for the past 5 or 6 years my leopard had been doing great with no problems that we were aware of. He ate and pooped well, and was a generally active, happy lizard. Two nights ago we were shocked to see that he wasn't up and going by 9:00pm looking for crickets (as was his daily routine) and we were even more shocked when we removed him from his enclosure to see that he had a very severe prolapse.
We are in Rochester NY, but there weren't any emergency vets that would see him, and he was just in awful physical condition (on death's doorstep), so we drove to Buffalo to a vet that would look at him, but he had hemorraged and there was unfortunately nothing they could do for him except to humanely euthanize him. I knew when we got there that there would be no saving him, but I was trying to stay optimistic.
He had always eaten and pooped fine with no signs of parasites, and he was kept on either paper, shelf-liner, or carpet. The only think I can think of is that his light was out for a day about a week ago, but I am not sure this would be enough to cause constipation this severe. I was told he could have been congenitally pre-disposed to it, but we will likely never know. I opted out of an autopsy, because he was our only leo (not our only reptile though), and we wanted to give him a proper burial. Plus, it just didn't really occur to us at the time because we were so shocked.
Not sure if I'll get another leopard. I am still just so shocked that he went from happy young lizard to unhelpable in the course of a day. We did everything we could, including an hour an 40 minute trip for possible treatment. He definitely wouldn't have lived through the night.
