Hi everyone,

it has been quite a while since I have been on here, I have had my hands full lately with my baby beardies. about 3 months ago, I had a clutch of babies hatch, all seemed well, eating great, doing everything that a normal, healthy baby dragon does, but as soon as they turned a month old....disaster struck! They started dying off one by one, it was extremely hard for me to deal with . Needless to say, it was very depressing for me as a "dragon mommy" to lose my precious babies. I lost all but one. The vets were stumped as to the cause. The babies would eat, drink, poop, and be normal until the end. Before I went to bed, they would be fine and when I would wake, one or 2 would be dead! This played out until all but one was lost, and I was helpless to do anything to save them, a very crushing feeling! I finally came to the conclusion that it was a genetic problem passed on by the mom so I decided to NEVER breed her again. Now it seems that I was completely wrong about the problem being genetic! I have a group of babies from parents that are 100% unrelated to the parents of the hatchlings mentioned earlier that up to this point have been healthy, happy babies. About 3 days ago I lost the 1st one, yesterday I lost 3 more and 2 more are on their way out as I type. Again, this didn't start happening until they turned 4 weeks old. Yet again the vet can't help nor have I been able to find one that can tell me what is going on. I have frozen 3 of the dead babies and am trying to get ahold of a University that can perform a necropsy. Here are the symptoms in case anyone can help me pin point this horrible illness: appearance of dehydration (eyes sunken in)(I soak the babies 2 times daily plus mist them) ,runny stool usually clumped to the vent area, bruising on the stomach or chest area. I will not be breeding anymore dragons until I am 100% sure what is causing this. If anyone has ever lost babies in a similer way or if you think you might know what this illness is, PLEASE let me know. I would love to be able to save the remaining 7 babies that I have! Please, everyone say a prayer for the remaining babies (if your not religious, cross your fingers for them!) Thanks, Christy

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• Strange beardie illness, please help! - snakecharmed, Mon Jan 12 02:34:22 2004
• RE: Strange beardie illness, please help! - BeginnersBasics, Mon Jan 12 09:23:10 2004
• That's the first thing I thought of as well. n/p - wideglide, Mon Jan 12 09:45:13 2004
• Me too n/p - Christyj, Mon Jan 12 11:56:33 2004
• CHERI... Jump in here please! N/P - BeginnersBasics, Mon Jan 12 10:33:42 2004
• I gotta work to and support this "habit" and burned out too with - CheriS, Mon Jan 12 20:02:04 2004
• Here's some info..... - brdfreak, Mon Jan 12 11:13:05 2004
• RE: Here's some info..... - BeginnersBasics, Mon Jan 12 11:19:37 2004
• RE: Here's some info..... - grimdog, Mon Jan 12 11:30:11 2004
• Oops.... Here's the contact info for Dr. Wentz - brdfreak, Mon Jan 12 11:45:16 2004
• A fecal on a live beardie would probably be the way to go - CheriS, Mon Jan 12 18:33:58 2004
• Here is a link with some more info. - wideglide, Mon Jan 12 12:04:35 2004
• weird thing....biology book has adeno in it....who would have thought - carbonatom13, Mon Jan 12 19:50:39 2004
• It can have different effects on different species (more) - CheriS, Mon Jan 12 20:09:09 2004