Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok so i went to check out my beardes after thier lights went out and i noticed something very strange.

first lemme say something. yesterday i noticed that it looked like she wanted to "throw up" she had her mouth open and she seemed to be gagging almost.

today when i got home and opened the cage to clean out the stool i noticed her vent was open a little bit and there was some stool stuck to it, i took her out cleaned off her vent and the stool and put her back in, she was moving around fine and shes been eating fine.

now tonight she looked very odd. her eyes were half open and she wasnt moving at all. i took her out and held her in my hand and she felt like dead weight. the only times she responds is when i flip her on her back or put her in warm water. i felt around on her belly and i could feel her ribs but nothing that would make me thinkg shes impacted. i didnt feel anything solid anywhere, it all feels nice and soft and even.

i called my local herp vet and he says he doesnt really know what it could be, possibly some kind of infection or something.

she has no tremors or anything of a ceisure kind of thing.

someone please help me im desperate and i dont want to lose her but honestly it doesnt look like shell make it thru the night.

Oh my! I'm sorry, but I don't know what it could be. I hope somebody can help you out, and more importantly I hope she gets better!!
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Well, unfortunately there arent any exptic 24 hour emergency vets or anything like that. and with my little knowledge of animal care all i could do was go and give her some pedialyte to see if i could get some fluids in her.

i stayed awake till like 2 in the morning watching over her. but soon she started to cough up blood, so there was deff some internal bleeding of some kind. so im thinking it could possibly be an impaction from something.

she kept trying to throw up but nothing was coming out. just some thick saliva and blood and some pedilyte of course.

long story short shes passed on. somehow i feel like a failure you know? the other day she had her mouth open and was like breathing really hard. i guess she was trying to throw something up too but she was just extending her beard so i thought she was communicatng with the other dragon.

im going to compltely get my male dragon (draco) off this calci sand for good. looks like ill have to get some better kind of substrate.

i feel like i let her down and didnt react quick enough. i kno this is part of owning exotics and honestly my biggest mistake was buying both my dragons as adults, on impulse. i hadnt seen any dragons like them down here so i bought them. looking back now i shouldve thought it through some more.

Anthony

RIP - Roxy

I'm so sorry Anthony!!! I would definitely get your other dragon off the calci sand asap. I have heard nothing but horror stories about that stuff. I do not use any substrate with mine - just put down papertowels in the areas they like to go the bathroom. If you do use sand, I have been told to only go with extra "fine" play sand. I also know a very good website forum that deals exclusively in beardies and has a lot of knowledgeable people on it (great place for asking questions). If you want the URL, I will e-mail it to you.
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Liann
1.0 Colombian Boa (Austin)
1.0 Suriname Boa (Aloysius)
0.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (Carmen)
1.0 Anery Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Pueblan Milk (Marishka)
1.1 Sinaloan Milk
1.1 Hypo Honduran Milk (Damien & Lucy)
1.1 Pastel BP
1.0 Spider BP
1.2 Het Pied BP
1.1 Het Albino BP
1.8 Ball Pythons
0.1 Crested Gecko (Chloe)
1.2 SHTC Leos (Rico, Sabine, & Yazmine)
0.1 Albino Leo (Mandy)
0.1 Leo (Lola)
2.0 Bearded Dragons (Sydney & Dundee)
1.0 Uro (Kegan)
2.1 Wiener Dogs (Dakota, Montana, & Cheyenne)
Too many corn snakes to list!

I am so sorry to hear about that Anthony. I just hope you learned from this unfortunate situation and are able to teach others about this and might be able to prevent this from happening to them, my prayers are with you and all your other pets
Bob

I am so sorry to hear that she didn't make it. I had a Fat Tailed Gecko that lived for about 7 or 8 years in my care, was still perfectly healthy, but just up and died without warning one day. The only change that I had made was changing the substrate to Calci-Sand. Now, I have no way of knowing for sure if it was impaction that killed him, but my gut tells me it was.

I hope your other Beardie doesn't suffer the same effect of the sand.
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

I can't add any care info on beardies.

Sounds like she went quickly and didn't suffer. Don't let it get you too down. We've all lost some of those battles. Some due to our own negligence, some ignorance and some just happens. Learn from your mistakes and move forward when you can.

Again, sorry for your loss.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
21.29 BRB
19.19 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats