Rescued baby yesterday now impacted, need advice

As long as you are giving him warm soaks at least twice a day, you don't have to worry about him becoming dehydrated. Beardies have the ability to absorb water through their vents when they are immersed in water, so soaking him twice a day should at least give him the minimum amount of moisture that his body needs. Spraying him with a plant mister, or giving him fluids through a feeding syringe, if he will take it for you, is just an added advantage for him.

If he's been eating some veggie baby food for you, for a few days, you can gradually start adding some Gerber #2 Chicken Baby food to it before feeding it to him. If he tolerates it well, then I would just add a bit more to the veggie baby food each day, until you work him up to taking a mixture of half veggie baby food and half chicken baby food. Most beardies really like it, and will lick it willingly off the end of their noses if you squeeze drops of it on there.

My daughter just sent me a pic of him drinking from his water dish! I'm so excited if he is doing it on his own! Cool Cool!!!

If the stomach problems presist (my beardie has trouble sometimes going to the bathroom) there is a med you can give him from the vet. Im not sure what the name is but it is a liquid that comes in a tiny bottle with a syringe. It has either a watermelon or bananna flavor. Mine likes the bananna flavor best. He had to be on that until he got better a while back.

Hi JStarr, I would like to know the name of that med if you can find it. Just in case. I'm putting a couple drops of Acidopholiz in his food now to help his belly.

I took Denise's advice and started feeding the chicken baby food, a little yesterday mixed with squash baby food & repti-aid, then more today. He really liked it a lot, in fact he ate 3 times today and is much more alert and lively.

And Abi, wanted to let you know he gained 2 grams since yesterday instead of losing. This is a huge improvement, he is even starting to lighten up and get his color back instead of constantly being dark. Poor thing. (the belly is coming)

I'm so glad that the babyfood is working!
2 grams in a day, with what he's been through? That's pretty darn good!
I hate when I see my babies get darker than usual (usually from the stress of a shed), I just know that they don't feel well/aren't comfortable, so I'm sure that his change in color has helped with your stress and worry (along with all of the other improvements)!
I can't wait for the belly pics! I'm sure it won't be too much longer before he gets there.
Abi

Yea, if we got stress marks I would look awful funny these last few days! Maybe thats why I'm sick, but I feel lucky to have been home with a fever the last couple days so I could keep tabs on him. The coolest thing is how much he drinks when I put him in the water. I'm sure the water has helped with his weight gain. Even his head was sunken in and now its almost back to normal. His daily food intake is only 1/2cc to 1cc, maybe a little more if I can get an extra feeding in.

If you have a scale, try this so I don't think I'm crazy. Weigh one before you feed, then after you feed. Then wait about 2 hours and weigh again. Somehow they weigh a couple grams more. Weird.

For the record. I haven't had to force feed him, so he is eating what he wants. Sometimes it takes some coaxing but I don't want to over do it. I start with a drip of water, and then another, if he accepts it, I put the food syringe up to his mouth and let him lick till he turns away. I don't push it on him. Only a couple times in the beginning I would push his lip up and put a half a drop to get him licking. This is something I was really unsure about at first so I am writing it in case anyone else ever reads this. Oh, and another weird thing, is after he eats and drinks, sometimes he acts like he's gonna gag a little, so I assume his system is very delicate right now and will probably go at least 2 weeks like the vet said.

OMG I don't know what or how it happened, but the last 24 hours has been amazing. I started feeding the other babies and he went after a roach and ate it all by himself, then had 3 more. They are very tiny, only 1/4" long. He ate a few more today and has pooped so it seems as if everything is working okay. I didn't really expect it so soon but he has improved tremendously and gained 4 grams in 2 days. I guess I'll just keep his food really small and not let him be a big pig. Don't want this to happen again.

No belly yet but he is bright eyed and no bones sticking up at his tail!

THAT'S GREAT!
Sometimes all it takes is a little extra lovin' lol to get them to come around.
I know what you mean about the weight thing. I used to weigh them randomly then one day (a little stupid of me lol) I weighed Kaira at night, and then the next morning. She'd lost so much weight in less than 24 hours it freaked me out. I weighed her later that night, though, and she had gained more weight than the night before....it's amazing how they put away all of that food, poop it out, & put it back on again lol. Kaira's now about 298grams, maybe a few more, but we've been having problems with getting her to eat the past few days. Despite the fact that for two days we couldn't get her to eat anything more than 32 PWs and a small amount of greens, she hasn't lost weight & her appetite has picked back up. It's scary though. It was so hard to watch her not eat her usual 50 PWs & about a 100 crickets (we always feed smaller crickets just in case). Anyways in our case part of it was/is a hard shed and she wanted more attention. I got her out for longer than usual about two days ago and hand-fed her PWs...she ate about 65 (we usually stick to 50 a day, but she's been having problems so I let her have a few more) in 15 minutes or so. She's still having trouble with her shed, but she just wants a little more one on one time (or she's lazy lol). I'm sure if you keep giving him extra time, he'll continue to get better.
He looks so cute! The 1st pic showed a lot of bones sticking out, this one I don't see any sticking out. He's holding his head up & looking around too! In the first pic his head was down, eyes half shut, & just looked so sad.
Does he have a name yet?
Looking amazing though! I hope he continues to eat some on his own...I wonder what the "gagging" was about :dontknow: ? Oh, well, he's doing better now, that's all that matters. The belly seems to be coming along faster than expected :wink: .
Abi

Unfortunately I have bad news about this little guy. He seemed to be getting better and then started getting bloated. I tried getting his fecal sample to a vet after the weekend but they all said they had to send it out. After searching around I found a better reptile vet who, after examination, said he probably had parasites and they got the best of him after being weakened from the impacion ordeal. He gave him a shot of vitamins and fluids and told me the prognosis didn't look good. A couple hours later he passed away. Probably nothing I could have done about it since he was never strong enough from the start.

It is very important to have fecals done regularly for this reason. He said crickets are probably the main source for pin worms and other parasites and if they are kept in check they won't be such a threat in situations like this where a combination of problems compound to be fatal. He wouldn't even do an enema since he was so weak and fragile. Also, one of the biggest problems with all reptiles is that you don't realize how sick they are until it's almost too late.

Thanks for everyone's support, Cheryl