Help Please, A Very Hard Decision

I have a one year old who is very sick. His name is Link. He is very small for his age, almost the same size as when we bought him from the pet store as a baby. Link has had many problems over the past year, the least of which has been the failure to thrive. I have contacted a breeder in my area, and her opinion is that Link is terribly inbred and has a bad digestive tract. This opinion comes from the fact that he has suffered three cases of blocked bowls in six months and that his food passes undigested.

His latest illness is a mystery to me. Link refuses to eat. He will not chase his live food, has not touched his veggies and attempts at force feeding have proved unsuccessful. In fact, he almost doesn't move at all. When I pick Link up, he does not grip onto my hand like he used to and does not move his back legs. In his habitat, he only uses his front legs to pull himself along and spends most of his time hiding with his eyes closed. I want to believe that he is hibernating, but with his history of eating problems I did not want to put him into hibernation. Our other beardie, Spike, has a habitat next to Link's and is not displaying any signs of hibernation. (He is three and actually has been put in hibernation the first year we had him.)

The decision I need help with is deciding if Link is in hibernation, or if he is nearing the end of his life. I do not want him to suffer. I recently had to have my dog put down and that decision was easy because her pain was plain to see. I don't know if my baby is in pain. And as awful as it sounds, I can't continue to force feed him to keep him alive. Not out of inconvenience to me, but it is a quality of life thing. Also, there are no vets in our area that take in reptiles. In hind sight this is irresponsible of us to adopt a pet that we cannot easily provide medical care, but Spike was a rescue and we fell in love with him and wanted another to share our love with. If any one can, please, please, help.

im sorry to ask, but to properly troubleshoot i have some questions:

what kind of setup is he in?
what are the temps during the day and night? what kind of device are you using to measure temps?
what lighting are you using; brands, types, distances?

if you could answer these questions it could help us tell whether its brumation or something else. sometimes cirtain lights have been known to cause problems in bearded dragons, though that is not what im implying here. one thing is cirtain though, with these changing seasons alot of dragons are starting brumation so i would definitely get a second opinion before taking him to the vet for euthanasia.

i hope things start to look up for you two... my best wishes :wink: .

Well, I think I (we) need a little more info about your set-up for him. What UVB are you using? What feeders? Do you use supplements? There's many more questions, if you go to the "Health" section you will find the list or I can copy and paste it for you.
Without more information, I can't really give you any definite opinion or help. If your set-up is right though, then it could be a case of failure to thrive, but you mentioned he has had problems with digestion...that can be caused by a number of things (feeders, changes in diet, etc.). You also said that he isn't moving around...do you see any signs of pain? Beardies often beard, a jet-black beard, when they are in pain.
It may also be possible he is already going into brumation (sp?). I don't think that's the case though and I don't recommend "letting" him either.
Really, I can't offer any more advice without more information. If you could answer those questions, it'd help a lot.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help,
Abi

Oops, sorry jscott...you covered what I did. I just repeated it lol.

Have you taken him to a vet and had a fecal done?