Tail injury

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Dani11

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My bearded dragons tail got bit by my other bearded dragon and the bottom part of the tail was weak and flimsy but it's still all in one piece you can see the impressions where it was bit and now the tail is also stiff .
 

EllenD

Gray-bearded Member
Oh I'm sorry that this happened...They aren't housed together are they? If so you need to separate them immediately, leave the injured beardie inside the enclosure and remove the other one to a temporary plastic tub. Beardies are solitary animals and they live alone in the wild, so they absolutely cannot be housed together, not should they ever be out of their tanks together, often beardies are killed by one good bite on the head by the second beardie. So please, first thing is separate them immediately, don't let them see each other again, and get a second tank and lighting.

Unfortunately your beardie's tail is very badly infected from the original bite, and the entire portion of her tail that has turned black and stiff is all necrotic tissue, meaning all of that portion of the tail is now dead tissue, and will either eventually fall off, or will be amputated by a reptile vet, because that's where she needs to go immediately.

The serious problem she has is that the infection is spreading up towards her body, obviously it has been a while since the original bite occured I'm assuming, as it has spread quite a bit, either that or the bite cut off the circulation to the rest of the tail. Either way the infection is going to keep spreading up her tail towards her body, and will start killing the tissue in her body. The real issue is that once it gets up so far the infection will spread to her bloodstream, causing her to become septic, or have a systemic septic infection, which will kill her without proper medical care.

The best thing you can do is get her to an experienced reptile vet immediately, as soon as possible, and the vet will most likely just amputate her tail a bit above the necrotic tissue, into the remaining good tissue. They can do this by just giving her a localized anesthetic to numb her, amputate the tail, dress the wound, bandage it, and put her on antibiotics. This will be quick and shouldn't be too expensive. The sooner you do this the less chance for complications.

If you don't take her to a vet and the infection keeps spreading, then she'll become very, very sick and need to be hospitalized for IV antibiotics and she may very well die. This will cost you much, much, much more money, so the best thing you can do is to take her now before it becomes any worse.

You need to also remove any loose substrates in her enclosure like sand or anything similar, then disinfect the entire tank and everything inside it, and put down clean, dry paper towels that can be replaced every time they get dirty. You can try to keep it clean and maybe slow down the infection a bit by buying some Betadine (Povidone Iodine) at the drug store or Walmart along with some triple antibiotic ointment. Mix a little Betadine with warm water until it looks like weak iced tea, and soak her tail in the solution, all of her tail above the dead tissue line. After soaking her tail for 5-10 minutes you should pat it dry it well and then apply a little of the triple antibiotic ointment all around the area between the dead tissue and the healthy tissue....

This treatment is only to keep the wound clean and to prevent further bacterial and fungal infections from developing, it will not cure the infection she currently has, only proper antibiotics and most likely amputation is going to help her at this point, the tailrot is pretty advanced.
 

AHBD

BD.org Sicko
Hi there, so sorry this happened to this little one. :( I agree 100 % with Ellen, this must be amputated immediately. Like was mentioned, the infection is going up the tail and will soon overcome her entire body. Please schedule an amputation ASAP and she will have a chance.
 
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