Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Thank you so much for all of the info that you provided me with, it's greatly appreciated! I'm so sorry to hear that you had a similar experience, my heart goes out to anyone that has had to deal with this! Hopefully I can get things set up with the vet I found out of town and go from there. I will also be contacting Dr. Dan Wentz, hopefully he can help my dragons and me. Thanks again, Christy

I sent a baby I had off for necropsy and it came back with NO ABNORMALITIES. They even did an electron microscopy to try and identify adeno and had no luck. The reason being is that it looks different in beardies and other reptiles and if they have no experience with adeno in reptiles they WILL miss it. I thought a regular vet could do it and didn't listen to Cheri and went with a local vet that "specaializes in reptiles" (yeah right) and spent money for nothing. It is imerative that you contact Dr Wentz and have a fecal done on the mother of the clutch!!! That will run you about 70 bucks I think and will save you the expense of necropsies that will be unneeded if it comes back positive.
With the symptoms you experienced I would say there is a strong possibility this is what they had. If it comes back negative from Dr Wentz, at least you can rest assured that it isn't adeno. It could very well be another virus or even a fungus? Bottom line.... contact Dr. Wentz first and he can help you. I think the fecal will even show the other funguses and viruses? You'd have to ask him. PLease take the advice I didn't. I wish I had.....
RObert Wood

I didn't know adenovirus could be detected in a fecal - has anyone got any information relating to this?

Also - for necropsy I highly recommend Zoopath Northwest - they specialize in exotics and are used by most of the zoos in the counrty and have been very helpful with the two dragon necropsies we have had to have done. I wouldn't go to anyone else for the histopathological information, although a reptile vet needs to do the gross necropsy.

Skye

Dr Wentz developed it, it is not available in Labs yet, but Dr Wentz will work with anyone referred to him to get the kit and solution to them, directions for the University to send it to that is working with him in this and and how to prep it,

It also detects some other viruses like cornona virus (I don't think it does paramyxo)

Like I said it is not available in Labs yet, but and the Dr at the University are in the process of sequencing the DNA to make a more feasible fecal protocal test that will be available for labs in the US. Hopefully this coming year.

Too many people have depended on local labs or vets in doing a necropsy and getting results and most time those are inconclusive, they do not take it far enough or have the expertise to identify somethings. Not to mention some of the mess ups we have see and had happen to us also... we sent off a liver section to a top name lab and got a report back on lesions on a tail section for chiss sake! Redid the test, then got another report of nothing found, but told they would do the further test we requested... finally 2 months later when no further reports came, I called them and they said they misfiled the slides, but would get them out and read them..... they sent me another report of a culture of the tail section!!!! We did not send a tail section!!

$400 later and worthless reports we sent another tissue sample to a univeristy and got the exact diagnoses we had thought all along within days....... save the time and money and go to the experts working with a problem. I am NOT real impressed with some of the Labs!
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Adenovirus in Beaded Dragons By Dan Wentz, DVM

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