Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I figured I'd get as broad a range as possible of opinions, so I'm posting this here. First some background...

Late last week I switched to silkworms. They were great at first, I thought I was all set. Then Sunday night I came home from work to some water and white mush in the food dish. No problem, I figured maybe he just passed some urate and some water from over-hydration, although he doesn't get excessive baths or misting, maybe silkworms were high in water. Well, I read the following post from bearded-dragons.com (Where I usually frequent) (The message was reguarding someones beardie with a gaping/etc behavior that was uncharacteristic of him):

"When i read your post, I instantly saw the similarities in what happened to Pookie. She ate several waxworms one night and we feel that we may have given her too many for her size at that time. The next day she wasn't her usual self and by afternoon she was gasping and acting much like you described your beardie...my wife called and i rushed home from work to take Pookie to the vet, but she didn't make it. The Vet asked if she vomited and my wife wasn't sure as she did not see pookie vomit. My wife cleaned up what she thought was undigested worms from her stool, but later she realized it was vomit and not her poop. The Vet said Pookie died from dehydration from vomiting and the act of vomiting most likely took care of whatever made her sick, so without a necropsy, the actual cause of death was presumed to be the dehydration."

Then I became worried after thinking about what I found. I remembered that for the past day I've seen him gaping alot more often than usual. I wrote another message asking the poster for details of what his beardies vomit was like, to determine if this was vomit or just some water and urate. (I've seen a watery discharge before once when he pooped and it was normal when I asked, just meant he was well-hydrated) I also immediately after gave him a fifteen minute soak, so he could absorb moisture he might have lost from that incident thru his vent. Well, I went and fed everyone, and then went back to feed myself. By the time I left he ate five out of six silkies I put in initially, leaving one in there. I came back, and I found the same substance again. I began to worry. So I broke out the camera and started documenting. I have the following shots:

Picture 1: The substance left. Very similar to the first incidence.

Picture 2: Another shot.

Picture 3: One more.

Picture 4: Size of his silkworms.

Picture 5: His size. He's roughly 10", this image poorly portrays that.

By the way, these are the same size silkworms roughly that I feed to my two leopard geckos (Who are ~7 months rescues I got almost a month ago now) and they don't have any problems. I'm confuzzled... I really don't want to/can't go back to crickets, and silkworms seemed to be my answer, but now I have a serious problem that is now happening with them. His basking spot is at 105(F). Also, when I came back, he was lower on his log, but now that I went back in he's right up to that basking area. And was gaping, just sitting on his log with his mouth wide open under that basking area.
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0.0.1 Bearded Dragon (Zeo)
0.2.0 Leopard Geckos (Vienna, Unnamed)
1.0.0 Golden Retriever, Rocky, 10 years young

I was doing research on vomiting in lizards and found that anoles can over-eat and that can induce vomiting. Could this be the case with beardies? Normally the advice given is they'll know when it's enough, but maybe that's not always the case... Tomorrow morning he's getting an immediate bath and will be closely monitored. I'm going to limit him to four silkworms, then observe. If no vomiting, then five. Six seems to be where it crosses the bursting point. At five, he does have that plump look anyways.
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0.0.1 Bearded Dragon (Zeo)
0.2.0 Leopard Geckos (Vienna, Unnamed)
1.0.0 Golden Retriever, Rocky, 10 years young

First, that is vomit, not poo.

Also, get a fecal and have it checked. Beardies will gap when they have parasites or early URI that you can not tell.

The silkworms may not be the main factor causing it. Althought it could be that they are swallowing them so fast they are not clearing the throat into the stomach fast enough or that something else is obstructing the throat lke URI or stomach, like parasites.

To check about a URI, relax with the beardie for a bit, place him on your shoulder near you ear and see if over the next five minutes you hear a clicking to like smal popping sound.

Either can cause a bearded dragon to regurgitate their foods

>>First, that is vomit, not poo.
>>
>>Also, get a fecal and have it checked. Beardies will gap when they have parasites or early URI that you can not tell.
>>
>>The silkworms may not be the main factor causing it. Althought it could be that they are swallowing them so fast they are not clearing the throat into the stomach fast enough or that something else is obstructing the throat lke URI or stomach, like parasites.
>>
>>To check about a URI, relax with the beardie for a bit, place him on your shoulder near you ear and see if over the next five minutes you hear a clicking to like smal popping sound.
>>
>>Either can cause a bearded dragon to regurgitate their foods

I will find a similar spot in my beardies enclosure. I say similar because usually there's more solid substance there. Once in a great while they will excrete a small amount of liquid similar to what the pic shows.

