Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This past August I got two baby dragons, male and female. I was told I could keep them together,lol. After being together for several months in a 40 gallon breeder the male decided to attack the female. It took 2 people to get her entire arm out of his throat. OMG it was horrible.

They now each have their own 40 breeders. The female, has recovered slowly. At first she didnt move her arm at all, then she started moving her shoulder, then her elbow, her hand hasnt progressed much at all. This healing has been over about a month and a half. At times when she walks the hand/wrist is bent under, especially when she is moving fast. She hunts her food and gets around just fine, eats like a pig and has grown alomst 2 inches since her injury occured.

I took her to a vet, but they were rather clueless. They claimed to see reptiles but could offer no suggestions other than waiting to see what happens or putting her to sleep. My question is that is it better to have the non functioning part of the arm aputated at this point or let her go as she is? Maybe someone has had a similiar experience.

Thanks,
Shell

Can you post a picture? I'd be hesitant to recommend amputation unless there is dead tissue, pain, or it hinders his/her mobility significantly. I had to have a rescues hand and part of his foot amputated this summer due to 2 males being housed together. I would bet both your dragons are male.

Is the hand a normal color? Dead tissue will turn darker and then you know it needs to come off. Surely, there is no reason to put this animal down! Amputation is a MUCH better alternative. I have a dragon who is missing an entire arm at the shoulder joint and gets along just fine and is quick as lightning now that her dead arm is gone. IT is a pretty long recovery and one where the dragon must be kept dry as can be for 6 weeks but worth it in the end. The stitches should be in for 6 weeks because their skin takes forever to heal from stitches.

I would wait it out since you have seen progress and see what you end up with. I would watch very closely for signs of tissue death though. If you see the tissue dying, it is important to get it taken care of before it spreads. Perhaps a trip to a different Vet may be in order. I would call and ask specifically for a Vet who does Dragon amputations. That way your bases are covered if need be even though you are just seeking advice. It bothers me that this Vet gave you the choice of wait and see or put the Dragon down; unless it was a predetermined financial issue.

You can look in the photos, I am wondering about her 2nd toe.

She has made great progess. For the first 2 weeks she put no weight on her entire arm/leg. We went to the vet at about 10 days after it happened. The vet was clueless, he sees mostly iguanas I guess. I live in a rural area and dont have anyone experienced close. They said they would be hesitant to do a surgical amputation due to the size of the animal and that I should consider haveing her put to sleep to ease her suffering. This attitude is the main reason I didnt go back.

I found sombody else, but would need to travel about 90 miles one way to get there. I recentely had back surgery and am allowed to drive only 15 minutes at a time, so that place is out of the question right now, unless its an emergency. Since she has been making progress I havent made an appointment.

Any input is appreciated,
Shell

This is how she stands on her arm at times. Sometime she has it flat.

Thanks,
Shell

It appears that somewhere below the elbow on the forearm there is a good possibility that a bone is broke. Usually, even human beings if you break your forearm/wrist your hand might want to curl up like that cause of the injury. It may sound stupid and I am new here, but what would happen if you broke off a small piece of a popsickle stick and try to tape it to the back of its arm and have it just be little longer than the wrist would touch the ground so it can try to heal, but no higher than the elbow on top. My thinking is if the bone is broke and it is still using its arm to walk on, it may not heal right. Than if it the stick there the elbow will use the stick instead of the arm to plant which would take the pressure of the arm. At least that is my idea.

I am a therapist and actually kicked around the idea of making a splint. My husband thought I was crazy.

Well, what else are your options? I definitely don't think aputation is the answer nor putting the reptile to sleep is absolutely insane!!! I think the popsickle stick is a good idea. Maybe to increase the calcium intake a little so that her body can heal the broken bone if it is broken. Your situation has brought in light that I will seperate my dragons. I don't want this issue where they fight each other.

Here are a few more. It is the left side of the photo. Her cage is half carpet (for feeding, drinking etc..) and half colored sand for basking. The sand has left a red color on her skin. Once this stuff is gone I wont buy it again. She has alot of skin that hasnt shed completely on her hand as well. The second toe from the middle is questionable to me. There was open skin on the wrist area as well (this has healed).

As I said in an above picture she has alot of un-shed skin. This is reddish from the sand. The fingers dont seem to spread out for stability as the other is usually. You may be able to see the second finger better here, I dont know. There is a small "v" on the upper arm that had open skin as well as the wrist, these have all healed.

I think the biggest problem with that hand right now is the unshed skin stuck to it. Try soaking her in water for 10-20 minutes and gently rub the fingers with a damp face cloth to see if you can pull off the unshed skin off her toes. Unshed skin can dry out and constrict the toes, causing them to loose circulation and then die off.

Right now I don't see any indication the toes are 'dead' and she does seem able to spread out her toes in a normal manner.

The local vet who you don't feel knows much about reptiles should be able to take an X-ray of your dragon's arm and hand to check for broken and badly healed bones. He could even send that to the more qualified herb vet 90 min drive away for advise.
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PHLdyPayne

2nd that.....get a xray of the whole leg. Than you will know a whole lot more than what you know now. Does xrays for pets cost alot of money?

I had a 4 week old kitten once that it ran $275 for xrays of one leg/shoulder. That included xrays, pain meds and a soft splint for a fracture, most of the cost was anethseia and xrays.

Will do! I was afraid to mess with her to much since I didnt want to damage anything that was healing, but that makes sense.

Thanks,
Shell

An x-ray won't help much now. If a bone was broken it would have started to heal either correctly or incorrectly at this point. An x-ray would have been more appropriate right after the injury before healing began.

Her hand may also have been burned by stomach acids rather than it being just a retained shed issue. I would not try too hard to remove skin/tissue after soaking. If you just soak her regularly, you should see improvement over time. A soft bristle toothbrush works well assuming she's not too sensitive.

Nope, I never saw the pictures. I don't think they were up when I posted. That doesn't look that bad at all compared to what I had pictured in my mind. It also doesn't compare to my dragon before her surgery. I would be tempted to try to work with it myself. You could try to set it or restrict it as best you could and hope you've done well. I would think that would be better than letting it flop around and heal any old way. I like the dog bandage material myself or the bandage that is flexible and sticks only to itself. It wouldn't take much to hold such small bones still.

Btw, my dragon was a baby dragon when she had her surgery. You could hold all of her in your one hand postop.

I gave her a soak tonight as you and BDlvr suggested. I was aiming for 10 minutes but it only lasted about 5 till she soiled the water horribly.

Her hand looks good, not great, but a bit cleaner with alot less crusty gunk. That was without even using a toothbrush. I will try again tomorrow.

She was not a happy camper in the water. I usually just taek them out and mist. She is now puffing up when I walk towards her cage, she is pretty mad at me I guess. I hope she forgives me,lol.

Thanks again,
Shell

Here is a new photo. She has been soaked daily for 5-20 minutes. Unfortunetely, that second toe doesnt seem to good. I will continue with soaks for the next couple days, maybe its just a stubborn piece of skin, but I am not hopefull. Some of the areas look burned, as someone mentioned they can get burns from the stomach acid. The wrist area was a piece of shed that came off, afetr the photo. She does seem to be using the hand better since she was soaked. I will just have to wait and see.

Thanks a bunch,
Shell

the toe tip may need to be amputated...but give it some time to see if it gets better. If it starts to spread up into the toe, then have a vet remove it. Much better to loose half a toe than the entire arm.
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PHLdyPayne