Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A friend of mine (who I've known for a month) is leaving town tomorrow and brought her beardie over to my house for me to watch while she's away for two weeks. I'm so mad at her I could scream!

She says she got the beardie over a year ago - she's barely a foot long and is a little on the skinny side. She has her in a 10 gallon aquarium with sand (from the beach!) and one tiny stick. When I asked her where the heat bulb was she said it burned out. I said "no problem" and went to get one of my many extras. Then she said it burned out over four months ago! (Lord please help me restrain myself from hurting this woman!) She then took a frozen bag of green beens out of her bag and handed them to me. That's all she's been feeding the poor little dragon for the last year! GREEN BEANS! No crickets, no protein source, no UVB, no calcium! She says the pet store told her to feed it "greens." I'm amazed that this little girl is this healthy. No signs of MBD - just very small for her age. She looks like she is 4 months old.

I am so upset *shaking fist in the air*!!! She definately needs a larger cage, a UVB source and a better diet! I ordered a Reptisun 5.0 for her and some crickets are on the way. I printed up a dozen articles from the internet on beardie care and when she gets back I'm going to have a long chat with her. I think she genuinely cares about the beardie, she just doesn't know how to take care of her. You'd think that a halfway intelligent person would get a book or something! Geez! There's just no excuse. This is borderline abuse.

I'll post pictures tomorrow of the little girl if anyone is interested. Also she's very jumpy and hates to be handled because her owner didn't hold her much. My husband managed to hold her for a few minutes last night. I'm going to attempt a bath tonight. She gobbled some REAL greens out of my hand this morning - so that's at least a good start. I've got some calcium in her and some vitamins too. I should probably get a fecal sample to the vet. She's most likely got parasites, if not something worse from the beach sand. Yuck!

Sorry, just had to vent.

Veronica
Beautiful Dragons

its not uncommon for people to keep animals and not know the first thing about their care, its really unfortunate. Glad she is in your care and that you have the oportunity to educate the owner on proper husbandry, would love to see pics of the lil darling, hope yuou can get her on the road to better health
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reiko
photos

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i'm sorry that the beardie has to go through that!!!! i hope you can nurse her back to as healthy as possible! and i hope her owner is willing ro take better care of it. good luck with the bath!!! and good luck with the dragon!!!

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>>Sorry, just had to vent.
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>>Veronica
>>Beautiful Dragons

WOW! and she is alive after that kind of care. That is amazing. I bet your going to fill a 3" binder full of care sheets, etc for when she gets back

Take good care of her while she is there
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www.BeginnersBasics.com

I give mine the best gutloaded insects, medical care, UVB, baisically wipe their butts for them everytime they go. Tons of attention, A couple of baths a week, The best supplements and mine are dying of Yellow Fungus.
Other people throw them in a box and treat them like crap and they have no problems.

Oh I forgot I only give them greens from the health food store!

I'm sorry you have to deal with the yellow fungus it sure is sad. Figures that it gets all the proper care and love and is sick. I have a bearded dragon with yellow fungus. I treated her with lamisil on the spots and gave probiotics to help out with the digestion. She seems to be better, all the spots have shed off of her. It's been a while since I noticed any new spots on her. She got lucky I think. She is able to hold her weight up good she's 550 grams and about 20 inches. I wish you the best luck. I know how devastating it can be. I wrote ambers story down a bit on the forum with a pic of her and her story if you would like to read it. The title of the post is What is your favorite morph or color. And under that same post I wrote the reason for all 8 of my dragons and thats her.
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Mystical Dragons

Mo has had the yellow fungus for almost a year now. We started treatment with antibiotics a few months ago without any great result. Then CheriS helped me and I started doing the Nolvasan baths and Lamasil ALL OVER. I've only been doing that for a few weeks now and I've noticed a HUGE improvement. I hope you are trying this too. You take such good care of your beardies! This little one that I'm taking care of isn't that well off. I've noticed her twitch a few times. Looks like MBD. Hopefully with a little care and good supplements, she'll be ok. If you haven't contacted CheriS about the yellow fungus yet, I would. She has a bunch of great info on it and a great article that she wrote. How bad are your beardies? I'm curious and want to help.

Veronica
Beautiful Dragons

But there is some in their intestines.
The male has not eaten on his own since May. The female stopped eating a few days ago but she will sometimes nibble on a bite of food.
I have been force feeding the male for months and have taken him to 5 different vets before a diagnosis was made. I guess because there is no fungus externally and he was such a big guy they would just tell me he was a hefty guy and would probably start eating soon.

np

That's a shame. Mine slowed down on eating a bit for a short time, but I think that had more to do with the baytril she was first perscribed. I would be careful if your vet perscribes an antibiotic if it is yellow fungus yours has antibiotics has showed signs of spreading it or making it worse internally cause it kills good gut flora as well as bad. Have you started using probiotics? I think that would help a lot as an internal case of this is very bad for the digestive system. Also a good thing to do would be to raise the basking temps up a bit. Thats if it isn't already at 110 I would not go higher then that. Pet smart sells a probiotic called acidophiliz it is a liquid form. I wish you luck with them. If it does show up on the outside Lamisil has worked the best for me.
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Mystical Dragons

the Acidophiliz by pet Authority and I give you goof odds your dragon will start nibbling on some food.

Internal fungus really irritates their whole digestive tract, its a yeast... so imagine what it feels like, the acidophiliz has only improved any bearded dragon we or anyone we know has used it on. Pet Smart carries it, I had a case, but have sent it all out to people or I would send you one... Also, did you see the post about what to use and what NOT to use while on the internal meds?

But the vet has them on Baytril also because their tests showed signs of infection. I am worried about giving more antibiotics.
They are also on metrodiazonal

Here is the link to that post if you missed it
While on Oral Antifungal meds

Yes I've read the discoveries that CheriS has found. It's was a great help in finding out what exactly it was cause at the time it was a new illness showing up in the beardies. I treated with lamisil, and probiotics and had great results. No new spots after she had shed them off last time. She was always an eater and grew quite well. Leads me to believe she is not a carrier, and got it at the pet store when she was kept with other dragons. It seemed to get worse when baytril was used, cause origanally she was treated for a possible infection on her leg. As the infected area spread to the belly it was yellow. It didn't start at the vent area so it leads me to think it was from being in contact with another dragon with it. So far so good she is doing well. I just take extreme procausions not to contaminate any of my other dragons. She is kept in quarentine in a seperate room and NEVER is in contact with the others or anything used for them. She gets plenty of love though and free time4 to roam, just in a seperate room. I wish you luck.
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Mystical Dragons

for the rest of their life.

They can be cured, but there is still a chance that they carry it internally. I know it's contagious between beardies in contact with it. I do it as a precaution cause I got quite a few dragons, and breeders that can't risk infection. So the one I have that has it is kept completely separate from the others. In a different room with seperate supplies from the others. I always practiced hand washing before handling different dragons.
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Mystical Dragons

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Life is what happens when you are making other plans.......

the fact she's so stunted could be a sign of MBD w/o deformity. MBD is jsut bone density problems. She probably DOES have big bone problems, just to date been lucky enough not to wiegh enough to bend bones or handling roughly enough to break anything.

BTW- aren't beans really high in oxalates? Her poor little body. Imagine living a year off beans, a human couldn't do it.