I think my beardie is sick, not sure what to do

Hi All,

My little girl Lily I think has stopped eating and isn't acting like herself. About 2 weeks ago I noticed her stool seemed to be looser than normal but thought it was because she started eating more greens.

Yesterday my wife told me that her colors seemed darker than normal and when I got home she did seem darker and she wasn't acting like herself. I gave her a warm bath and she drank a bunch of water but don't think she has eaten yet.

She's about 4 1/2 months old, (born end of December), and about 13" long and weighs around 160g.

Nothing has changed in her setup since I got her in Feb. and the greens she started eating were collard greens.

Any ideas on what I should do?

Hi there....what is your set up like, lights, temps, etc ? Have you had a fecal test done ? With loss of appetite and change in her poos that's what it might be. An experienced reptile vet can determine if she needs medication. Hopefully it's something easy to take care of + she'll be back to herself soon.

The cage is 48"Lx18"Wx24"H, (see picture below).

Because the basking platform is a dark color I've taken the temps using a temp gun which ranges between 105 and 120 in the hot zone. I also used a digital thermometer to take the temps about an inch away from the surface and they are in the low 80's.

Lighting I have is 36" HO T5 Double Bulb fixture with Arcadia 12% and 6.5k Day-light Bulbs.

I put a crap load of dubia roaches in her feeding dish every morning along with the collard greens. She always poops in the same place in the cage but she hasn't at all this week and not even in her bath.

AHBD":1en3scvt said:

Hi there....what is your set up like, lights, temps, etc ? Have you had a fecal test done ? With loss of appetite and change in her poos that's what it might be. An experienced reptile vet can determine if she needs medication. Hopefully it's something easy to take care of + she'll be to herself soon.

Click to expand...

Her eating a new type of greens may cause watery poo, and her darkening color may be a shed coming on [ although some dragons look lighter before shedding ] Can you post pics of her + her set up ? Here's how :
https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/
Then hit XIMG

Anyway, if she continues to have runny poo + no appetite you may just get her tested for parasites.

I'll get pics of her up soon and sorry for not posting the cage pic before.

Because I think she has stopped eating and pooping how will the vet test her?

AHBD":2qwv6wda said:

Her eating a new type of greens may cause watery poo, and her darkening color may be a shed coming on [ although some dragons look lighter before shedding ] Can you post pics of her + her set up ? Here's how :
https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/
Then hit XIMG

Anyway, if she continues to have runny poo + no appetite you may just get her tested for parasites.

Click to expand...

Try offering baby food squash, a bit of veg. oil and /or raw honey. Unsweetened applesauce works too, so any combination of those foods can help her to poo.

Oh, and are you sure that she didn't eat something too large that could have caused impaction ? Or just no poo because she's not eating ?

No poo because she's not eating

With the watery poo she had before she stopped eating I'm starting to think it's worms. Maybe I'll pick up some panacur

Thoughts?

AHBD":38ukhhs3 said:

Try offering baby food squash, a bit of veg. oil and /or raw honey. Unsweetened applesauce works too, so any combination of those foods can help her to poo.

Oh, and are you sure that she didn't eat something too large that could have caused impaction ? Or just no poo because she's not eating ?

Click to expand...

I would get her tested for parasites before jumping to a specific medication such as Panacur. An experienced vet could do a cloacal swab and try to get enough poop to test on site. A fresh sample like that will provide the ability to check for flagellates as well.

I agree with CooperDragon about the testing. I'm not a really big fan of treatment without professional diagnosis.

It is still flying under the radar of the public, but our antibiotics are failing and we are getting very close to a time when people will once again die from strepthroat, urinary tract infections, and in a few decades many of our advanced medical procedures will be rendered useless because of antibiotic resistant infections incurred after medical procedures.

Flea medicines for dogs and cats that worked years ago are no longer effective. New ones are now being marketed as the fleas have become immune to the older treatments.

More states are fighting a strain of super lice on humans and standbys such as RID are ineffective.

Tuberculosis and gonorrhea now have antibiotic resistant strains.

MRSA is a growing problem.

Since this is a bearded dragon website, I will bring my post back around to dragons. My dragon, Little Dragon, was treated with Flagyl by the local vet. I took him after treatment to his exotic vet and had another fecal check done. He still had flagellates after his treatment with Flagyl but not enough to treat with another med. The vet seemed to think the Flagyl should have done a better job but didn't because of the possibility that his had resistance to Flagyl.

The above is why I am not a fan of companies that sell medicine to non-professionals. It is too easy to give a med "just in case he has a,b or c" and treat for the wrong thing and maybe contribute to the resistance of antibiotics or other medicines.

Sorry for the long post. Hope it made sense.

Hi All,

Well I brought Lily in last Friday to the vet and he checked her out and gave her some rice cereal with some meds in it, (sorry don't remember the name of it, think it started with an "m"). He also asked me to feed her chicken and veggie baby food and to bring back a stool sample.

It took a few days for her to poop but when she did it wasn't as watery as it was before she stopped eating. My wife brought the sample in and I just called for the results and everything came back negative.

She still isn't eating on her own but we cut back the baby food from 3x a day to once a day to see if she'll get hungry and start eating again.

Any ideas where I should go from here?

Anyone?

Good that she's negative for parasites ! I agree that you should cut back on the baby food + see how she'll react to some slow moving insects. How does she look ? Can you post a current full body shot ?

She still is pretty active and isn't acting sick.
What type of slow moving insects do you think I should go get from Petco?
Here are a couple of pictures:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BybrX-NKbBQjMm1kSDA3Q1AwU2M
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BybrX-NKbBQjLW1FSzFHWWNsblk

AHBD":3edmt246 said:

Good that she's negative for parasites ! I agree that you should cut back on the baby food + see how she'll react to some slow moving insects. How does she look ? Can you post a current full body shot ?

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Body condition looks great....no worry there. Try putting some crickets in a jar with a pinch of calcium powder a couple at a time + shake them hard. Drop them right near her. When the crix are weak + wobbly it attracts the beardies usually. You might try silkworms or hornworms if they have them as well as dubia roaches.

Thanks for the feedback!

I've been putting dubia roaches and greens in daily but I'll try some crickets and/or worms tomorrow

AHBD":2dqjmw42 said:

Body condition looks great....no worry there. Try putting some crickets in a jar with a pinch of calcium powder a couple at a time + shake them hard. Drop them right near her. When the crix are weak + wobbly it attracts the beardies usually. You might try silkworms or hornworms if they have them as well as dubia roaches.

Click to expand...