Reptile & Amphibian Forums

speaking of poop, and poop checking...

it is a good idea to get a fecal done on your animals once or twice a year. with a good vet, and a good relationship, it shouldn't cost more than $10-$15 to get one done. it provides a good solid reference point for the health of your lizard.

one trick to getting a good fecal is to get a FRESH fecal. go by your vet and pick up some fecal containers, get a few of them, they should be free. they are an enclosed container, and they typically have a little scoop, and they make getting the fecal, and storing it properly for the vet, very easy.

if you wait until you NEED the fecal, and then look for a good container, it will dry up, get contaminated, or otherwise be ruined. if you have a couple of fecal containers right on hand, then you can quickly and easily scoop up an award winning poop, or an unexpected highly suspect one
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

my bearded dragon is still going through parasite stuff, over a year after I got him (3 different types) and he was doing good before brumation time, so I thought he was done with parasites...which was a stupid assumption...I should have gotten a fecal then. So winter was over and he was still trying to brumate and everything, so I decided to take him to the vet. It had been about a week and a half since his last bowel movement, and we just couldn't get him to poop. So we're going to the vet and we got there to find that one of the vets had gone home sick, so they had to move the appointment and use the different vet. We were pissed, but we went home to wait another couple hours, and I looked back into Sydney's travel container to see him sitting there with his beard completely black and his tail in the "poo position". I guess we got a fecal from him the hard way that time. But this brings me to another point. If your animals brumate, I would say it's good to always get a fecal done before they start brumating. Since he brumated and still had the parasites, it just basically made it a lot worse, and now we have to pump some calcium in it to keep him from developing MBD.

It's been tough, but fecals are very important, as well as regular vet visits. We found out the hard way that if the parasites go too long (which can end up in a lizard that looks like it's brumating) they can develop deficiencies (usually calcium) that can lead to worse things than just parasites. I forget just how this happens. I'll have to ask the vet again.

and I agree on the getting them while they are fresh. It makes it much easier and some vets don't accept fecals that are over a couple hours old.