Frank is my daughters beautiful 16 month old bearded dragon we re-homed about 7 months ago. He is quite the character! He loves to be out and about adventuring in the living room, hiding from us and hanging out.
Recently we noticed his poops were more runny than normal and smelled very bad. Frank also went off his food, he will only eat bugs, Superworms, Hornworms and crickets, no veggies although we offer him veggies everyday in his bowl. We took him to the Vet as we suspected a parasite of some type. Frank looked healthy to the Vet but the fecal sample came back positive for both Ringworm and Coccidian. The Vet gave us Fenbendazole and Albon to treat him over the next 10 days (6 days for the Albon, 10 for the Fenbendazole). After the medication course was complete Frank was still not eating so I brought in another fecal sample which tested negative for the Coccidian but positive for Ringworm. The Vet asked what substrate we had in Franks enclosure, we had a mixture of playsand and organic top soil. The Vet recommended removing the substrate as he thought Frank got re-infected with the Ringworm through it. We removed it all and cleaned the enclosure with a 10% bleach solution making sure we rinsed it down very well before Frank went back in. We laid paper towel down and change it everyday. The Vet was also concerned that Frank maybe impacted because of the substrate but he is still very active and poops regularly.
We continued with the second 10 day treatment of Fenbendazole which has recently come to an end. Through this whole time Frank has not eaten or drank anything which was distressing us very much as you can imagine. We have started giving him a slurry through a syringe twice a day. We have tried baby food, he seems to like peas and butternut squash and even added mashed up worms to it. Frank seems unhappy about taking the slurry and we don't want to force it on him. He has also had some explosive bowel movements due to the slurry so we have stopped.
We checked all his enclosure temps and lights. His basking spot surface temp (we have a heat gun) is between 97 and 110 degrees F. His cold side is between 80 and 90. He has a hide / cave which is 75. He is not in his cave at the moment. At night the thermostat regulates the ceramic heat lamp to be no colder than 70. We also bought a new 22" T5 10.0 UVB bulb (old one had 7 months on it).
Frank still refuses to eat or drink anything although he seems very happy and active. We only let him out for 2 hours a day at the moment (before it was around 4 hours). His enclosure has timed lighting from 8am - 8pm. He sleeps well. We are starting to weigh him regularly (395 grams) and haven't noticed a big drop in his weight.
We are totally bemused by his refusal to eat. We offer him all sorts of bugs and veggies multiple times a day but he ignores it and then closes his eyes to say, "No thank you".
He has not eaten for over a month now so any help and advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
Paul, Lily and Frank.
Here is his Exo Terro 36" x 18" x 24" enclosure with lighting setup.
Basking light on the left. Timer in the middle. 24" 10.0 UVB fixture. Ceramic heat emitter hooked to the thermostat on the right with probe low in the enclosure.
We did have a substrate of playsand and organic top soil which we baked in the oven to sterilize it before it went in. We also had live herbs in each corner to make it look and smell nice.
There's Frank!
There is his cave under the basking spot. Sometimes he like to sleep or hang out in there. I made the enclosure with foam covered in tile grout and painted with safe acrylic paints.
This is what the enclosure looked like when we first got Frank with the substrate (non-bioactive), herbs and tunnel leading to the cave (which he never used so it came out!)
Recently we noticed his poops were more runny than normal and smelled very bad. Frank also went off his food, he will only eat bugs, Superworms, Hornworms and crickets, no veggies although we offer him veggies everyday in his bowl. We took him to the Vet as we suspected a parasite of some type. Frank looked healthy to the Vet but the fecal sample came back positive for both Ringworm and Coccidian. The Vet gave us Fenbendazole and Albon to treat him over the next 10 days (6 days for the Albon, 10 for the Fenbendazole). After the medication course was complete Frank was still not eating so I brought in another fecal sample which tested negative for the Coccidian but positive for Ringworm. The Vet asked what substrate we had in Franks enclosure, we had a mixture of playsand and organic top soil. The Vet recommended removing the substrate as he thought Frank got re-infected with the Ringworm through it. We removed it all and cleaned the enclosure with a 10% bleach solution making sure we rinsed it down very well before Frank went back in. We laid paper towel down and change it everyday. The Vet was also concerned that Frank maybe impacted because of the substrate but he is still very active and poops regularly.
We continued with the second 10 day treatment of Fenbendazole which has recently come to an end. Through this whole time Frank has not eaten or drank anything which was distressing us very much as you can imagine. We have started giving him a slurry through a syringe twice a day. We have tried baby food, he seems to like peas and butternut squash and even added mashed up worms to it. Frank seems unhappy about taking the slurry and we don't want to force it on him. He has also had some explosive bowel movements due to the slurry so we have stopped.
We checked all his enclosure temps and lights. His basking spot surface temp (we have a heat gun) is between 97 and 110 degrees F. His cold side is between 80 and 90. He has a hide / cave which is 75. He is not in his cave at the moment. At night the thermostat regulates the ceramic heat lamp to be no colder than 70. We also bought a new 22" T5 10.0 UVB bulb (old one had 7 months on it).
Frank still refuses to eat or drink anything although he seems very happy and active. We only let him out for 2 hours a day at the moment (before it was around 4 hours). His enclosure has timed lighting from 8am - 8pm. He sleeps well. We are starting to weigh him regularly (395 grams) and haven't noticed a big drop in his weight.
We are totally bemused by his refusal to eat. We offer him all sorts of bugs and veggies multiple times a day but he ignores it and then closes his eyes to say, "No thank you".
He has not eaten for over a month now so any help and advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
Paul, Lily and Frank.
Here is his Exo Terro 36" x 18" x 24" enclosure with lighting setup.
Basking light on the left. Timer in the middle. 24" 10.0 UVB fixture. Ceramic heat emitter hooked to the thermostat on the right with probe low in the enclosure.
We did have a substrate of playsand and organic top soil which we baked in the oven to sterilize it before it went in. We also had live herbs in each corner to make it look and smell nice.
There's Frank!
There is his cave under the basking spot. Sometimes he like to sleep or hang out in there. I made the enclosure with foam covered in tile grout and painted with safe acrylic paints.
This is what the enclosure looked like when we first got Frank with the substrate (non-bioactive), herbs and tunnel leading to the cave (which he never used so it came out!)