Beardie not eating much and losing weight

[Findabhair19]

I am at a total loss, my beardie is about a year and a half old and its around 16" long, weighed around 240g about 3 months ago and is now down to 184g today when I weighed her. She was in a 4x2x2 custom enclosure with a repti-sun 10.0 basking temps around 105-108 ambient temp 80-83 and night time temp of 70-75. Standard diet of lots of veggies and crickets/phoenix worms. In the last few days she has been removed from her enclosure and out back into her 55 gallon tank as I thought her lack of appetite and weight loss may have been due to possible fumes leftover in the viv. I have had a fecal done twice in the last 2 months just to make sure there was no parasites, and there are none. Any thoughts or suggestions or help would be great, I am at a total loss.
Also she gets regular baths and has normal poops.

 

[CooperDragon]

That kind of weight loss is concerning. I suggest a vet visit to check for a problem with her systems.

 

[Findabhair19]

Unfortunately I dont have a herp vet here and the vet that I taker her to for the fecal only has limited knowledge about beardies.

 

[CooperDragon]

In that case, we'll help you do what you can with what you have. How much is she currently eating? If her appetite is down a lot you may be able to get more nutrition to her by syringe feeding a puree of veggies with maybe a little bit of baby food chicken or turkey mixed in (~10-20%) for a balanced diet. I've had luck getting my rescue to gain weight using that. I mix about half a blender full of collard greens, turnip greens, green beans, chopped up yellow squash, a bit of water, and a spoonful of baby food protein. Blend it all up really well and then put it through a strainer (stir it really well so most goes through) and then take the remainder an put it through cheesecloth or a pillowcase to get some of the water out. The remainder should be about the consistency of baby food and will go in and out of a feeding syringe pretty well. It's kind of a last resort to syringe feed like this but if her appetite is down and she's losing that much weight it may be a good option. I'm sure others will have some good ideas for you as well.

 

[Findabhair19]

I am currently trying the baby food option but her eating isnt down too much, so I am at a loss as to why she is losing it so quickly, her appetite is down but she still eats everyday, mostly just greens. Usually she goes crazy for crickets and phoenix worms but her usual 10 or so crix and 15 worms is down to about 5 crix and 5-8 worms every other or every 3rd day. We try everyday but she just ignores them and walks away, also if she gets really hungry and eats more then that she later then brings it back up. I did make an appt with my vet that does her fecals for tomorrow, I am hoping she will be able to tell me something.

 

[Findabhair19]

So, update, I had X-rays and blood work done and everything seems to be ok except she is apparently anemic . How do I treat this? Any i
Help would be awesome.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

She is anemic?
What type of supplementations do you use for her?
Does she eat greens/veggies normally?
As suggested, since she is losing weight, using chicken or turkey baby food can help put some weight on her.
The Herptivite vitamin supplementation is good, you could try that for increasing her iron.
Which UVB light are you using now?
Let us know how she is doing.

Tracie

 

[Findabhair19]

yea, the only thing that showed wrong was that she had low iron and of course a loss in her fat stores, so $450 bucks to basically tell me that she has low iron geesh. I have the repti sun 10.0 as her uv light. I feed her any veggies that I can get my hands on, where I live there is not a lot to choose from so she gets, bok choy, a bit of kale occasionally, snap peas, snow peas, endive, squash and I have a flower mix that I just got that is for reptiles, I just gave her some today to see if she wants it. She eats crickets and phoenix worms, that seems to be the only protein that she wants. She ate 14 medium crickets dusted with calcium and almost all her green on Wed and then of course didnt eat at all yesterday not even the baby food. I dust her crickets and sometimes her veggie if she doesnt eat the crickets with calcium one day then the vitamins the next day. She is just looking so skinny, I feel so bad for her. My vet has contacted a reptile specialist somewhere down south to see if there is anything we can do but I was basically told that if she looses another 25grasms then we will have to put her down.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Hm, that seems a bit extreme to put her down without figuring out what exactly is going on. How thin is she?
Do you have any pictures of her & do you have a copy of the blood tests I could see?
How is she doing tonight, did she eat anything today?
I am not sure why she would continue to lose weight, but definitely try some powdered food sources like the critical care or carnivore care to help out mixed with baby food too. You can keep giving the greens & insects also for more food intake.
Her stools are normal, no blood in them?

Tracie

 

[Findabhair19]

I can get some pics of her tomorrow. I don't have a copy of the blood work but I'm sure if I asked I could get that too. She actually ate 11 dusted crickets tonight. Her poops are completely normal nothing weird in them and I just weighed her tonight and she is down again to 181g. She is about 16" LNG nose to tail.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Great, that would be wonderful if you could get a copy of them.
Are they sure they didn't miss anything on the fecal, did they do a fecal float or a fecal smear?
Poor girl. I am happy to hear though that she did eat for you today!

Tracie