Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi my female beardie is breathing very heavely fore a couple of breaths sometimes. She lifts her self up and down when her lungs expand and she opens her mouth like she is all to hot. Does anybody recognise this behaviour??? She cant be to hot because she does it sometimes when she is out of the cage aswell as inside. Sometimes I think she is about to throw up but that never happens...what could it be??

could be a resperatory infection, can you hear clicking or any sort of noise when she breaths that is out of the ordinary? hold her to your ear and listen to her breath. you may want to have her checked by a vet if she seems she is struggling to breath or struggling to clear soemthing out, its never too early.
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reiko
photos

I'm here asking alot of questions so i'm probably not the one for advice...but....I had a beardie choke once and it was horrible, i would hate to see you go thru that. They never figured out on what, said maybe it was just sand. She too opened her mouth like she was breathing heavy, then went to looking like she was going to throw up (do lizards even do that??) then went into a convulsion kinda thing & never came out of it. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. My advice...Don't mess around with it....take her to a vet.

GOOD LUCK!
~lisa

We bought her off the web (never again!) from a gecko breeder who was "getting out of dragons".
He shippped her and when we opened the box, she was really struggling to breathe. Not every breath but needing to fully expand her beard and rib cage to get a full breath, needing to pull herself up on her arms to breathe and needing to keep her mouth open.
We took her to the Vet emergently, they kept her for 3 days on oxygen, fluids, antibiotics, etc. She had 5 different types of infections, some in her fecal, in her blood cultures and a lung infection as well. She was on medications/shots for 6 months trying to clear everything up.
She was not expected to live but is still with us one year later. It has taken alot out of her and she will never be able to tolerate breeding but we love and care for her daily
I would suggest you take her to a reptile Vet as soon as possible. She sounds like she is struggling to breathe and will need prompt medical attention if she has a respiratory infection.
Good luck with her and let us know if we can help at all.

Sharla

Hi again...There is no cliking sound when she does here weard breathing. And it just happends maybe once a day. I don´t think it is a infection. but i will call my vet to se if he has got any ideas of what it could be...