Sick Bearded Dragon help!

Hello all,

I have been trying to get my bearded dragon healthy for a few months now but it seems like nothing is helping. She will not eat and is getting very skinny. She was eating very good about 3 months ago then stopped eating. I did not know what was wrong but then she laid 5-6 eggs. I've read that they stop eating when they lay eggs but should start eating again.

After she laid eggs I was worried from her continuing to not eat so I took her to the vet. They took an X-ray of her stomach to see if she was egg bound or had any sand or blockage in her stomach. She didn't have and eggs or blockages. They also gave me "critical care" a green dry herb looking substance and told me to to syringe feed her this for a week. I did that and she slowly was eating a few super worms every few days. But then stopped again. I started feeding her the green critical care again and then I found her very unresponsive she would only open her eyes but not move her body.

I took her to a different vet and they did several things. They did X-rays again put at tube feed in her stomach to give her deworm and carnivore care. They sent me home with more carnivore care and a antibiotic to give her but she is fighting me to eat it. The next day she has been moving around some but still eyes closed most of the time and her body is not very responsive.

I would really appreciate it if anyone has any insight of what could be going and tips on what I can do to get my bearded dragon healthy. Here are a few thing facts and thing I have done.

She's 3YO
Been on and off with calcium dust but always on now
Replaced UVB light (9.0% UVB)
She gets baths everyday
Bring her outside often for natural sunlight
When I can get her to eat been feeding her super worms (before that was mostly Dubia roaches)
Greens, Kale, bok choy, mustard greens sometimes fruits (Hasn't ate any in months from what I can tell)
Heating temperatures are correct from what I know. 100 basking, 85 cool zone
Have tried feeding all time of the day but mostly morning or late afternoon due to work
Fecal test is being done now.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Hi there, can you post pics of her [ full body from above + the side ] as well as her tank + set up ? Here's how :
https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/ Then use the XIMG to upload pics

AHBD":2s2hsepm said:

Hi there, can you post pics of her [ full body from above + the side ] as well as her tank + set up ? Here's how :
https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/ Then use the XIMG to upload pics

Click to expand...

Here you go. Thank you for you quick reply.

Poor girl, she is really ill. There's no way to say what it could be with any accuracy , there are quite a few possibilities. Did your vet do a blood test ? If not you might want to get a blood panel done to show her liver + kidney function, as well as white blood cell count + other things.

BTW, what exact type of lights are you using, specifically the uvb bulb ? And it's good that the xray shows no blockage, but when was the last time she poo'd ?

Something that might work to get her to eat more of the mixture from the syringe is raw unpasteurized honey. [ like from a health store or beekeeper ] Most beardies like the taste and it is good for them in small amounts, and bee pollen can help a lethargic beardie as well. Hopefully you'll be able to help her but you really can't know what's up unless you get a blood panel done. Best wishes to you + your little girl.

Exactly what is the UVB light : 9% UVB is a very strange %UVB rating. (photo of UVB globe or lamp)
Is it a Compact (curly) , or T8 , or T5HO ?
BRAND ?
Wattage ?
Under or ontop of mesh lid ?
type of reflector (if it has one) ? (dome, reflector hood, slip/clip on) ?
Distance from basking spot ?

Can you give a run down on the viv daytime temps (basking spot, warm zone, cool zone and how you measured these and how it's been since you checked them).

I see she is on some kind of gravel or sand , what is it ?
..... please remove the current substrate as it's a definite impaction risk, how long has it been since she pooed ?

I see there are fake plants in the viv - I'd be wary of having these in there, a hungry beardie will nibble on them (thinking they are real) and if indigestible this is bad news if the pieces don't show up in it's poo.

Here's instructions for feeding using a feeding syringe and feeding needle : viewtopic.php?f=45&t=232687
The vet probably rushed showing you how to do this , and made it look easy (well , now beardie knows what's happening she might be resistant about it .... if she's not eating .... it's the only easy way to get food into her.

Bloodwork , did the vet do any bloodwork ?

Oh my, she really looks quite sickly, poor girl. Your enclosure needs some changes, the first thing I would do is get rid of whatever your substrate is, it looks like dirt or sand? Either way it's a huge impaction risk, and it also is no doubt harboring bacteria, fungus, etc. She should be on a solid substrate from now on. For right now just dump out that dirt, throw the fake plants away, completely disinfect the tank, and put down clean paper towels. As they get dirty you can just throw them away and replace them. Later on you can buy tiles or something else as a substrate, for now just get her tank cleaned up ASAP. And when is the last time she pooped? This is very important, as you have a lot of impaction risks in her tank.

I agree that a 9.0% UVB bulb is very odd. Can you please list the brand, model, wattage, etc. of the UVB light? And when was it last replaced? They typically need to be replaced every 6 months. It's on top of a mesh lid, so if it's not a T5 High-Output UVB tube the mesh lid is blocking quite a bit of the UVB light it's emits anyway.

What type of thermometer do you use to measure the temps inside her tank? She looks quite cold, and her tank appears quite dark, it could just be the photos but she doesn't look like she's warm enough. Her basking spot should be around 100-103, the hot side between 88-93, and the Cool Side between 75-80 max, but that assuming you're measuring the temps with either a temperature gun or a digital thermometer with a probe that you can actually place on the basking spot.

I agree that with 2 sets of x-rays already done and nothing shown on them, she needs a full blood panel done. The fecal is a good idea, if it shows parasites/worms/bacteria in high counts then that has a lot to do with it (another reason to get that dirt out of her tank) and an antiparasitic will help, but she's already been given both a deworming medicine and an antibiotic?

I'm not a fan of giving beardies deworming meds or antibiotics without a definitive diagnosis of worms or a bacterial infection. Why was she given the dewormer, did she test positive for them? Same for the antibiotics, why was she given them and what were they? Those meds a extremely hard on their systems and they typically lose their appetites while on those meds and for a time after, so if she was given deworming medicine through a stomach tube and then given antibiotics that definitely effected her health, especially if the vets just gave her these things for no reason other than "just in case". So my guess is the two different harsh meds she was given (I'm assuming they gave you no probiotics to give her?) plus the stress of multiple vet visits, 2 sets of x-rays, and a feeding tube put into her stomach have a lot to do with her condition now, mostly the medications they gave her.

If the fecal test is negative or comes back with a very low load or count of parasites or bacteria, I wouldn't put her on any more antiparasitic meds, not unless the fecal shows an obviously high parasite count or bacteria load...

Tracie might be able to give her opinion on what I just said, I just don't like it when vets don't know what's wrong, so they give multiple medications "just in case", beardies are very effected by these meds, and without giving her any probiotics along with the meds, their stomachs get very upset and they generally do stop eating completely.