Usually, when my beardies do their business there is quite a bit of liquid and the urates look like the white substance in egg drop soup. I've always been leary about the amount of liquid but have posted multiple times about it and no one indicated it was a problem, just that they were well hydrated.

They both are healthy as far as I can tell. Your thoughts?
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Rob

One the bowl is small, the chance he got his bottom situated perfectly were the salad is eaten is a possiblity, but not as much one as he was eating and regurgitated food. Dragons can pouch food in their throats and trying to take in more when they have it there we have seen them vomit up some (I guess its not really vomit that way, more like chewed and mixed with upper stomach juices).

Yes, to the feeding them, but sparingly, I having been leaning more and more to fresh salads and pellets for our dragons. The adults get occassional worms may 3-4 a few times a week

Also, dealing with many sick and ill dragons from the rehabs we take in, this looks exactly like what we see when they get sick from having a lot of food available to them, when they are not use to it and will regurgitate some back up or meds they have to take. I had one that would hold food in his mouth most the day or meds and usually spit some of it out.

Lastly, I don't see any fecal matter in that at all, if they are eating other things as the salad would indicate, you would see some if it was poo

Silk worms have been used enough by many people, I think it is a farily safe thing to be giving them, but as all things, moderation and variety is important.

Outside of greens, flowers and veggies, I really do not think many of us would want to duplicate their exact diet in the wild, LOL, it can be pretty nasty!!

The best we can do is go from the pathology of the past, we know that fatty liver disease is one of the leading cause of early demise in dragons in captivity, so we know we have to avoid fatty foods that their systems can not break down, we also know that sugars can contribute to that also, so we need to minimize their intake of that and dairy products. When we see Juvies slowing in their growing spurts, we start increasing their salads and ending their intact of a lot of protein. Most our adults are on total greens/veggies and some pellets, with hardly any worms, and no crickets.

Next spring I plan on taking a page from Joel's routine and raising babies on pellets and not mainly crickets, but the first food they are given will still be greens and veggies

That's the largest size dish I could find, XL size. He can very easily fit his whole body in. I put his greens in there in the morning, then later lay some silkworms on top, so it'd be easy to get in there... I just got back, by the way, from dropping off a fecal, so unless I get a call it'll mean he's fine. I'm 99% sure there's no URI. I was thinking again and I noticed he doesn't chew a whole lot, so I'm going to give him food slowly --- drop one in, wait a minute so I know he has it down, then give him another. He doesn't eat a whole lot of salad, and totally ignores pellets, by the way. You mentioned that it's alot like what you see when they suddenly have alot more food... He's always had sufficent food, except for once or twice where he only got salad with pellets (Even though he doesn't eat pellets) while I was waiting for crickets to come, but hasn't had one of those in a long time.

P.S. - Does anyone know how much Albon usually costs for a juvenile-dose? Just wondering.
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0.0.1 Bearded Dragon (Zeo)
0.2.0 Leopard Geckos (Vienna, Chomps)
1.0.0 Golden Retriever, Rocky, 10 years young

available to him, I meant it in relationship to some of the rehab or rescued dragons we have taken in. Some had poor amounts of food available to them or diets in the past so gulp down whatever is available to fast since they think it will disappear and this often leads to them regurgitating it back up. We have to start slowly and increase their intake over several days, especially if they are on meds too.

Ok, I examined it this morning, it had dried a bit... It was powdery, like urate --- it crumbled. So now I'm unsure again.
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0.0.1 Bearded Dragon (Zeo)
0.2.0 Leopard Geckos (Vienna, Chomps)
1.0.0 Golden Retriever, Rocky, 10 years young

As I have been feeding my dragons silkworms for quite some time now (well about 4 - 5 months), I have seen both vomited up silkworms and poo. There was one time my dragon vomited up silkworms, I don't know why, but can only assume it was from stress...(it was on the day I was moving into my new appartment. I had fed him about an hour before I moved him but with all the commotion of moving I think, caused him to vomit up his silkworms). The vomit diffintely looked like partly digested silkworms, there wasn't any confusion at all on my part.

I have also seen my dragon poo mostly water and urates a couple times. I think it's just left overs from his earlier poo that either didn't get out or whatever. It pretty much looked like the pictures you showed above. Alot of liquid and a whitish blub.

I would suggest feeding a little less silkworms one at a time.

I also noticed that it looks like you dust his greens, maybe he is licking up the powered calcium etc and then spitting it back out but I am completely guessing on that point.

IF his fecal is clean and he is eating well, active and not showing any other signs of illness i wouldn't worry about it. Just keep him well hydrated, just in case he is vomiting. Even leaving a small dish of water in his cage can help.