Help please my dragon ate my lucky penny!!!!

My 8 year old dragon ate my lucky penny I can not afford a vet at the moment what do I do? She is 18 inches or 46 centimetres long

Get the dragon to a vet IMMEDIATELY, as the dragon will not be able to digest it (safely - nickel is toxic) and it will cause a GIT blockage. The vet must remove the coin under a general in his surgery.

I do not think this is a situation where waiting and hoping is a wise approach , the gastric juices are very corrosive and will be attacking the coin and the concentration of Ni and the traces of other heavy metals in the alloy used in pennies will be increasing and these ions are toxic, some even poisonous.

Hi there, your dragon will probably pass it without too much trouble. Here's a thread where exactly that happened. Other threads where beardies had surgery they did not survive. So it's a gamble either way but most dragons that swallow a coin [ including a penny ] will pass it through. It can take a week or more. This one survived, no surgery :


viewtopic.php?f=49&t=204878#p1618012

These 2 different dragons had surgery, did not survive :

viewtopic.php?f=45&t=114991

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=129043

Feed her as usual [ just a bit less ] so the food encompasses the penny+ keep her hydrated, add some olive or veg. oil when you can and hopefully it will pass more quickly.

I hadn't seen those threads ….

Are you sure the dragon ate the penny ? was it seen to do so ?

At the very least , an xray will tell you for sure it's it actually eaten the coin.

An Australian penny (pre 1966) was 32 mm diameter - hence my alarm, the US penny is 19.05 mm diameter ). I had to look this up , .

Was hoping the vet may be able to use a rare-earth magnet on a probe to acquire the coin (coins like pennies have magnetic properties) or maybe an mini grabber slipped down the dragon's throat into it's stomach while it's under a general to simply remove the penny without needing to use a scalpel.

Much the same approach as using a crop/feeding needle would be involved , only the result is something comes out sticking magnetically to the end of the probe rather than something being deposited in the stomach.

I saw this every approach used on puppy who had swallowed something it shouldn't have (a key ring with some keys attached) on that british SUPERVET show (puppy was none the worse for the short period under a general and sent home a few hours later to it's very happy family.
An example of this done on child is here https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2119192/how-chinese-doctor-found-creative-way-remove-magnets-boys-stomach

Of cause every vet surgery will have Hartmann alligator forceps , and a skillful vet should be able to use these to remove a coin from the dragon's stomach if it's under a general and he's using active xrays to image what's going on (with out having to actually cut open the dragon and stomach with a scalpel).

At the very least , an xray will tell you for sure it's it actually eaten the coin.

Yes, too bad if it was taken to a vet right away they may have been able to retrieve it with a scope through the mouth. But hopefully the beardie can pass it without injury.

Hi, just wondering how she's doing ?

Hello,

Yes, an update would be great! I hope it passes through without too much trouble.

Tracie