Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I think my beardie is not shedding properly. He's got what seems to be a wound at the base of his tail, also on the upper part of his hind leg he has a sort of bulge and then below that his lower leg and foot seem to be swollen. As far as I know he has not been in any kind of accident that would leave his leg like this. My beardie is 1 year old now and I have had him in a 50 gallon tank with a 100 watt ceramic heat emitter and a 18" 15 watt uva/uvb flourescent light, I use sand as my substrate feed him fresh greens and fresh water every day and feed him 7-15 crix. in the evening.He is about 10" in length from nose to end of tail, he also lost about 2-3" worth of tail when he was about 6 months, he also shared a cage with another beardie for about a month when he was 4 months the beardie was about the same age as him at the time but he showed some agression towards the other beardie so we took him out after about 1 month. I think that is all the info I can think of, hope I didn't babble on.
Thanks

get him to the vet as soon as possible!!!!!!!! and feed him as many crix as he can eat in a day.

I agree with cillie about the vet, you need a professional opinion on that.

I don't agree about the crickets. The rule on crickets is for a juvenile to be fed as many as it can eat in 10 minutes, 1-2 times a day. Once the animal is a year old you should cut back. 7-12 a day is fine, even a few less would be fine.
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Amanda
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2.0 bearded dragons (Ocho / Domo-kun)
0.1 kingsnake (Rio)
1.0 ferret (Playstation)
1.0 cat (Wally)
0.1 dog (Tima)

i didnt mean all day. i meant once.

need to have a xray possibly and maybe some antibiotic get it to a vet you dont want it to set wrong please keep up informed. scott

Actually, all signs here point to severe MBD (metabolic bone disease). Swelling in the limbs and at the base of the tail is very common for reptiles with severe bone deficiency. The body is trying desperatly to compensate for the soft weak bones, so it places extra tissue in the area to help support it. That dragons is also Extremely undersized, another indicator of a calcium and bone problem. This is somehthing that happens with months of improper care. I read that the dragon has a UVB light, but there is something VERY VERY wrong with the calcium intake/absorbtion here. Is the UVB light newer then 6 months old? Is the dragon 6-11 inches from it? Is there anything between the dragon and the light? What calcium supplements are you using? How often?

You do need to see a vet. At this point your dragon has probably fractured some of his weak bones and will need them set. You need major changes in your husbandry. Please provide exact details of your setup and care. Get your dragon to a vet ASAP, and until then get natural sunlight, calcium with D3, and feed all he wants to eat. At 10 inches your dragon could use the extra food. What grees do you use? What do you feed your crickets?

Please check out this link, this information is in regard to an iguana, but much of it carries over. This will bette help you understand what is wrong with your pet, and where this will go without treatment. Not ALL of the info here applies to dragons, so please get to a vet, and ask questions here for changes to your habitat:
http://www.lbah.com/Reptile/nshp.htm
Kakadu Dragons

finally good info not children playing thanks

Umm, I'm 26.
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Amanda
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2.0 bearded dragons (Ocho / Domo-kun)
0.1 kingsnake (Rio)
1.0 ferret (Playstation)
1.0 cat (Wally)
0.1 dog (Tima)

Still trying to figure out why you would say that. "finally good advice" What was wrong with the advice cillie and I gave?

"get him to the vet as soon as possible"

"I agree with cillie about the vet, you need a professional opinion on that."

Isn't that pretty much the same thing you said?

"need to have a xray possibly and maybe some antibiotic get it to a vet you dont want it to set wrong"

I don't know, Cillie may be young, but she wasn't playing. A vet is exactly what is needed.

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Amanda
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2.0 bearded dragons (Ocho / Domo-kun)
0.1 kingsnake (Rio)
1.0 ferret (Playstation)
1.0 cat (Wally)
0.1 dog (Tima)

if you don't have something nice to say, shutup
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Bennett

www.beardiedragon.com

>>finally good info not children playing thanks
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Rob Talkington

Sorry bad day no disrepsect just glad to see more adressed help even more then i could give at that point sorry again

its possible. its also possible to be oversuplimentation but more likely gout.

what is your supplimentation like? what are the temps?
how old is he? and what is size and weight?
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Bennett

www.beardiedragon.com

That was very rude. The best and first advice with a dragon that sick is ALWAYS to see a vet. I totally agree with that advice...
I do think that MBD may be the problem here though. The diet sounds ok right off, well...by ok I mean that it doesn't seem to be high in the wrong types of protein, but there wasn't a lot of info there. The dragon is also VERY small for a year old. In fact it is about as big as a 1 MONTH old dragon. This suggests a lack of calcium absorbtion.

When I worked in the vet clinic we got a lot of dragons that actually looked FAT because their legs and tails had so much reinforcement so that they would support the lizard. Many of these reptiles had jaws that looked like they were abcessing, but it was just extra tissue, the jaws needing support because of the stress of chewing. Many had irregular swellings localized on the legs where there were minor fractures that the body was trying to stablize. Some of the lizards would have supportive tissue on all the legs and arms actually making them look fat and healthy. In these cases the owners had to be convinced that their was a deficiency in the animals diet.

We usually saw gout swellings in the animals joint areas, and not and the tail base. The gout reptiles were always lethargic, and I don't remember any of them that would chase live prey at that point. All of the gout patients had OBVIUOS dietary problems or EXTREME dehydration, we had recently treated them for something else, or they had a hereditary type of gout (but I only remember seeing this in iguanas). The animals we treated for gout usually had an excess of something in the diet that caused the problem, but when the animal was growing it was able to keep up with the excess of protein, but as the animal got older and the growth slowed the protien caught up. But Seven 7-12 crickets? There are greens that could be the culprit, but he didn't say what type of greens.
There is a joint area swelling that is sometimes caused by oversupplementation, but in a year old dragon that has achieved very little growth, its seems unlikly. Even if it has been oversupplemented, it would have grown.
Perhaps he is using a calcium with added phosphorus? That might lead to gout....But what happened to that growth??

But I have definatly seen a great many undersized lizards with swelling in the Pelvis and Limbs. These three factors alone would have the vet getting us ready to treat MBD before the patient even arrived. Many of these dragons actually looked fat and healthy if you just looked at its legs and tail base...on x-rays though it was just a swelling of the brittle bone and the supportive tissue.

Go to a vet, you can get an x-ray to rule ot MBD. You can test the urates for gout..I believe they draw fluid out of the joints and run a simple test. Whatever the case, it needs vet help quick. That is still the best answer. Both gout and MBD will get worse over time, both are fatal.

so see a vet. They'll probably have to do an x-ray and possibly take a sample of whatever is building up in the swollen areas to see if it's infected or if it's gout. This can get worse pretty quickly if you don't see a vet and get it taken care of right away.