile Litter and use a non particulate substrate, such as newspaper, paper towel, non adhesive shelf liner, tile, or anything else she can't accidentally eat. Loose substrates can cause impaction when eaten by your beardie. For UVB at this point, a Mercury Vapor Bulb is probably going to be your best bet. They are (in my opinion) by far the best manmade UVB bulbs available on the market and can help reverse the effects of MBD. To read about and order an MVB, please go to http://www.reptileuv.com If you can get her outside for unfiltered sunlight until you get the UVB bulb, that would be great. Just remember, UVB can not penetrate glass or cloth, so putting her cage in front of a window won't help. It has to be unfiltered sunlight to do her any good. You told us what she was eating when your brother had her but not what you are feeding her now. She needs to be eating a diet consisting of dark, leafy greens. A base diet of collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, and/or dandelion greens and arugula would be best. You can add other greens to that, such as mache, escarole, endive, spring mix, etc. for variety. She may not eat these greens well at first, after having romaine for so long. Romaine is fine added into a large mix of greens, but contains little to no nutritional value. I would also purchase Rep Cal Calcium (plain, no vit d3 or phosphorus added) to dust her crickets or worms with. You can also lightly sprinkle the calcium on top of her salad as well. Rep Cal Herptivites should also be used for vitamin supplements. Rep Cal also makes a product called Adult Bearded Dragon Pellets. These should be used in conjunction with a healthy diet to supplement various vitamins. Any crickets or worms you feed her should be properly gutloaded (fed) as well. I highly recommend the gutloading products available at http://www.cricketfood.com You can feed her crickets, super worms, phoenix worms, silk worms, and butterworms. These are only a few of the feeder insects/worms that you can feed her but are probably the most readily available here in the USA. I wish you the best of luck. She's had a tough life so far. It's hard to tell if it's too late or not but with correct care and a vet visit, you may be able to turn her around.
Hello Hello, First of all, great job on trying to get her better care now. Good luck on finding a good herp or reptile vet. It is imperative that you do find one as soon as possible. It does sound like she does have Metabolic Bone Disease, unfortunately. Like Chris said, get some calcium now while you are waiting to get into the vet. Make sure the calcium is phosphorus & Vitamin D3 free. The phosphorus will bind the calcium from getting absorbed properly. If she will be getting proper UV she wont need the D3 but 2 times per week. A good multivitamin powder, like herptivite is very good, & should only be given 2 times per week. The mercury vapor lights are excellent, you can't beat them! I would highly recommend them as Chris suggested. While you are waiting, take her outside, maybe that will jumpstart everything. I wouldn't keep a water dish in her cage just yet. It may bring the humidity up a little too much & if her immune system is depressed she could get a respiratory infection on top of that. I suggest giving her water & pedialyte through a syringe, or let her lick it off of her nose. Are you giving her warm baths, too? It might help her to feel better, to soak. I sincerely hope that you are able to help Missy pull through & get healthy! The care sheets on this forum are excellent, too. Please keep us posted on how she is doing, & when you are going to the vets. Give her lots of love & attention, she deserves it! ^_^ Good luck. Tracie
RE: Just got dragon, it I just want to add that 55 gallon is not okay for a regular-sized bearded dragon. But, since yours is a lil guy due to lack of growth, you should be fine. If your dragon hits over 15", you'll need to upgrade to a 65 gallon minimum. It does sound like a lack of calcium or MBD. If you cannot afford a MVB light, you can get a reptisun 10.0 fluorescent tube light. Now, the trick with these are that they must be within 6" of your dragon to be effective. Since your dragon has a lot of bone repairing to do, you should have it about 2" from your dragon, no higher if possible. These need to be changed *every* 6 months, minimum. Chances are your brother didn't replace the bulb every 6 months, and that's why your dragon is suffering now. Even if the bulb doesn't burn out, the UVB coating comes off, and it's about 6 months that the UVB output is useless for dragons. One disagreeance here: Don't feed superworms. She's too small and can be impacted by them. Also, as