Rescue Beardie not opening eyes

I just recently made an addition to my reptile family as of about an hour ago. I took a beardie off the hands of my friend's roommate, who was not taking care of her whatsoever. She is incredibly malnourished, but my biggest fear is she is barely opening her eyes. The setup they had her on was far from ideal, the only source of light being a Reptisun 10.0 Coil UVB, with no heat lamp, kept on Reptisand.

That's her as of right now in the very temporary setup I have for her. My MAIN concern is she won't open her eyes so she isn't eating anything I put in front of her. She DID however open them very briefly when I soaked her in warm water in the sink, and she also drank some water when I dripped it on her snout. That's about all the progress I've been able to make. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips, and any leads on why her eyes won't open? I'm terrified it was the UVB or even worse the reptisand with an eye infection.

Hello,

What type of lighting are you using for her now? The compact/coil may have hurt her eyes to the point that they are just very irritated. Do you have any sterile saline solution you could use to flush her eyes out?
Be sure & use a bright white basking light for her right now.
Since she isn't feeling well, I would try to keep her tank temperatures around 80 overnight to help boost the immune system.
She is terribly thin so I would go easy on the feedings with protein to begin with. Start with slurries made with greens, calcium & vitamins to get him hydrated. I would wait until she has several normal stools with a good amount of urates before introducing any protein foods. This allows the kidneys not to be taxed too much.

Let us know how she is doing.
Tracie

Can you take her out in the sun for a little bit today and see if that helps her out? She might eat and be able to digest if given the proper uvb.

Hello,

Let us know he is doing. Has he improved today?
I hope that he gets better & starts eating.


Tracie

Hey guys, it's been about 36 hours and so far I've been using a saline solution and getting it into her eyes to try to flush them. She's visibly annoyed with me and I don't want to stress her too much but I'm happy to see she's got the energy to pull her head back. I've been soaking her in warm water and letting her bask.. she's still not eating for me though, also her eyes still aren't open and only moving a few inches on her own in 12 hours. I've been contemplating the baby food trick I read about, where if you take some baby food and mix it with some calcium and put it on the tip of their snout, they'll get annoyed and lick it off. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Yes, definitely use some baby food squash and green beans, and/or make the smoothie as Drache suggested [ if you can ] She may lick it out of annoyance or out of hunger.

Hey everyone, good news! Corona is responsive and eating the squash baby food off of her snout! Now that I've got her eating, even if it's just a little, my main concern is to get her eyes open.


Her eyes just seem so dark! Is this normal? I've kept all UBV off for 3 days and flushed her eyes every day twice a day with saline solution.

Yay! I took corona outside to see how she'd fare, and her eyes opened and she's actually pretty active! She just won't keep her eyes open.


Her venting because it's Florida and hot as Satan. But it's a step in the right direction!

She is really skinny. The outside is a great time for her. Can you get her to eat a little while she's in the sun? Also make sure she is getting lots of water while she's outside. Mine likes to sit under my chair when she's basked enough. There's still u vb in the shade.

Good to hear that she's eating a bit ! And the sun will do her good, but be SURE to just keep her in the grass, being on a rock or driveway will burn her ! Use only plain saline, not the contact lens type. Keep up the good work !