Reptile & Amphibian Forums

we have a 2 y/o male (~18" and introduced a 9 mo female (10" about 5 months ago. They seemed to be fine (40 gal reptile tank with 2 basking lights) until today. My son came home from first day of school and went up to see his pals. They were fine but while he was looking for soccer gear he heard commotion and when he looked the male had the female's neck in his mouth. Her color was almost white. I had to gently pry his mouth open with a pencil to free her. We estimate the total time in his mouth to be about 3 minutes. She is breating steady but her right leg is very stiff and her right eye is pressed closed. Her left eye is partially open. She flinches when her right side of head is touched. Her color has come back now 1 hr later but she is still not moving and eyes still closed.

Can anyone offer any explination and more importantly advice on how to care for her if possible.

thanks,
Michael

a 40 gallon is the smallest suggest size enclosure for ONE adult dragon...even with 2 basking spots there will be competition...

Males can get pretty rough trying to breed the females and cause her undue stress--and injury.

Keep her separate and warm---use a large rubbermaid if you do not have another tank--and move her basking light over. Give her a safe hide and a quiet spot to heal. Make sure she is kepy hydrated--mist her.

The next bit of advise is suggested a lot--but is very important in this case--take her to a vet as soon as possible! Many vets will barter care for service (cleaning pens...)

Hopefully she will recover from her injury.

DM

I agree to this as well. If she doesn't show improvement in a couple days or things start getting worse, take her to the vet.

There are several reasons why your male attacked her, one she was smaller and he may consider her a food item even a big one but most likely he was trying to mate her and a 10 month old female is way too young to breed. I advise keeping them separated for at least the winter and if you truly want to breed them and have prepared (ie researched) to take care of all the eggs that will result from breeding the female, then you can reintroduce them in the spring. Even then it's best to house them separate as the male will stress out the female with repeated attempts to mate her.

Thanks all. I did separate them immediately. I had a temporary 5gal tank ready to go and I'll set up the 20 tonight. Using newspaper as the substrate - does that make sense. Have a paper tube hide and heating from underneath currently - will use the lamp to keep her warm as well tomorrow but I thought the light would be a bad idea in the short term. Once she is well (hopefully) we can set up her own habitat and keep her separate. I guess we had bad advice from her breeder about keeping these dragons together.

Now for the status update.

Her color has come back - she was a ghastly white when we found them.

Her bite was on the right side neck. her right leg seems immobile and is bent back. maybe broken? If so can anything be done. Her right eye does not seem to open but the bite was further back. Her left eye is now opening and she has turned around 1 time in her hospital tank.

She has a small cut on her right neck and I used a bit of neosporin on it. She flinched when i gently applied it.

How can I find a reptile vet in the western burbs of Boston? I will try our dog vet tomorrow but it probably makes sense to find a specialist.

Quick question on the misting - with a paper substrate should I be careful to not wet the paper? What is recommended here?

thank you very much for your quick replies - it is GREATLY appreciated.

As far as misting goes, I agree that you do not want to get the paper wet...you can gently take her out to mist her...another option for a good substrate is non-adhesive shelf liner (Duck brand)--we use this and love it! THe shelf liner is easy to wipe clean after misting or poo...

I'm glad that her color came back--it gives you some hope.

If she is moving around and her arm is dangling/limp and you feel it is broken, you can immobilize it by gently wraping it in a piece of gauze and then using firstaid tape and taping it to her body.

Neosporin on the open wound is good.

Hopefully her eye is just bruised and not permanently damaged.

You may have to hand feed or even force feed her for a while--if she doesn't take food from you, you can use all-meat (chicken) baby food and dilute it with some gatoraide and use a syringe to "force" it into her mouth...if you use pellets you can also crush and dilute these as well...

If your room temperature is above 70 you do not need the undertank heater... they are usually not recommended for beardies...beardies seem to prefer cooling down at night. Make sure to regulate the basking temps in the 20 gallon---you may need a smaller bulb.

Call your vet tomorrow and see if they care for exotic pets--or if they can recommend one to you.

Best wishes,
DM

If the breeder told you that you could keep that 10" female with and adult male just to make a sale, I'd contact them and press them for a refund, or partial refund to cover vet bills. They should (and probably do) know better than to tell someone to keep a 10" female with an adult male.

If they gave you bad advise to make a sale, they've probably done it before. Confronting them about their bad advise might make them think twice before doing it again. Breeders who use sales tactics like that make honest breeders look bad.

The breeder you purchased the dragon from deffinitely gave wrong information. However did he know your current dragon was an adult? Or perhaps you misunderstood the breeder? I don't think they would give you a refund but you should contact them and tell them putting a 10" female in with a much larger and older male was not a good idea for reasons other than just size difference.

Taking her to a vet sounds like the best thing to do. The fact the arm is not being used could just mean it's badly sprained, bruised or even broken. There could be other injuries you cannot see as well. If your dog vet doesn't do exotic pets or doesn't even know of any, there are a few other sources you can check. One is the yellow pages of your phone book. Most veterarians list in their listings if they handle exotic pets. If they don't most likely they don't do exotic pets. Calling the ones that do to find out if they handle reptiles especialy bearded dragons is easily done as well.

Below is a link of reputable vets across the country that could be helpful as well. Even the vet you find or your current dog vet could contact any of those on this list for advice.
Vet List

Thanks again all for the feedback and advice. The breader did not pressure a sale - in fact we had 2 complete setups and kept the beardies completely separate until a few months ago. I recalled the breader saying that we could introduce them at 9 months and see how it went. We spent several weeks increasing the time they were together and all seemed well. They are fed well and seemed to get along. Maybe the "urge" kicked in or something. I have to take the blame on this one.

The good news is that she is moving around a bit. I misted her and gave her some moist dragon food (crickets come in later today) and an hr later she had crawled toward the food dish. She has her light now and a paper tupe to hide in. Her right eye is closed and looks odd - she may end up being blind on that side. Her right leg swelling is going down but it still seems imobile - but she did lift it ever so slightly this afternoon.

I know we have a long way to go but the signs of improvement seem to be there.

thanks again,
Michael

The little female is doing much better today. She is moving around. Her right leg still is bent back and immobile and I am sure she will be blind in her right eye. She seems interested in the 2 small crickets I introduced but she has not eaten them yet but has tried. Perhaps her altered vision will require getting used to.

Michael