she's not of the best health she may have issues digesting the exoskeleton. Your best bet would be silkworms/butterworms, because they are the highest in calcium, but you still need to dust with what worley said (Rep-Cal Calcium). Take out the black lightbulb. Dragons need perfectly dark environments to sleep correctly. The only time you'll need supplementary heating is if your environment drops below 60F at night. NO lightbulb of any color should be used. no moonlight, no infrared, no black. If you need to up your temps, use a ceramic heat emitter on a dimmer. Dragons need a good drop in temps so their bodies kick into sleep mode. This black light could also be contributing to her problems, as she probably hasn't had a good sleep in a long time. Please take it out. A small dish is *okay* but a large dish can cause respiratory infections. Dragons can be bathed a couple times a week for hydration, you should not leave a large waterdish in there at all. Dragons are in dry air, and too much humidity will lead in respiratory infections, which, if left untreated, will kill. If you feed silkworms, they are an excellent source of moisture as well. I suggest soaking her once a day (out of terrarium) in a bath for about an hour. This will up her hydration and you might even catch her drinking out of her bath. You can lose the heating pad - or just unplug it. In general, heating pads are not recommended for beardies because they do not sense heat through their bellies. It can be unfortunate that the heat mat can cause hot-spots after awhile, and can severely burn your beardie. Make sure the crickets are no bigger than the space between her eyes. because of her severely stunted growth, you can feed her crickets every day. Feed her only as many as she can eat in 5-10 minutes. Be sure you dust them ALL with calcium. You should take out *all* crickets that are left uneaten, and never feed her less than 2 hours before lights out. She needs the heat/uv to digest properly, and if they shut off less than 2 hours after her last bite, she can have problems with digestion. www.beautifuldragons.com This is the best nutritional list. Feed everything that is in green. Flukers produces horrible products. Please discontinue use of Flukers and pick up the Rep-Cal calcium and Rep-cal Reptivite multivitamins. Calcium should be dusted 5x per week, and multivitamin 2x per week. these thermometers can be as much as 20 degrees off. Please pick up a digital thermometer with probe (wal-mart), and measure the basking spot and the cool side of the tank. The cooler side should be 80, and the basking spot should be 105-110. I think that's it for now. Get that vet appointment in, chances are they'll do calcium injections, which could cost a bit, but to save this girl's life it's more than worth it. Keep us updated.
Thank you so much everyone, I really appreciate it!! I'm looking into a Vet. right now. I live about an hour north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the Bucks County area. It looks like there are several options to choose from, I just have to narrow it down and pick one. If anyone has experience with the vets in that area, I would love a recommedation. Dogs are really my forte - I'm new to the reptile world. I haven't a clue how to pick a good reptile vet. I'll also be doing some major shopping today. Missy has been in that same 30 gallon aquarium since she was bought, I think she -definitely- deserves an upgrade. Thank you for the heads-up on Fluker's, too, I'll be switching to Rep-Cal. As far as her diet, since I've only had her a very short time, she is still on crickets and Romaine. That is changing today! The Lizard Litter is going, as well. I will look into the other bedding options while I'm at the store. And the thermometer, too. My only concern now is fitting all of this into my budget, but I'll manage somehow - Missy is worth it. I did give her a soak yesterday (the first day I had her), and she drank the water for several minutes, which I was very happy about. I'll be removing the dish, then, and sticking with the baths. I can't thank you enough for your help! I knew I was in over my head when I took Missy on, but I'm determined to do right by her. I will keep everyone updated on her progress, and I'm sure I will continue to ask questions as well!
I've got a very cheap solution for you: Paper towel. THere's no point in getting 'crap' from the pet store. It's too expensive. Also, they'll try to sell you calci-sand. It is NOT safe. Please do not buy it. If you don't want to use paper towel, get non-adhesive shelf liner from wal-mart. Big savings on money. Glad to hear you're taking care of her, can't wait to see pics if you have some!
