Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey, unfortunalty its about time for me to have to put down my first bearded dragon. he is getting pretty old, and has problems shedding and doesn't have the overall energy he's had through his life. I'd like it to be over for him before it gets worse. I was wondering if anyone knows what methods are commonly used for vets to euthanize a beardie, if most vets offer this service, and what kind of cost I would be looking at to do it. Thanks for any help you can give, I'd like his last few days to be good days

Most people should be so lucky as to have one live to old age, congrats and sorry for your pending loss. I recomend phenobarbitol, a lot of vets still want to use nicotine but it is painful, with phenobarb they get high, get sleepy and drift off. In emergency cases I've also used a CO2 kill chamber that I use for rats and mice but I think since this will be planned the vet and phenobarb is still a better idea.
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Heart Mountain Herps

I used to care for a diabetic rat colony when i was working in this one biochemistry laboratory. Sometimes during the study a rat would get too sick and start to suffer and I would put him down in a CO2 chamber. I always wondered if that was such a horrible death or not. Supposedly, if you let the CO2 in slowly enough, the animal falls asleep FIRST, then sufficates in the sleep.
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a free range dragon is a happy dragon

try to find a vet who knows herps, its much better if they can hit a vein, most vets i know will use the same solution they do for mammals, but because of the slower metabolism herps take longer to pass away. sometimes with exotics that are going to be hard to hit a vein on we will give them a sedative to make it easier to hit a vein and kinder to the animal. where i work a euth. is about 30$, well worth it if your old guy is suffering. im glad i get to work in a profession that we can end suffering, and glad to see a herp that got to live a good long life!
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hanging out under heat lights burns up my brain cells!!