Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Baby beardy hatched 8/28/07 but hasn't eaten crickets or salad. Feeding him via a fingertip of jump start and he licks it from my finger and then licks small amounts of water. Extremely skinny, very weak, worth trying to nurse back to health? I placed the poor little guy in a small dish inside my incubator at 84 degrees to keep him warm on a moist paper towel.

Thanks
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"Speak softly to my lizard fair nor raise your hand to me, For they are quick to take offense And quicker to champion me." ~Anne McCaffrey.

1.1 Bearded Dragon
2.2 Leopard Gecko
1.1 Blood Corn
1.0 Ball Python
0.1 Mali Uromastyx

"worth nursing back to health" is a matter of opinion. Assuming you try to stick it out, that's honestly my best advice. Stick it out. Try to make sure for the first little while that it's getting a full meal, perhaps use a syringe and measure it. You'll have to estimate it's stomach size, say about a 5th of it's body. On a hatchling, I'd guestimate 0.3-0.4mls of food would suffice but I don't have one in front of me to make that much of a guess. Only give what the animal will swallow though. Once you get the feeling that animal is a bit more perky, and perhaps gaining some weight, then it's time to attempt reducing feedings so the animal starts to get a hunger edge, and think about eating on it's own.

Ian

Hatchling won't eat much, impossible to get a syringe into it's mouth. I've tried several times with a syringe and his mouth is too small to even pry open an edge. I'm going to try to nurse him, see if it work's out. At the moment I've been getting him to lick small amounts of "Jump start" off my fingertips and then soaking him in warm pedialite before placing him back onto the moist paper towel inside the container and then placing that back into the incubator.
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"Speak softly to my lizard fair nor raise your hand to me, For they are quick to take offense And quicker to champion me." ~Anne McCaffrey.

1.1 Bearded Dragon
2.2 Leopard Gecko
1.1 Blood Corn
1.0 Ball Python
0.1 Mali Uromastyx

Can you not get him to lick out of a syringe? But if what you are doing is getting food into him, that's the important thing. If it comes to the point where you feel the need to give more, get someone to show you how to open the mouth safely on such a small critter.

Ian

I hate to sound cold-hearted, but I personally would not intervene to an extreme because if this beardie is not surviving, there is probably a reason for it.

In nature, weak or unfit individuals are produced all the time, and they serve as food for other predators. If this beardie is too weak to survive the neonatal period, it would probably be a weak adult and a poor contributor to the gene pool.

This is an especially important consideration when we are talking about species that have been inbred like crazy, like beardies. Would there be the possibility of this guy being a breeder if he reaches maturity? Was the mom in good health while she was gravid? If he has a poor immune system or is just weak overall, he would be detrimental to our captive bred Pogona pool.

Is he one individual out of the clutch that is not doing well? Is there a chance there's something infectious going around the babies? Were the parents closely related? If he's the only one not doing well (or one of a few not doing well), I would do my best to make him comfortable but not jump through hoops to ensure his survival. Would it be fair to the beardie to force an uncomfortable survival on him when he would have died otherwise?

Again, he may recover and be a fantastic pet, but if his genetics are terribly weak and he won't survive, that can happen...

Best of luck to you in any case, I hope that he does well.

You can also buy a high-calorie cat/dog food at the vet, like Hill's A/D or Medi-Cal's Recovery Formula. Mix it with a small amount of water and pass it through a strainer then try syringing it to him.

I've never personally used Jump-Start, is that the one by Fluker's? Anyone else have experience with it?

Christina
www.herptiles.net