Ok, so I went shopping and here's the low-down. I am going to have to stagger my spending, so right now I am focusing on getting her healthy, and then I will move on to things such as a bigger aquarium. Also, the owner of the store suggested a 40-gal. breeder tank when the time comes? Versus a 55 gal? She said that with the 55 gal you're getting extra height more than square footage. I'm not sure about that, but I'll address it when I get there. So within the parameters of the tank setup I already have, I bought an ESU Reptile Desert Coil Lamp. It's a coil compact flourescent bulb, 20 watts, 7% UVB, UVA, and full-spectrum daylight. I am going to have to figure out how to get it closer to her, somehow... I also bought a new thermometer, and a 100 Watt heat lamp, because her warm side was not warm enough. I took out the water dish, and put collard greens and a chopped up mixture of acorn squash, apple, asparagus, red bell pepper, and carrots in there instead. I sprinkled Rep-Cal Calcium powder on it. Speaking of the calcium powder, I've got a problem. As I was telling the store owner all of the stuff I needed, she was handing me things, and once I was already home and had opened the jar and used some of the powder, I realized that the Rep-Cal I bought is phosphorous free, but not Vit. D3 free. Is this a problem? Do I need to get the other formula? I've got silkworms on order, and I gave Missy a bath earlier today, which she seemed to enjoy, but didn't drink. I may try her again later? And regarding the Vet., I haven't contacted one yet. The lady at the pet store suggested making these changes and seeing if there is an improvement first. She also gave me a syringe with about 9 cc of liquid calcium in it, and said to give Missy three drops a day. What is your opinion? Is the Vet. visit still necessary? It would certainly be easier on my pocket book, but I don't want to skimp out on something and have it harm Missy, either. I'll get pictures of her up soon. I always thought that she was a pretty girl, but now she is as grey as London, with yellow around her eyes and ears, and a bit of orange under her throat. Everywhere else, it's grey.
That's true. However, a 40gal breeder isn't enough for a regular sized dragon. 65 gallon is minimum. Return it immediately. ESU is CRAP product. Please take my advice and go for a fluorescent tube. I would not direct you in the wrong direction. If you keep that ESU you're going to make your beardie's problems worse. With the UVB you can NOT cut corners. Get either a Reptiglo 8.0 or a reptisun 10.0 NO EXCEPTIONS. No, that's fine. D3 helps your dragon synthesize your calcium so they can use it better. Great on the silkworms. As for the bath, keep bathing once or twice a day to keep hydration up. If she is enjoying them, it's a great way of bonding. She may not drink all the time, but don't fret, they will drink when they need it. Considering the pet store lady sold you a crap UV bulb, I wouldn't suggest taking her advice. I would contact a vet. You need to get your dragon a fecal done (poop sample) to make sure there are no parasites in it at all. Yes, vets are expensive. But your dragon needs one. Liquid calcium is fine to administer, just make sure you pick up some pedialyte, and give a half syringe of this a day with the calcium. pedialyte will also keep your dragon hydrated. So far you're doing great other than that UV bulb. I hope you read this soon enough to exchange the bulb. They are scientifically proven to have the lowest UVB output, and therefore rendering it to be completely useless for dragons. You will have to pick up a fluorescent tube fixture, but you can get one for cheap at wal-mart. What did you end up buying for substrate?
Hello Hello, How is Missy doing? Did you get the cage all set up? I hope that you were able to get the lights all exchanged & set up with the correct readings. Like Mecca said, the calcium with vitamin D will be fine for her. She needs extra right now anyway, so, it wont hurt her. She is a good candidate for that. Did you get some silkies yet? Also, some small crickets would be good also. The veggie salad you made for her sound great. Keep up with that, for sure. Great job. Good luck with her. I surely hope that little Missy can pull through this. I completely agree with everyone else on this. Really, I know it is more expensive, but, a vet visit is important. It would give you a baseline on her condition, plus, making sure she has no parasites. It sounds like you are going to take very good care of her. Keep us posted on her condition. Tracie
Dagger said the d3 was great...got me all confused for a sec thinking I posted BUT i wll agree Repti-Cal with d3 is the best
Shoot, and here I thought I was doing well. It was an expensive bulb too. :? I'll try to return it, but I already had it in for a few hours today, so I'm not sure if the store will take it back. It was in plastic packaging, which I cut open too, so I can't just put it back in the box. The nearest WalMart is an hour away - I'm hoping Target or some such place will have fluourescent tubes? I would have gone that route, except that the lady at the store said she had to order it, and that it wouldn't come in until Friday (I don't want to wait that long...). For substrate, Missy's got paper towels for now. I won't hear about the silkworm order until Monday, so I will let you know what happens then. As far as the Vet., I am going to try and call a few places tomorrow.
Hello Hello, Sorry you are having such luck. Did you get in touch with any vets today? I hope so. Don't beat yourself up, you are trying. It is hard to decipher everything so quickly. I hope Missy is hanging in there. Good luck, & keep us posted on her condition. The paper towels are fine, by the way. Unfortunately, those stores don't care if the bulbs are effective or not, they just sell the products. Tracie
