Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guys. When I first bought my dragon, about 1 and a half years ago, everything was normal. He had somewhat solid pooh and the smell was not overwhelming (rough...but not make you run outside bad). Anyway, at some point he picked up a pretty bad Coccidia infestation. It took a while to get him past that because of vet issues, but when I finally found some competent help he cleared up nicely. While he had this infection, his stool became extremely runny and awful smelling (the "make you run outside smell". The problem is, now the coccidia are gone (or at least decreased in number enough that its hard to find any cysts upon numerous inspections), but the runny stool has stayed behind with some residual stinkage. I have started feeding him a dry pellet food along with his greens and occasional earthworms (which I know contribute to the runniness, but they are not a staple...just an every now and then food to put weight back on him after his illness) in hopes of increasing fiber and adding some consistency to his stool, but it appears to have no effect. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions please let me know. Thanks for reading and for any help you can provide.
Thanks, Andy S.

Hey Andy,
I would recommend taking him off of earthworms. There's no need to have him on them.
Are you feeding him a balanced diet of greens and other veggies?
I have all of my adults on a diet of pellets, but I also ensure they get the diet of greens everyday.
That should harden up his poop.
Keep me posted, and good luck,
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Lindsay//
::Beardeddragons.ca::
lindsay@beardeddragons.ca

Hi, Lindsay is correct about the dry food it should bring firmness back to your dragon's stool, or you might want to try another insect as well. Crickets are excellent staples and it may increase his appetite. I personally can't stand the smell and noise of the crickets, I feed all my dragons super worms, kicked up meal worms, zophobas worms. They are much larger and do have nutritional value unlike their little cousins. I raise them and have several bettle colonies to keep me supplied. My dragons are large and healthy, of course suppliment with veggies and dry food. I have found with some that adding water to the dry food helps them, or apple shaving in the veggies will increase their appetite, or at least with my dragons. One of my dragons have a similar infection that is why I brought up the crickets. I had to reintroduce crickets into his diet to get him eating and build his weight back up and within two weeks on the crickets and dry food his stool was back to normal. Anyway I am rambling.... Good luck.... J

what kinds of veggitables?

you do know that stuff like lettuce is about 70-80% water and will pass as wet soft guck.

even if it's not the realy bad "Iceberg" lettuce it's mostly water...

just in case.... perhaps swap for some green beans, carots and so forth?
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I'm guessing that you had to give your dragon some kind of sulfa drug like Albon to get the coccidia under control. The sulfa drugs and most antibiotics will wipe out all of the good bacteria in the gut. These good bacteria need to be replaced to help digest food properly. Try getting some acidophilus, or NutriBac, or even Yoplait yogurt with active cultures will work well. This will get the good bacteria back into his system. This could be part of the reason why the stool is runny and smelly.

Also, I would recommend against earthworms right now. If you're trying to put the weight back on, try wax worms. I'm guessing that the earthworms could be part of the cause of your problems too.

Good luck.
Veronica
Beautiful Dragons

if you want to give him something healthy to get the weight back on try butterworms, they have the highest calcium content of any feeder and are lil fatty worms too, you can also use goliath worms aka tomato hornworms, some people use these instead of pinky mice for their dragons to get weight back on them after being gravid or recovering etc they get very large and are nutritious and dragons love them!
but like said stay away from the earthworms, and treat your dragon with some good bacteria, there is a new product out that people have said is just great including some on this board its called acidfoliz, i think that is the spelling, ask around im sure you can get some info on it.
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reiko

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