Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had both my beardies on me while watching television and my male, who was on my stomach suddenly rushed up and clamped his jaws down on my female's forearm, who was on my shoulder. I seperated them and threw the male back in his cage...not literally. I cleaned the wound with warm water and I'm debating on whether or not to iodine it to prevent any inset infection followed by some neosporin. I can't take her to a vet since it's almost 11 pm and the only 24/7 Emergency vets cater to dogs and cats. She's going in first thing tomorrow to whichever of my three vets can see her.

Here's the deal...will she lose her arm? Can a broken bone be fixed if she has one? My beardie book doesn't cover these questions and I'm a few steps away from having a mental breakdown.

im not sure about the polysporin, im nervous about putting human meds on a lizard, but I wouldnt panic too too much. beardies are really tough. and i doubt the bone is broken, just feel around and see if you feel any swelling or poking out edges. in the morning when you get to the vet, ask if iodine/polysporin would be ok for them, i'd kind of like to know myself.
i hope she's alright. I have a male, and my roomie has a smaller male, and they tussle a lot. chase, rarely bite. but i do keep a close eye on them when they are in eyeshot of eachother.
good luck.

She ate some crickets...I caved and broke the cardinal rule of no nummies until veggies are eaten but he shook her like a rag doll and I felt HORRIBLE. I made my mom check on her this morning because I was afraid I'd find her dead. Her arm is no longer kept at her side with her claws pointing up, she has it in front of her but it's still quite obvious that she had some trauma to it. I didn't see any puncture marks but the bedding she's on sticks to her like crazy so I'm assuming there's SOME kind of open wound. I'm hesitant to take her out and clean it again, I don't know if beardies get stressed by that kind of thing.

I've only had experience with chameleons and monitors and stress killed my chameleons after being treated for abcesses and my monitors....well, I'm pretty sure a tangle with my dogs wouldn't do much other than make them angry...not saying that I've ever had that problem but they take A LOT of abuse from each other without any major trauma and clean up is only a problem because they like to squirm.

She has a vet appointment at 4 and my male is being punished by not getting any crickets and fruit today. He just gets the reptigel, which he hates but eats anyways.

I plan on increasing her UVB from 7.0 to 10.0, hopefully get the healing process a jumpstart...it works with my snake at least if I increase her cage temp and offer more food. Oi...I am such a bad mommy. I feel really bad and I know it was my fault but I didn't know he'd go after her like that. Does this make me a bad keeper?

I will take her off the loose substrate she has in her cage till the wound is fully healed. Use just paper towel for now. Wash the wound clean and use the neosporin, which is perfectly fine, providing it doesn't contain pain killers. Getting to a vet is the best ideal, as they can x-ray to see if wounds are broken and make sure the injury is clean and not likely to become infected.

I wouldn't punish your male at all, except maybe not taking him out at the same time as the female to prevent any further scruffles. Feed him his regular food as they just do not understand the punishment as anything other than not having usual food to eat. Putting him back into his cage when it happened is really the only punishment to do and even then, he may not associate that with something he did wrong. He may not have been acting aggressively towards the female but could have easily mistaken her leg as something tasty to eat, not realizing it was part of her totally. Tail nips and toe nips happen often with younger bearded dragons as they can mistake the small movements of the extremities as insects moving about.
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PHLdyPayne

I don't think losing his crickets for a day was a big deal...he ate the rest of my salad despite his 'no candy' rule. I don't think he even realy likes them as much as my female.

Vet said nothing was broken but she did find a good sized open wound in the bend of her elbow and bruising is visible. My mom has to give her shots for the next three weeks but beardies are easier to poke than snakes. My female still won't eat her greens but my vet said not to worry just as long as she's getting SOME plant matter whether or not she eats it or it's from the crickets. SHe just said to make sure she is getting her supplements. I plan on trying silkworms...someone suggested that to make the icky green stuff look more appealing.

Is there a 'limit' to how finely chopped you can chop salad stuff? I got tired of scissoring it so I just stuck it in the blender and while it's now in small pieces, its got a lot of water. I used paper towel to soak it up but should I refrain from going blender happy each time I need to make salad?

You can use a blender but yes, it does tend to make the pieces very small, often turning it into a mush. For sub adult and adult dragons, coarsely chopping the greens/vegetables is fine. When I prepare salad for my dragon (when I had her, dragonless at the moment but going to remedy that this summer), I cut up enough for a few day's worth of meals. I typically add the fruit fresh each day though as it tends to go bad much faster than greens and vegies.

The blender method is good for hatchling and very young dragons, or for sick/recovering dragons, due to the fact it is easier to digest, being well chopped up to start with. I would leave the bulk of the water in with the mass, but being so finely cut, it doesn't keep in the fridge for very long, so make only enough for one or two meals.

silkworms are a great feeder insect, easy to digest, high water content, high calcium and protein and low phospherous. Though a bit higher in fat than crickets, the fat content is still much lower than other feeder insects (ie wax worms, butterworms, super worms and if given, pinky mice).

I use silkworms for all my insect eating animals, and when I had the bearded dragon, I fed them to her as well. Though at times she did grow tired of them, so offering other insect foods is good, the variety is good and it keeps the dragon interested in her food. Silkworms are great for blue tongue skinks, leopard geckos, crested geckos (and any other insect eating gecko), rats love them as treats, hedgehogs and ferrets can eat them...some turtles as well, sahvanna monitors, etc.
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PHLdyPayne

Neither of my beardies seem to dig my blenderfied greens. Oi...they sure are picky...I DO make enough chopped stuff for several days but I replace it each morning and I'm honestly tired of chopping up stuff that smells HORRIBLE. I mean, I know why I wouldn't want to eat it so maybe the smell is putting them off too but I'm at a loss. My male is doing that weird standing up thing and he does it in his water dish ALL the time...the only time he wasn't up was when I gave him some crickets last night. I'm thinking maybe it's too hot in his cage but the book and several people on this forum said that 90-120 degree basking spot is preferred but he isn't keen on being over there. My female LOVES her basking spot, almost to the point of not leaving it unless there's food involved.

I've tried carrots, grapes, and apples and neither seem to enjoy it. Could it be that the salad smell is just ruining everything? I don't want them starving to death or anything. I believe the petstore that I got them from when they said that they were eating just fine, I've gotten nearly ALL of my reptiles from them and never had a single problem so it's gotta be something I'm doing that's making them not want to eat. Could you guys tell me what you feed your dragons? I'm trying romiane, carrots, brociflower, and green beans right now, switched from things I can't even name.