GodzillaMax
Member
We have had two baby bearded dragons now for a couple of months. Both came from the pet store (separate pet stores). They have separate enclosures but everything is the same for both (same temp of about 100 on the hot side and 75-80 on the cool side). We feed them crickets, dubia's, sometimes butternut squash and dandelion greens.
One beardie (that I was worried about several weeks ago but is now fine) has quadrupled in size. The other dragon who has been fine is now starting to almost waste away. I'm extremely concerned. Over the past week, the smaller one has gone from eating around 5-8 crickets per day or several crickets and dubias to only eating 4 small dubias a couple of days ago and just 2 small dubias yesterday, and nothing at all today. Our larger guy eats like 20 crickets in one feeding.
We were concerned so we took our small one to a vet today. The vet didn't perform any tests at all and sent us home after sitting in the waiting room for over an hour and a half and a nice size bill, without a real diagnosis but a bunch of syringes of stuff to try. He said he would treat him for coccidia. I asked how he could be certain without a stool sample or tests and I never got an answer.
We were able to get a vitamin supplement in our beardie by basically having him force fed. Other than that though, all he wants to do is drink.
In looking through the net, I came across an article about Atadenovirus. Is that a possibility? I'm scared of that because although our dragons aren't with each other, their enclosures are right beside one another. Is our guy just a super slow grower or does this seem like it's a problem? He goes through phases now of long periods of sleep and then he'll run around for a few seconds and then act like it wears him out so he starts falling asleep again. Right now he's looking at me across the room which is encouraging but he just now did a weird thing like he was trying to hack something up. He opened his mouth wide and shook his head. Then he did it again???
He has absolutely no interest at all in crickets or dubias right now. I'm hoping we can get him to eat another dubia but since he was force fed today, maybe he won't be hungry until tomorrow.
Worried
One beardie (that I was worried about several weeks ago but is now fine) has quadrupled in size. The other dragon who has been fine is now starting to almost waste away. I'm extremely concerned. Over the past week, the smaller one has gone from eating around 5-8 crickets per day or several crickets and dubias to only eating 4 small dubias a couple of days ago and just 2 small dubias yesterday, and nothing at all today. Our larger guy eats like 20 crickets in one feeding.
We were concerned so we took our small one to a vet today. The vet didn't perform any tests at all and sent us home after sitting in the waiting room for over an hour and a half and a nice size bill, without a real diagnosis but a bunch of syringes of stuff to try. He said he would treat him for coccidia. I asked how he could be certain without a stool sample or tests and I never got an answer.
We were able to get a vitamin supplement in our beardie by basically having him force fed. Other than that though, all he wants to do is drink.
In looking through the net, I came across an article about Atadenovirus. Is that a possibility? I'm scared of that because although our dragons aren't with each other, their enclosures are right beside one another. Is our guy just a super slow grower or does this seem like it's a problem? He goes through phases now of long periods of sleep and then he'll run around for a few seconds and then act like it wears him out so he starts falling asleep again. Right now he's looking at me across the room which is encouraging but he just now did a weird thing like he was trying to hack something up. He opened his mouth wide and shook his head. Then he did it again???
He has absolutely no interest at all in crickets or dubias right now. I'm hoping we can get him to eat another dubia but since he was force fed today, maybe he won't be hungry until tomorrow.
Worried