Hello Everyone,
This morning I found a Bearded Dragon in the lobby of my apartment complex. I know nothing of gender so for simplicities sake, I will say "he".
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He looked like he had been there for some time, his tank had all of the food stuffs thrown in haphazardly, he had no water, sand substrate (I know it's bad, I got new sub already), no light or heat, clinging to a branch, and was cold and flat. After checking around for a possible owner, I took him into my apartment to get all set up.
I hooked up his lights and got him going, added water to his bowl and cleaned up what I could. He wasn't drinking so I got a child's syringe and starting getting him some water dropwise until he had 5-10 ml. He immediately looked happy, was licking his lips like a mad man and his tongue seemed "stuck". The tongue moves fine but it looked like dry mouth. He continued to bask in the heat and slowly his little back legs started to move. Finally after some gentle nudging he was able to propel himself off the branch and onto the ground, where he has been hanging out for now. His legs dont look mega bent like you'd see with the MBD, but after talking to a reptile enthusiast she said he may be in the early stages. and judging by his state and lack of previous care, i'd believe it.
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So here's where I need some help. I have purchased liquid calcium, crickets, mealworms, an additional UVB light, (he has a nocturnal and I'm guessing a general heat lamp), some new substrate mat, and a better water bowl. I would really love it if he pulled through, I'm already a little attached, so I would like to know what I can be doing to get him up to full speed without harming him in his fragile state.
I will add an ok photo I took if I can figure out the upload process, any advice is very welcome, and I appreciate you all already.
Thank you for reading!
**edit - added some photos, theres one of him in the lobby where he was found, right after I hooked everything up, and then after I got the new substrate mat in. The lamps are pretty much positioned like the pre-clean picture, but I have a UVB and heat lamp going right now, and I moved it over him. I will try and take one of the new set up tonight.)
This morning I found a Bearded Dragon in the lobby of my apartment complex. I know nothing of gender so for simplicities sake, I will say "he".
---------------------
He looked like he had been there for some time, his tank had all of the food stuffs thrown in haphazardly, he had no water, sand substrate (I know it's bad, I got new sub already), no light or heat, clinging to a branch, and was cold and flat. After checking around for a possible owner, I took him into my apartment to get all set up.
I hooked up his lights and got him going, added water to his bowl and cleaned up what I could. He wasn't drinking so I got a child's syringe and starting getting him some water dropwise until he had 5-10 ml. He immediately looked happy, was licking his lips like a mad man and his tongue seemed "stuck". The tongue moves fine but it looked like dry mouth. He continued to bask in the heat and slowly his little back legs started to move. Finally after some gentle nudging he was able to propel himself off the branch and onto the ground, where he has been hanging out for now. His legs dont look mega bent like you'd see with the MBD, but after talking to a reptile enthusiast she said he may be in the early stages. and judging by his state and lack of previous care, i'd believe it.
------------
So here's where I need some help. I have purchased liquid calcium, crickets, mealworms, an additional UVB light, (he has a nocturnal and I'm guessing a general heat lamp), some new substrate mat, and a better water bowl. I would really love it if he pulled through, I'm already a little attached, so I would like to know what I can be doing to get him up to full speed without harming him in his fragile state.
I will add an ok photo I took if I can figure out the upload process, any advice is very welcome, and I appreciate you all already.
Thank you for reading!