Possibly sick dragon, need help :(

Hi, I'm new here and didn't get replies on other forums and I really need help.

My partner decided to bring home an unwanted bearded dragon for me 2 months ago. I told him not to adopt someone else's pet and I asked for health history and got "he's never been to the vets" well brilliant...

Over the past week I've detected blood in his urates. Pinkish hue. No blood on actual stool. Stools are soft but no diarrhea. His behavior and eating seems normal. No anorexia.

I've phoned the vet and they recommend a fecal sample and bringing the animal in for a check up. Should I just do the fecal, or should I bring the whole animal in too?

If this is internal parasites, can I catch them? He is in my bed room. I wash my hands every time I handle him/anything of his. But I can smell his stools does that mean parasites can float in the air?

I'm sorry if this sounds terrible. I'm paranoid, very upset and very angry with my partner because this is what you get for taking on mystery pets. At the same time I don't want to give up on this unloved dragon.

I greatly appreciate any and all help <3

Hi there.....that's nice that you are committed to taking care of this dragon ! First off, it's great that he is eating + acting normally. Can you post a pic of his set up, list what type + brand of lights you have and a pic of the dragon, full body shot from above. [ And if you can take a look at the sticky at top of the page " lighting for newbies " There are also instructions for posting pics under " website comments at top of page ] If he has parasites, that can usually be easily dealt with, and no, they won't float through the air. By the way, are you sure it's a male ? And it's your call whether to take him in....a good reptile vet will be helpful, but if they aren't familiar with them it might not be that helpful but they can still prescribe meds. for worms.

Hi, thanks for such a quick reply!
I didn't know the quality of viv I was getting until my partner literally brought it home! It was very poor with heavily soiled reptile carpet, no furniture apart from bowls, low down UV fitting with no reflector and a thermostat that hasn't worked since day one.

I've done what I can, I'm trying to move the UV strip fitting tonight. The strip is arcadia D3+ 10% UBV. The heat lamp is 100W. I will replace all of this a.s.a.p, I'm just low on money to afford everything at once. Plus the vets now!




I used sand because the reptile carpet was disgusting. I'm sourcing some lino or tiles for later on. I'm cleaning and bathing him tonight and switching out the sand for kitchen paper.
I noticed some of his urates have been pink over the last week and he looked as if he was straining on a movement. For two days in a row he made stool 3-4 times a day! However it wasn't runny. This is why I'm so confused and worried.

I'm 90% sure he is male. I've seen he has pronounced anal pores and hemi-bulges. His head is broad and tail is thick too. This is the best picture I can get of him at the moment.



A belly shot taken before his symptoms arised. (2 weeks ago)


If he does have parasites I'm glad I can't get them in the air. I have OCD so I am very clean haha. How would I effectively sterilize his viv of parasites?
The vet said they wanted to do an Adeno virus check so I think they are a good vet.

I also have leo's for 10+ years. So I'm not new to reptile keeping but no expert either lol. If my dragon has Adeno, does that mean it's basically a dead end for my reptile collection?

(sorry about such a long post I have so many questions haha)

He looks very healthy, a tad thin, but better than being very fat. Over all looks alert + healthy . The set up looks decent, those bulbs are good ones if they are not over 6 months old [ the UVB tube ] then you are set ! The Arcadia UVB should be attached to the inside of the top of the tank though so it doesn't bother his eyes.

It may be that he has a slight impaction from the sand, that could possibly cause a wee bit of blood mixed in the urates, but it's just a guess. If he's never lived on it before then he may be licking it a little at a time since beardies are curious + like to " check things out " like that. Is he eating anything at all that has red or orange color ? That's also a possibility. But all in all he looks good. Adeno is not a death sentence, and I think it's specific to beardies + would not affect the other critters. Good hand washing should keep things under control, and if you're really worried , take care of the other critters first , before you handle this boy.

With all of the pooping he did I wonder if he might be dehydrated? Do you bathe him?

Yes. I put mine in the kitchen sink with water up to the shoulders. Temp like you would use for a baby. I bleach the sink afterwards. You might prefer to use a plastic tub for bathing, which is okay, too.

He is improving.
He had two days of pooping lots with liquid around it (this was clear) and the pink urates was happening during this week. But now he's gone back to normal movements.
I agree he did look very 'sunken' yesterday so I gave him some water from my finger. He took countless drops until he wasn't interested.
I'm changing that awful sand out today and while I'm doing that I will bathe him. I do a lot of baby sitting humans so I'm down with water temps haha. I have a bath tub with shower so I'll use that.
Last bath I gave him, I saw a new dragon. I don't think his previous owner did bathe him.

Anyway I've also spoken to an exotic vet and I'm bringing in stool samples just to rule out parasites and nasties.

Around the time of the pink urates he was eating orange bell pepper. But when I sampled the urates it was more blood-pink colored than bell pepper colored.
I'm also getting him some wax worms to supplement his diet to bulk him out a bit.

Thanks so much for the help I was really feeling down in the dumps about this one.

AHBD":295ryvg1 said:

The set up looks decent, those bulbs are good ones if they are not over 6 months old [ the UVB tube ] then you are set ! The Arcadia UVB should be attached to the inside of the top of the tank though so it doesn't bother his eyes.

Click to expand...

