Thank you everyone for the feed back, I appreciate all of it. I didn't know that bearded dragons didn't absorb water through their vent, good to know. But little foot (my beardie) does enjoy baths! I think it relaxes him, and he does drink the bath water so I will continue to give baths. Right now I have his heating lamps on a timer, turn off at 12 AM turn back on at 5 AM, but he does have a heating pad under his cage that's on all the time. Should I be keeping his lamps on all day now?
I have a not so happy update.. I was giving him his morning dose of baytril and I think it bothered him and he shook his head and went to scratch his face and his claw ended up getting stuck in his eye.. I tried to get it out as soon as possible but it was in very deep.. I got it out and his eye immediately started gushing blood.. I called the vet ER line and they told me to get the blood to stop. It's been about 30 minutes since the incident and I think the blood has stopped, but there is still blood in his eye.. He is acting normal and I'm pretty sure he can still see out of it. I am keeping a very close eye on him to make sure he doesn't irritate it. I feel beyond horrible.
Poor fella....I had the same thing happen to one of mine about 6-7 years ago. I applied raw honey mixed with a bit of warm water. Raw honey is a natural antimicrobial + very effective on infections, even directly in the eye. I did it 2-3X a day with a Q-tip.
So sorry that happened to his eye like that! I hope that he will be alright.
As suggested, the raw, unpasteurized honey, diluted would be very helpful for his eye. I
guess the Baytril just didn't taste good to him.
How is he doing this evening?
Something similar happened to my Puff , never saw it happen but discovered his grotto and paper sheets substrate covered with blood splatter and his swollen eye was a massive shiner as a result.
I applied manuka honey dissolved in sterile saline (1:3) as an eye drop from then.
remove anything that has sharp edges from the viv , his eye will be sore and could do more injury to it when shaking his head in irritation if he whacks it on a shark edge or rubs it against one.
Try mixing the baytril with a sweet tasting juice (1:1) , he might tolerate his oral medicine better that way.
Puff's eye was swollen as a consequence of his aneurism causing fluid buildup in that side of his face, so if the dragon has a sore eye or one that's inflamed or the swollen, they will rub and scratch and this is when this kind of accident is likely.
Lucky (my cat attack rescue) had a clawed / fanged eye and he was aslo a devil to stop rubbing the sore eye (he lost the eye unfortunately as it was unrepairable being too badly damaged).
That's awful, poor little guys. I can't imagine actually getting my claw stuck in my eyeball ?
Last night I had Izzy on my chest while laying on the couch. That was around 10:00...Next thing I knew it was 7:00 in the morning, and Izzy was basically laying on my neck with her head on my face and her feet over my mouth. Her little daggers for toenails were in my mouth, and hooking my lip ☠ She was sound asleep, and gave me the dirtiest look I've ever seen when I removed her from my face...Not spoiled at all.
Update: His eye is doing much better! Just a tiny bit of dried blood around his eye, but other than that he's using it. I think I got lucky because it could have been WAY worse. So far he hasn't tried to scratch at it again, fingers crossed.. Since the incident I've given two more treatments that went way better than yesterday mornings.. I just have to hold his little arms in place until after I give him his baytril, I am not taking anymore risks of him clawing his eye. He seems to be doing good though, spending a lot more time basking but he is still active. I will try diluting the baytril with some juice to make it more palatable. Any suggestions on a juice that he can have?
It says its organic and there is no added sugars, but there still is about 24 g of sugar. I read the label and it says its 100% juice and thats the only ingredient. Also, he was going alittle stir crazy from being in his cage so long so I warmed up a heating pad and put him on it on a spot in the sun, is that okay to do since he's sick? Or should I put him back and keep him in his cage?
That would just be the natural sugars so it's fine. If it's 70F+ outside he should be fine. I don't think the heat pad is needed unless you are sure it's not too hot as they can't really tell how hot their belly is getting. The real sunshine is great for them.