Our darling Sephy

Hello, I'm totally new to beardeddragons.org but have used it on a few occasions to help with my dragon troubles. I would just like to explain the death of our 9 month old dragon Sephy and hopefully someone can relate to the experience or at least get some answers as to why?

My girlfriend and I got Sephy about 3 months ago from a reputable breeder, she had slight tailnip but the way she looked at you, we just knew she was the one, we got her a 48"x24"x18" vivarium and kitted it out with a UVB 10 repti glo bulb, 75w tight beam lamp, 2 dial thermometers and a big bowl for bathing, temp at hot end was 105 - 110 and cool end was 80 - 85, she seemed to love her set up and her food, although the fussy thing only ate when I hand fed her. She was extremely active and ran everywhere like a lunatic, often walking straight into things and looking around to see if anyone saw. About 2 weeks ago she started to go off her food a bit so we took more time to feed her and offered her a wide variety of food througout the day to see if she would take anything, well her eating deteriorated and her feaces became less and less and became very mucus like. We took her up the vets and they did a blood test and found high phosphorus levels which could indicate a liver problem, her calcium, white blood cell count and the rest was all fine, they gave her a Laurabolin Anabolic Steroid injection to help stimulate her eating, and we was told that it would take effect in around 48 hours, they also provided us with Vetark Critical Care Formula to force feed her twice daily. Well we got her home and her condition deteriorated rapidly, we researched all manner of issues, ranging from Coccidia to Worms. She failed to eat anything and we followed the critical care instructions, she started to look as if she was dead until we called her name and she would perk up for 5 minutes before she went all limp again, she had awful diarhoea and was passing just the yellow utrate and some clear fluid, at times she was pooping whilst laying there and not moving, we had to take her back to the vet 2 days later. We saw a different vet and he told us that it looked like Adenovirus and the steroid that she was given would take affect after 5 days, not the 48 hours like we were told, so we booked another appointment for this Wednesday so he could take a look at her after the steroid had taken effect, in the meantime, he had prescribed her some Baytril to combat any secondary infection, as soon as we got her home, she vomited everywhere and went supremely lethargic, obviously we were upset and stayed with her. We continued with the critical care and Baytril the next day and she was still deteriorating, we got to today and she had taken another plunge, she didnt fight me when I force fed her the morning critical care and slept all day, after this evenings critical care she started seriously gaping and vomiting fluid from the sides of her mouth, we just tried to comfort her in her vivarium but she kept her mouth open and started biting down on her own tongue, after about 10 minutes, her upper body started twitching and her beard would was pulsing, after a bit more saliva fell from her mouth, her breathing stopped and she went limp, she had died. She went from a supremely happy, active beardy to not even 1% of her normal self in less than 2 weeks, me and my girlfriend are devestated that we will never get to see her the way she will always be remembered.

Does anybody have any idea of the symptoms I have described? Or can at least anyone relate to them? Is Laurabolin fit for a juvenile beardy?

Sorry for the long post

Ashley

Hello Ashley,

Oh geez, what a horrible story! I am sorry you had to go through that.
Do you have a copy of the blood tests that I could take a look at? I would just like to see them if that is ok. Thanks. I will PM you my email address.
As for why she suddenly went downhill before you initally got her to the vet could she have had parasites? The mucous is an indication of parasites or worms, etc which would have explained the loss of appetite. Was a fecal ever done on her? How old was she when she stopped eating?
High phosphorus levels can also be due to improper supplementation or poor calcium absorption which would throw the calcium to phosphorus ratios off.
As far as a Laurabolin shot which is normally ok, usually Nandralone is more commonly given, but they are in the same family of steroids for the most part. Though if she was having liver problems, giving a steroid is not advisable because the liver has to break it down.
The Vetark critical care formula is very good so that should not have been the cause.
Then, the second vet prescribed Baytril? In my opinion, with no trace of infection or signs of infection & possible suspicion of liver disease or failure, giving Baytril was not justified. Baytril is extremely hard on the liver & kidneys & is contraindicated in cases where the patient has possible kidney or liver problems.
Adenovirus is a possibility since she is so young. A fecal or DNA test would have to have been done either before death or postmortem either way to determine if that could be the cause. Adenovirus does attack the liver in many cases.

I will try to get you some answers. I am very sorry for your loss.

Tracie

Hello Tracie

Thankyou so much for the reply, I have copied the blood tests onto Microsoft Word and will send it to your email.

We explained the mucus like faeces to the vet and he didn’t give any indication that it could be parasites or worms, they never requested a faecal either, which we found a bit strange, she was 9 months old and stopped eating about 2 weeks before she died, she went from eating lots, and pooping 2-3 times a day to eating 1 mealworm, or locust or just a bit of veg. We used Vetark Grub Grub, Bug Grub and Nutrobal on all feeder insects.

Baytril was prescribed to ‘fight off any secondary infection!’ the vet told us this without knowing if she had an infection, her tummy was bloated and he put it down to colic. I have a telephone meeting with the vet at 3.30pm today to ask some questions, as he seemed to think that the steroid will perk her up, and on Wednesday we could bring her into him and he could determine what was wrong. Im just so frustrated, his words were ‘its nothing to worry about!’ the poor little thing looked in so much pain and couldn’t even breathe before she died, she didn’t have any throat obstruction and yet this was 24 hours after visiting the vet she didn’t even have the energy to move out of her own faeces.

My girlfriend spoke to someone at a university and they could relate to the symptoms, but the lizards at the university were ‘egg bound’ at less than a year old, could this be a possibility?

Ashley