Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My son’s pet Tx Spiny Lizard of one year is very sick. I’m not sure what’s wrong with him. I found him laying on his back on Monday and thought he might have died. As I went to pick him up he tried to run away with use of his front legs only. His rear legs were not moving. I picked him up and held him for awhile. I assumed he was dieing. My wife told me to take it and let him die out in the garden and not let our son see him that way. The next morning I went out to see if he was dead but he was still where I placed him ALIVE! He wasn’t moving, but his eyes opened up. I brought him back inside and held him and lightly rubbed his stomach. At times his front and rear legs will twitch but that is all. He doesn’t try to run any more. It’s almost as if he is paralyzed.

I asked my son what he fed him being we just ran out of meal worms and crickets from the pet store. He said he found a green grasshopper and fed him that. I called and asked the pet store if grasshoppers were ok for his diet and he said it shouldn’t have affected him this way.

Is our lizard dieing? Could eating the grasshopper done this? I’m not sure how old he is. We got him a year ago when he was about 4” long and he has grown to about 6” long. Could he just be very old?

Does he have UV lighting and are you using a calcium supplement that is phospherus free? Are you gut loading the feeders? If you're not doing either of these things, he's probably got an advanced case of metabolic bone disease.

In order to properly metabolize calcium diurnal lizards need a few things one is a UV emitting light, I recommend the repti-suns from Zoomed. UV light catalyzes the synthesis of vitamin D3 which is necessary for proper calcium metabolism. In order for calcium to be metabolized properly, there also needs to be a 2:1 ratio of calcium to phospherus. Sonce feeder insects tend to be high in phospherus, but low in calcium, it's important to have a calcium supplement that does not contain phospherus (calcium phosphate etc). I recommend rept-cal with vitamin D3

Since half your lizards nutrition comes from the stomach contents of the insects it eats, it's important to make sure the feeder insects are well fed. Crickets can be fed fish flakes or crushed high quality dog or cat food along with fruits and veggies for water. Allow them to gorge for several hours before feeding them to your lizard.

Calcium is not only important for bones it is also used by the nervous system to send messages between neurons. When the lizard gets low on calcium it's going to start pulling it from the bones making them weak / soft, and there may also be neurological symptoms (tremors, paralysis).

Correct the lighting, and if you can still get him to eat start giving him prey items heavily dusted with calcium. You can also mix the calcium up into a paste / liquid and try to get some into him. From your description it sounds like he's pretty far gone and may require something like liquid calcium administered by a vet.

Good luck,
Alice

Just a quiuck note. Where did your son find the green insect? It coulb be posible that it at one point ate oir was near a plant that was sprayed with some sort of pesitcide. This is why I do not go out and catch my lizards food, Even though I can catch enough food and never spend a dime on it I can not garontee my neighbors didnt spray there yard with bug killer or somthing.

Without having a good look at the lizard, anything is just guesswork. However, from what you describe (suddenness of symptoms, limb movements, responses or lack thereof, not moving after being outdoors for a day, etc.) it sounds like the poor thing suffered a spinal fracture of some sort and is now paralyzed and dying. If it were a calcium/vit.D3 issue, you would likely have seen muscle tremors (not paralysis) long before this, and a day in the sun should have improved the situation, not made it worse. It would be difficult to rule out poisoning, except that if that were the case the animal would have likely died sooner.