The arcadia T5 high output bulb is good for at least a year, probably longer, but changing once a year is a good practice. I have a UVB meter, and next month will be a year on mine, and it's still providing plenty of UVB energy (but I will be changing it then, regardless). I do agree though that it looks a bit close in your inherited setup, but I see from your original post that you are already trying to deal with that. I have mine mounted to the top of my 4x2x2 viv, but at that height I needed to add a reflector. If you don't have a UVB meter, of course it's better to play safe rather than sorry…
he's a nice looking dragon by the way! congratulations!

I'm still thinking he was dehydrated. Do you give him baths on a regular basis? In order to keep him hydrated he should have a bath at least 3 times per week for about 20 minutes at a time. I made the mistake of skipping a few baths not too long ago and my beardie was having many of the same symptoms you're describing. Now that I have my dragon on a daily bath schedule he seems to be feeling much better.

@Jaskotch
I will be getting a brand new light and reflector in a week or so. His whole set-up was lack luster to say the least. When we have more money we'll be getting him things like branches, fake plants and a hammock to make his whole place more comfortable.

@amsmith5297
I think I agree with you, we cleaned him out and raised his light today. While doing that I bathed him. He actually drank from the bath. It was so cute to watch.
This was only his second bath because he's a bit of a fighter when we try and get him out. I think he's either attached to his old owner or wasn't handled much. He's improved so much after giving him baths and water.

I do mist his tank and offer him drips from my finger about every second or third day. I also wet his veggies and try to keep the feed moisturized.

I would venture to guess that he probably wasn't handled much. Have you ever had a reptile? Make sure when you approach him to pick him up you scoop him up from the front. If you stroke the underside of his chin he should lift his head up for you and then you can slide your hand under his chest and belly. Make sure to support his entire body. He'll probably wrap him arms and legs around your hand to feel safe. When you approach a beardie from above they see you as a predator. The more you bathe him the less frightened he should be. He really should be having at least 3 baths a week to keep him hydrated.

Thanks for the suggestion.
I've had Leo's for more than 10 years so I'm not a beginner to handling. He just seems to fight like heck getting him out of the viv, once he's out he seems tamer. I try my hardest to support his belly and limbs.
When we take him out for a bath or otherwise, he just sits there bewildered. He walked to my partner, then back to me and that seems like the only confidence he has. So maybe he wasn't handled much

The vet said I have the tamest Leo's she's ever seen so hopefully I can work my magic on this guy.

Can I give him two baths in a row? He's made another runny poop and slept in it!!! Could the runnyness be due to all the water he drank yesterday? Or is his health turning bad again?

I really gotta get those stool tests done. If he does have something, what is an effective way of sterilizing the viv?

Yes, he can have 2 baths in a row. I bathe my beardie every day for 20-30 minutes. The runniness could be do to him drinking so much, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you haven't already had a stool sample tested I would do one just to be sure. You can bring a stool sample to the vet without bringing the beardie too. As far as sanitizing his viv, a steam cleaner is always best, but if you don't have one a solution of 10% bleach 90% water will kill off the nasties too. His logs and other ornaments in his viv should be sanitized as well. You can soak them in the bleach+water solution as well. Make sure after soaking that everything is rinsed thoughly and any wood items or stone items can also be baked at 250-300°F for 20-30 minutes to dry them and kill anything that may be inhabiting them. Make sure all items are dry and cool before giving them back to him (common sense I'm sure, but you'd be surprised by how many people don't think lol).

Again I thank everyone who has helped on this forum.

He seemed to improve for a day, and this morning I found him sleeping in his diarrhea. He likes to sleep propped up against the glass. I took the following photos because I'm getting really worried now and I can't travel to the vet until Monday.

WARNING: I'm about to post pictures of poop.

We gave him a bath, took out the sand in case of impaction and moved his UVB light.



This is him sitting in his poop when I turned his lights on. I think if he was healthy he would move out of it? His whole underside and tail was heavily soiled.



This is the diarrhea in the morning. The night before he had 6 crickets and no veg.



We then gave him a bath because he was very filthy. He did drink again in the bath. After putting him back we gave him 6 crickets and water cress. He didn't seem interested in the veg (only at 1 or 2 leafs when normally he is ravenous for veg) and ate about 3/6 of the crickets.

Later on he made this:



Then afterwards he made this. Which has the blood I've been talking about.



He then made another one, which was similar to the last. Watery, not much to it and slightly bloody.

He seems lethargic despite keeping him at around 100 - 108F

I also have a very strong phobia of parasites and am very upset that I may catch them. He accidentally scratched my hand and drew a little cut on me. This made so worried that I will catch them.

My partner wont listen to me that something may be wrong. I feel terrible that an animal may be in pain. I feel so low and I'm panicking lol.

He's probably just getting used to so much hydration, also a different diet so the runny stools can be caused by that. And yes, he may have parasites but that doesn't always make them feel ill. Some beardies with perfectly formed poos have parasites, too. I don't think he feels ill, just lots of new things going on for him, and baths can even be stressful if he's not used to them. He looks pretty healthy over all. You might want to keep his basking temp. at about 100, not much higher than that....that can cause lethargy, too.

Don't be too worried about scratches, I've been scratched 100's of times. And don't get too worried about sterilizing everything before you even know what [ if anything ] he has. Use newspaper on the floor, it will absorb things better while he still has runny poo.