Reptile & Amphibian Forums

One of my babies turned up with what appears to be a broken front leg. It just happened today. It's about 7 weeks old so not very big. Could a vet set the leg at that size? I guess I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this sort of thing. Any thoughts would be helpful. Thanks!

Take care,
Karen

Hey Karen,
Usually a vet will splint it if it is broken. What happened and what does it look like? If a babies arm/leg gets hurt, even a sprain, they'll usually just let it hang there and it can look worse than it is. I would try taping it up to the body until you can get it into a vet (wrap a little gauze under the tape). If it is just a sprain it should be working again before Monday when you can call the vet, unless of course yours works weekends then I'd give him a call and see what he says. Good luck.

Sean
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Heart Mountain Herps

I recently had one of my babies get it's front leg broke. It happened when one of my adults that my wife had put in the floor(I didn't know she had put it down) ran over and bit the baby that I had in the floor. I honestly didn't think the baby would live because the adult grabbed the body of the bearded and I thought it would have internal damage to the organs and stuff. After finally getting the baby out of the adults mouth it didn't look good at all. The baby didn't move hardly at all for the next day and of course had no feeding response. I didn't think their would be anything that could be done especially since it was so little. I went to pet smart and they had a reptile first aid kit. It was a powder that you mixed with water made by fluker's. I figuered I would give it a try. After feeding the baby for the next week 3 times a day with that junk it had most of it's original color back which is red with almost no black markings and began eating crickets again just not as much as normal. The leg that was broke just kinda hung down underneath it. It gradually started using it more and more and now you wouldn't even know anything had happened to it. It only took about 3 weeks for it to recover fully. Hope this helps and sorry to hear about your bearded. With a little tlc it should pull through fine though.

Wow, its amazing that baby pulled through. Tuff little guy. I haven't heard about a first aid kit for reptiles. Thats pretty cool. Do you know what was in the powder? Just curious. We don't have a PetsMart just a Petco and privately owned shops. My little guy is up on the limb with his clutch mates as I type. I have an empty ten gallon I'm going to put him in until I call the vet. I need to make a run to get another light stripe before I move him though. Probably more tanks too since I have two more clutches on the way. LOL! I'm going to post a picture of his leg later on today. A picture will give a better explanation of what the leg looks like. Thanks for the encouragement. I'll post updates as to what happens.
Take care,
Karen

Hi Sean,
Thanks for the response.
The leg doesn't appear to be swollen and yesterday evening when I was looking at the leg the baby didn't respond as though it was painful. When resting, the leg turns inward toward the body. He's still up and moving around. In fact, I just found him up on the tree limb so he can still climb. I suspect it happened from a fall off the limb. The babies pile up on the limbs close to the uvb light then ultimately the pile up gets to big and some of them fall. Since he's still so mobile I wonder if I should just let him be until I call a vet. I'm going to try a new one this time. I don't know how much experience he has with reptiles but my local vet recommended him. I'll try to get a pic up later on today. A visual is always better than trying to explain.
Thanks again, and if you have any thoughts after you get a chance to see the picture please let me know.
Take care,
Karen