Alright, so we're new Beardie owners and we've got one that just seems to be a ball of troubles.
We got her about three and a half weeks ago from a guy who said he had rescued her from a home where she was free-roaming and probably didn't get the right heat/nutrition. We have no clue how old she is, but she's definitely adult sized, and probably closer to mid-age. In the few weeks that we've had her, she's been to the vet three times, but the last time was the worst and they didn't seem to know exactly what was happening with her, so I was hoping someone might have an idea... this is what happened:
We fed her about five crickets with calcium supplement sprayed on them (she has to be hand fed because she has basically no feeding response right now and the syringe-fed stuff we were giving her was giving her diarrhea), had her out for a few more minutes and then put her back in her cage to warm up and digest. Her cage is a custom built, about 4x2x3 with multiple basking layers, it says about 96 on the warm end and 75-80 on the cooler end, and it really doesn't have any substrate to speak of since it's got custom rock faces for her. About an hour or so later we noticed that she had her mouth wide open and was sort of puffing out, then recoiling sort of violently. When we took her out of her cage to check her out, she seemed to be having trouble breathing and it looked like there was some red stuff in her mouth (we thought possibly blood) that appeared to disappear later. Also, her beard and the two patches right behind her head had turned completely black, exactly like I've seen pictures of male beardies doing as a sexual response. She was sort of convulsing and really looked like she might have been on the way out... however we got her to the vet and the put her in the incubator for the night, and the next morning she seemed to be doing a lot better.
Here's the thing: the vet's best guess is that she's having liver problems from her poor nutrition in her earlier years, but he seems really unsure of what could have actually caused her to convulse and turn her beard black. If anyone has any idea what could be going on, it would be much appreciated... We just want to make sure that now she gets all of the attention and care that she needs.
