Does my bearded dragon have parasites?

Hi, my bearded dragon is 3 months old. I think he might have parasites. He had a little bit of diarrhea aka really wet poo and smelled extremely bad. He also had his mouth open staring into his basking light. Is this a gaping mouth that I have heard of. I can't go to the vet because the closest one is 4 hours away and I can't drive all the way there. He has been eating his crickets the same way he has always been but he is not drinking the water that I give him from a needle less syringe. PLEASE HELP!

You can often do postal feacal tests. In the UK we use PALS laboratory.

You will still need a vet to prescribe medication by weight. However, getting the tests done by post saves you doing two trips. You may also find a more local vet who is happy to prescribe meds.

Those symptoms could certainly be caused by parasites. However, certain foods and stress can also cause looser stools.

If the stools are 'mushy' rather than loose and consistently smell fouler than usual, it is more likely to be parasites.

Hi! My son's beardie is currently being treated for parasites. She had loose stools that STUNK! And I was told to keep an eye on her, but a few days later I thought I noticed a little bit of red in the uric acid part of her poop so I called again and the vet decided to test. Sure enough he called us the next day to tell us she had coccidia. He said it's very common for reptiles to have this parasite and many times they're never tested for it, but since she had the bit of red in her poop he wanted to check it out. I would highly suggest getting a fecal sample to the vet. They'll need to prescribe oral medications to clear up the parasite. If left untreated your beardie can become pretty sick ?

Kimmi0205":2pydfc4v said:

Hi! My son's beardie is currently being treated for parasites. She had loose stools that STUNK! And I was told to keep an eye on her, but a few days later I thought I noticed a little bit of red in the uric acid part of her poop so I called again and the vet decided to test. Sure enough he called us the next day to tell us she had coccidia. He said it's very common for reptiles to have this parasite and many times they're never tested for it, but since she had the bit of red in her poop he wanted to check it out. I would highly suggest getting a fecal sample to the vet. They'll need to prescribe oral medications to clear up the parasite. If left untreated your beardie can become pretty sick ?

Click to expand...

do you know if a medicine you can just order can help. There is no vet I can go to

[/quote] do you know if a medicine you can just order can help. There is no vet I can go to[/quote]

There are actually different kinds of parasites and they have different medications. My son's beardie first was diagnosed with coccidia and treated for that. When I brought her stools to be rechecked the vet told us that the coccidia was gone, but that she also had a different parasite that was likely there the first time but unable to be detected because of the coccidia. So she's just finished a different treatment for that parasite (the name of it escapes me) and will get a stool recheck on Friday.

Unfortunately it really is best to get your beardies stools checked by a vet and have the vet recommend treatment. The medication we used had to be refrigerated so I would be very leery of ordering something like that online. There is no way to know if it's been kept at the proper temperature, or even if it's the proper medication. I know it's inconvenient to have to travel so far for a vet, but that truly is the best thing to do for your beardie. The good thing is that the medication is very inexpensive. The stool check was about $35, but considering how sick these parasites can make beardies I'd say that $35 was very well spent. Good luck!