Hello, posting on this forum to spread awareness to the topic.
Here is a little background on how she normally is-
My 2 year old bearded dragon, Zeus has been happy and healthy since adopting her, she's a very calm beardy and likes to be spoiled- ever since adopting her I've put her to bed every night in a fluffy bed w a blanket and she mostly runs off of my sleep schedule w a little extra time to sleep in. She has always been a lot smaller than most and is definitely the runt. She's picky, stubborn, likes to take baths and usually likes to chill on our shoulders and go shopping w us or hangout outside when its hot out. She has about a 50G tank w/ 10.0 UVB and 150w basking heat light.
However, back in February out of nowhere she began throwing up. Even though I researched all things I needed to know prior to adoption, I only thought this issue might be parasites or an infection. After taking her to the vet the first time she threw up, we found out she had infertile eggs that weren't calcified yet-(FEBRUARY 26th) it looked to be about 20-30 eggs. Unfortunately I wasn't aware that bearded dragons could become pregnant w/o mating.
The veterinarian (very limited because she is an exotic pet) told us to only continue feeding her greens and to give her calcium for 10 days. Zeus isn't a fan of her greens so we struggled to get her to eat, but after she realized she wasn't getting any other form of food, she decided to eat occasionally. The vet had mentioned a lay box but didn't make it sound like a priority so I was hoping she would have the eggs during one of her baths and waited to do the lay box until the future not realizing how important it was.
Fast forward to the beginning of April; she slowly stopped eating her greens, became more lethargic than usual, and was starting to sleep throughout the day (which isn't like her because she usually only sleeps when I put her to bed at night.) After about 2-3 days of refusing food, she was starting to look very weak, throwing up, and wasn't able to go to the bathroom but was straining. We took her into the vet once again the day after (about 6 weeks into her pregnancy). On Thursday April 9th, the vet did another X-ray of her abdomen and was able to see that the eggs were now more calcified and becoming a lot larger than in February. She also mentioned how dehydrated Zeus was looking although at this point we were giving her about 3 baths a day for about 15 min each bath. They continued by giving her fluids under her skin & an injection of oxytocin to try and help her have the eggs because she was straining. We were also sent home w carafate to help coat her stomach since she didn't feel well.
After leaving the vet Thursday she immediately seemed more stressed, lethargic, her beard was extremely black at this point and her fat pads above her eyes were looking very sunken in. SEE PICTURES FOR APRIL 9TH THURSDAY
Once we got home and noticed she was knocked out and couldn't keep her eyes open we figured she was just extremely stressed so we called the vet again and she assured us that zeus was just really exhausted and stressed out. While we waited for her to wake up again and try to lay, we made her a lay box and let her relax that night. The next morning she didn't want to get up so i put her on her basking spot and noticed her stomach looked worse than the day before (SEE PICTURE FOR APRIL 10th)
We called the vet and she recommended we bring her back in to do a second round of oxytocin. Once the vet saw her condition she said we should keep her over night and see if she has the eggs and if she doesn't then surgery would be our next step for April 11th (today) if she didn't improve. We got a call from the doctor this morning at 8am saying that zeus had not played any eggs and that she was still just as lethargic as the day prior so we went ahead and had them do the surgery. After the surgery around 11am we got a call saying that they had removed about 50 eggs from inside her abdomen and had flushed it out because she did have an egg that ruptured and they wanted to prevent any infection. Although her surgery went well, they said her heartbeat was very slow and she hadn't woken up yet. We haven't heard from the vet since two hours post procedure but they are supposed to call us in the morning to give us an update on if she wakes up or not. My concern is that zeus is extremely stubborn, has always been a runt and loves her sleep, I'm hoping she wakes up sooner than later, but any positivity at this point will help. I will leave an update once I get more information from the vet and will post healthy past pictures of her below to show her state prior to the eggs.
SORRY AGAIN FOR THE LONG POST!
HEALTHY PHOTOS:
(her as a baby)
Here is a little background on how she normally is-
My 2 year old bearded dragon, Zeus has been happy and healthy since adopting her, she's a very calm beardy and likes to be spoiled- ever since adopting her I've put her to bed every night in a fluffy bed w a blanket and she mostly runs off of my sleep schedule w a little extra time to sleep in. She has always been a lot smaller than most and is definitely the runt. She's picky, stubborn, likes to take baths and usually likes to chill on our shoulders and go shopping w us or hangout outside when its hot out. She has about a 50G tank w/ 10.0 UVB and 150w basking heat light.
However, back in February out of nowhere she began throwing up. Even though I researched all things I needed to know prior to adoption, I only thought this issue might be parasites or an infection. After taking her to the vet the first time she threw up, we found out she had infertile eggs that weren't calcified yet-(FEBRUARY 26th) it looked to be about 20-30 eggs. Unfortunately I wasn't aware that bearded dragons could become pregnant w/o mating.
The veterinarian (very limited because she is an exotic pet) told us to only continue feeding her greens and to give her calcium for 10 days. Zeus isn't a fan of her greens so we struggled to get her to eat, but after she realized she wasn't getting any other form of food, she decided to eat occasionally. The vet had mentioned a lay box but didn't make it sound like a priority so I was hoping she would have the eggs during one of her baths and waited to do the lay box until the future not realizing how important it was.
Fast forward to the beginning of April; she slowly stopped eating her greens, became more lethargic than usual, and was starting to sleep throughout the day (which isn't like her because she usually only sleeps when I put her to bed at night.) After about 2-3 days of refusing food, she was starting to look very weak, throwing up, and wasn't able to go to the bathroom but was straining. We took her into the vet once again the day after (about 6 weeks into her pregnancy). On Thursday April 9th, the vet did another X-ray of her abdomen and was able to see that the eggs were now more calcified and becoming a lot larger than in February. She also mentioned how dehydrated Zeus was looking although at this point we were giving her about 3 baths a day for about 15 min each bath. They continued by giving her fluids under her skin & an injection of oxytocin to try and help her have the eggs because she was straining. We were also sent home w carafate to help coat her stomach since she didn't feel well.
After leaving the vet Thursday she immediately seemed more stressed, lethargic, her beard was extremely black at this point and her fat pads above her eyes were looking very sunken in. SEE PICTURES FOR APRIL 9TH THURSDAY
SORRY AGAIN FOR THE LONG POST!
HEALTHY PHOTOS:
(her as a baby)
the light is a tube bulb & ive tried my hardest to make her environment as amazing as possible. I’m hoping to get her liquid calcium if she is able to have a speedy recovery & we hope to bring her home as soon as she wakes up & is stable. Thank you so much again for being concerned. Most people don’t understand how attached we get to these types of animals & I really appreciate the reply.
