Vet visit..

So Howie is a Howerina..
But I think I might still call her Howie, but I don't know, that's kinda weird, lol.
The vet says Howie has some major spinal deformities, which I already knew. He said that she looks really good for having such a bad deformity, and it may start to cause problems as she gets older..
Howie also has parasites..Coccidia, I believe he called them??
So I got some medicine for her, and will start that tomorrow after I disinfect her viv.
$200 dollars later..Howie is a happy healthy beardie aside from the parasites and deformity.

He also told me to put something on top of the tile I have in his viv, like sand. I was like...uhh why??
I guess because of something to do with their hands and feet?
But I told him I didn't want to do sand and he said paper towels or something would work too, is this necessary??

Here's some pictures of Howie's first vet visit:

Howie hid from the vet under the table after he was squishing her tummy trying to feel her spine, lol.

Different angle

Oh and his official weight is 224 grams. I'm not sure how much he weighed when I first got him though..
Does that sound about right for a 9-10 month old?

not sure about the weight :dontknow: but sahara has coccydia as well, along with some sort of worms. from what i can tell, coccydia is pretty common...

i'm gonna try Reptaid and see if that works... i'm excited as i've heard rave reviews abou it

I dont think sand or paper towel is necessary, I dont have anything in mine except the tile and Moose is fine and I know most people on here just use the tile??

Howie is still very cute for a girls name :love5: I have no clue about the coccidia or the weight but Howie is sooooooo adorable!!!

Oh and I LOVE your purse!!!

Awww poor Howie!!!! I think Howie is a very suitable name for her, wouldn't change it a bit! I dont really know about the tile thing, because I was thinking of putting tile in my beardies viv.

Glad you got her into the vet, she will be felling better in no time.
I'm curious about the tile. Any chance you can call the vet and get more info? I read a post somewhere about tile being hard on the feet/wrists and it would be nice to know if its is a problem. I personally only use tile in half the viv, the other is newspaper. There is also different things to climb on so her feet aren't on just a flat surface all day.

Poor thing!! Im sure he will come around soon!!!

Poor Howie!!! I'm sure 'she' will be feeling better soon. At least now you know what her problem has been. I think Howie still suits her. We've seen many pics of her and I can't imagine seeing any other name now...

I think our little one is a girl too... my daughter would be devastated if I told her! I'm just not seeing any signs of boy parts and even our local alligator man says he thinks he's a girl. Ours is named Alex, so I guess it can go either way...

Glad Howie is on the right track now with meds.

ajkry2":a61cb said:

not sure about the weight :dontknow: but sahara has coccydia as well, along with some sort of worms. from what i can tell, coccydia is pretty common...

i'm gonna try Reptaid and see if that works... i'm excited as i've heard rave reviews abou it

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Yeah, the vet told me that most dragons do have it, and that Howie will feel much better with them gone..so I'm hoping!! He said that the parasite can actually cause problems down the road and so it's better to get rid of them now.
I did ask him if the reptaid would take care of the parasites, and he told me no, but I'm curious if it will work (since I've heard it does) and if he was just in it for the money :/ So if you do try it, please let me know if it takes care of the parasites

Momto3boys":a61cb said:

I dont think sand or paper towel is necessary, I dont have anything in mine except the tile and Moose is fine and I know most people on here just use the tile??

Howie is still very cute for a girls name :love5: I have no clue about the coccidia or the weight but Howie is sooooooo adorable!!!

Oh and I LOVE your purse!!!

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See, I didn't think it was necessary either. So I don't think I will do anything about it, Howie barely spends any time on the tile anyways, and yeah, a lot of people use the tile, so I don't think it will be a problem.

Thank you very much! I still think of her as a him...lol. I don't know if I'm gonna get used to calling her a girl or not. Oh well! I'm sure Howie will be just as happy being a boy or a girl, lol

Oh and thank you I love it as well! Although it is just a huge black hole, lol, I can never find anything in the darn thing!!

MommytoSobe":a61cb said:

Awww poor Howie!!!! I think Howie is a very suitable name for her, wouldn't change it a bit! I dont really know about the tile thing, because I was thinking of putting tile in my beardies viv.

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Everyone else says tile is great, which I think it's working out really well too. He actually never heard of anyone using tile before and gave me a weird look when I told him I use that for the substrate :?

waldo":a61cb said:

Glad you got her into the vet, she will be felling better in no time.
I'm curious about the tile. Any chance you can call the vet and get more info? I read a post somewhere about tile being hard on the feet/wrists and it would be nice to know if its is a problem. I personally only use tile in half the viv, the other is newspaper. There is also different things to climb on so her feet aren't on just a flat surface all day.

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I called and he said that the beardie will develop "soft spots" on the bottom of their feet from walking on a flat surface all day. And that it was hard on the feet/wrists just like you mentioned. But what I don't understand is, how would a thin layer of sand on top of the tile help??

Twobeardieguy":a61cb said:

Poor thing!! Im sure he will come around soon!!!

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I hope so! She better at least, after all the money I've spent on her! lol

gini":a61cb said:

Poor Howie!!! I'm sure 'she' will be feeling better soon. At least now you know what her problem has been. I think Howie still suits her. We've seen many pics of her and I can't imagine seeing any other name now...

I think our little one is a girl too... my daughter would be devastated if I told her! I'm just not seeing any signs of boy parts and even our local alligator man says he thinks he's a girl. Ours is named Alex, so I guess it can go either way...

Glad Howie is on the right track now with meds.

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Yeah, at least now I know how to correct the problem, and hopefully fix it for good. lol, I know, that's why I didn't want to know whether it was male or female, because now it's weird calling Howie a girl, but for some odd reason the vet would like to know what the gender is, I have no idea why though :roll: :wink:
Yeah Alex can definitely go both ways! The vet had a hard time figuring out Howie's gender though, he actually called her a tranny, lol. :roll: But he finally felt the ovaries and decided she was a girl. So you never know, Alex just may be a tranny like Howie, lol!

Maybe you can post a pic of Howie's tail by the vent and we could give you an opinion. You should be able to tell very easily if he/she is a boy or girl at that age just by the tail. There is also an article by one of the moderators showing pictures of male/ female tails to help tell the difference http://www.beardeddragon.org/articles/sexing/
The medicine they give you to get rid of the parasites is very harsh on their poor little bodies so it is not uncommon for them to loose their apatite. If that happens you might want to try reptaid to help with apatite, I have used it before with Scorch when she went on a hunger strike with great success.

what i hear is that its harsh on the bacteria in thier intestines from the antibiotic. because of this, you should use a probiotic, plain unsweetened soy yogurt. that's what i hear anyways