Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello,
my beardie which i bought no more than 4 weeks ago started acting very strange, acting lethargic bobbing his head deleriously and acting in general like he did not have complete control over his body. Not only this but after he became like this i found his mouth fullof the substrate (vermiculite)that i have in my cage, his intestines felt hard like he had eaten tons of it but this is after he began acting sick . he began acting sick about five days ago and about two days after he started acting sick he ate the substrate. he died the night before last.I had another bearded dragon in with him but she is fine. please help i dont wwant this to happen to my other dragon.

thanks,
Joel

You answered one of your own questions..Get the remaining dragon off the vermiculite, if one ate it, why take a chance on the other?
You said you got them 4 weeks ago but didn't say how old they were. Are they babies?
What is your set up like? What kind of lighting? Heat? Temps?
What are you feeding them? What size crickets and how many?
Any vitamins or Calcium? We need alot more info..
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TheClassyLizard

such as set up, lights, heat, feeding, age etc helps others try to figure out what may be going on or happened. Also, listing your location and location the animal came from also helps.

There are areas of the country and some shows that are more prone to viral problems and other issues and many owners have found that their animals are a part of a greater problem.

Try to give as much information as you can.

hello'
heres the info you reqested,
i had them in a 60 gallon aquerium that stayed about 85 degrees and has a heat lamp and heat pad that bring that end to about 102-110 degrees (F). the beardie is a young adult about 2 years i would guess and was by all external apearances very healthy and active and about 1 foot and half long. they get fresh vegies usually squash,romain,raspberries,zuccini and tomatoes i aslo feed them a wide variety of insects that i feel are safe which would include a brown beatle that i have fed to manny animals i have had crickets and roaches that i find in the woods, only the winged roaches becouse they dont have the musk like the chinese roaches i also have on rare occassion fed them a small brown anoles. i live in florida but their cage is kept very very dry the water they get they get when i soak them. the vermiculite was only eaten after he became sick a couple days later in the progress of whatever he was suffering from.

thanks for your help,

JOel

Well IMHO swallowing vermiculite may have been a sign he was looking for food....

I have a plant that was in my dragons repterium and whennI saw him grubbing in it out it came...

and I found that it had baby crickets in it he was trying to dig out.

.... as for bugs be very careful, some have chemical defenses
firefly's can be deadly due to the "glow" juice in them.

also if you feed them anoles and other wild items it's possible to pass on some bad forms of infections or stuff like worms
(tapeworms)

remember that Dragons are from a whole differet country and a dry climate, here in FLA it's very Wet and Humid.

just some ideas to think on...
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This space reserved for future use...

I'm thinking it was the vermiculite being ingested. Vermiculite is extremely light weight and sticks to everything it touches. Dragons "lick" their enclosure all the time as they explore it, etc. I can easily see a dragon getting the vermiculite into their mouth and over time ahving that build up in their system, leading to death.
The hard belly sounds to me like extreme impaction.
This is why my dragons are on news paper or paper towels.
I don't want to risk their lives for the "neat" look of a fancy desert looking enclosure. They are my children.

I did not see that on you list if things?

thanks guys for all your help, and i do have UV light on them they are right in a large window so they get ample natural florida sunshine.

thanks,
Joel

n/p

A couple of possibilities come to mind....the first one is poisoning--consuming something contaminated, eating a poisonous insect or plant. Eating the substrate may have been an instinctive attempt to clear the gut of whatever it was that poisoned him.

Another is MBD--too little calcium in the diet and/or inadequate UVB or D3 supplementing may have caused a crash in his blood calcium level, causing him to eat substrate in a last ditch effort to gain minerals.

Neurological disease or disorder of some kind is also a possibility. If you really want to find out, the body should be refrigerated (not frozen) and taken to a vet for an autopsy.