Broly the new super saiyan beardie

Picture coming up!

I can't turn upwards!!! But there he is!

 

[BlueDragon09]

Still swollen beard but nothing there. No cysts or any type of tumors. He has started to almost army crawl with one arm. He can support himself with all four just walks really funny. I admit I forgot the serrapeptase oops. So he definitely has arthritis from early years with MBD. Beard we’ll just leave alone because no test is finding anything out of the ordinary. He doesn’t sleep with a black beard anymore since starting serrapeptase. I thought Tom gave him the serrapeptase before work my fault for not texting him. He had no time to tell me he didn’t do it he had to rush off to work yesterday. Today I did serrapeptase he’s doing fine now. It’s not so warm anymore it’s getting cold even during the day. Dropped from 75 down to 68. 80-90 would be great but I don’t live inland, it stays relatively cool. We are planning to move further inland next year somewhere.

URI getting better mucus never showed up which is good. A few breathing treatments and he’s better he still heavy breathes once in a while but coughing motion stopped.

I tried bellpepper (orange because he loves butternut squash) he seems to have LOVED it. I remember bellpepper being occasional on the food chart. He gets a mix of kale and collards together topped with a few strawberries pieces tonight.

 

[SHBailey]

Glad to hear that Broly seems to be getting along ok. Puff was "army crawling" at the last -- pulling himself around with his hands. I don't think he had enough strength left in his legs to stand up and walk anymore. Hopefully it's temporary in Broly's case from missing the serrapeptase for just one day? Puff had a dark beard most of the time too in the last few months, but not completely black the way I had seen it earlier in his life when he was hormonal.

So what constitutes a "breathing treatment" for a bearded dragon? Sounds like it helped him.

68 degrees is comfortably WARM as far as I'm concerned! Can't handle 80-90 anymore. Been living in Alaska too long, I guess.

It looks like we may end up adopting my sister's turtle after all. She's been passed around in the family since my sister died -- my nephew had her for a while and now my niece, who is moving to Florida. At first she was going to take the turtle with her but now it's looking like it won't be doable. If all goes according to plan we'll have her here in a couple of months. Going to have to make room for her tank (she already has all the stuff she needs). After we gave away Puff's old tank, the table it was on got cluttered up with a bunch of other stuff, but a lot of it was moved away from the windows when we had them replaced, and at least some of it can go back where it used to be. The turtle tank is smaller than Puff's tank was, so we won't have to move everything, but it seems like whenever you clear off a horizontal surface, it becomes a "stuff magnet." At least we still have some time to rearrange stuff and make room.

 

[BlueDragon09]

It’s never jet black just black. Something is bothering him and it sucks to see him this way. We can’t treat for anything that’s not there. UVB been changed so it’s not that. He’s still so active and will fight in a bath. It’s probably the beard being the way that it is. I thought strange he’s black after missing one day. Who knows maybe it really hurts however if it did maybe he’d be jet black. I was told maybe he’s grumpy...I don’t think that indicates black beard. I just can’t figure it out. He’s been checked multiple times for his beard. He doesn’t like going out to the car anymore because he’s now associated it with the vet school.

Breathing treatments is he’s in a box with steam that he needs the breathe in. Nebulizer (if that’s the word we use for RI treatments) so there’s that, he stopped heavy breathing often. He still opens his mouth but doesn’t seem to have trouble breathing and I can’t hear any popping noises. He ate about 23 crickets so clearly hungry. I may give him chicken meat (take off skin that’s where the spices and stuff are) he likes that. He also likes turkey and according to my scale his weight is good.

I love turtles! I don’t have a 30 gallon tank with a uvb. Well I do since I had to downgrade Broly. It’s a 120 gallon but I don’t think a turtle would be happy considering other animals I got and Broly needing attention.

 

[SHBailey]

I hope you can figure out the mystery with Broly's beard -- must be frustrating. "Grumpy" is as good an explanation as any, I guess. I hope it's not causing him pain, at least. Sounds like he's still perky though. That's a lot of crickets for one meal! (unless they were little ones)

I don't blame him for not wanting to get in the car if he's learned that it means vet.

Puff's beard only ever turned jet black when he was hormonal. At other times it was just kind of grey.

I'm not sure what size the turtle tank is but she's been in it most of her life so I guess she'll be comfortable. My husband asked me if I was sorry we got rid of Puff's old tank, but I'm not because the turtle already has one of her own. Her name is Michelle. She was named after one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (are you old enough to remember them?) Michelangelo, the feminine version. Haven't heard anything about her lately so I assume no change to the plans so far.

 

[BlueDragon09]

I love Ninja Turtles.

Broly has more days where when his beard is gray instead of black. He’s in some discomfort his beard isn’t swollen anymore. We have serrapeptase for him as he has arthritis and maybe that’s hurting him. Maybe he has more ok days than bad ones.

Battling ants as they’re being a pest and entering our house as time is running out for them to bring food and water back. Ive chucked food out away from our house for the birds but apparently ants too.

We’ve cut down to about 30 insects. He doesn’t eat much it’s really chilly now. He’s more slow than trying to brumate. It’s normal for him he never slept during cold months. He’s fine about as fine as he can get.

Im always nervous about everything so Im on meds for that. They called it generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). It is what it is I guess. It’s to calm me down not necessarily to cure it. There won’t be any cure so that’s it.

It’s so dark...seasonal affective disorder (SAD) about this time of year...that’s too bad I guess. Im just dealing with it.

 

[SHBailey]

Hi...

Haven't heard anything about the turtle coming to live with us lately. My niece is supposed to leave sometime next month, so we'll see.

Ants were a thing in California. Anytime you left food out they'd be all over it, so you had to be careful. Not too much of a problem in Alaska, except for carpenter ants. They can weaken a wooden structure so we do have to watch out for them. I don't see them around much so we're probably ok. We do get mice though, especially in the winter. I guess they come in looking for food and warmth. Not much of a problem in the summer. Too bad my husband is allergic to cats or we'd have one. That would take care of the mice, and I love cats. Not all cats are good mousers though. One of my cats was actually afraid of them. Go figure.

Fortunately I don't have to take meds for anxiety disorder, though I do have some anxiety -- nothing I can't live with. The bipolar thing is what my meds are for. It seems to help -- I haven't had a manic episode for a couple of years now. I'm mildly depressed most of the time, with little energy to do much, but I've come to terms with it. I figure this is as good as it gets. I'd rather be like this than go off the deep end. SAD doesn't seem to be a big thing for me, which is good because it gets really dark here in the winter. We make up for it in the summer. My father in law had really bad SAD, so he'd get out of Alaska in the middle of the winter, usually by volunteering for some wildlife project somewhere in the south, since he was a wildlife biologist. He especially liked birds. Sandhill cranes are a thing in Homer, and he loved them.

No major plans for Halloween, as usual, except to hole up and hope nobody in the neighborhood does anything crazy.

 

[BlueDragon09]

Nothing crazy except a rare severe storm causing tornadoes coming through. Nothing too bad just water spouts instead.

Hopefully you get the turtle but Idk if anything’s changed.

Broly still does some gagging nothing in the throat but when he hurt himself back in June all that happened was beard swelling no gagging. Tom found a hematoma (blood pooling) by his neck and most likely it’s the culprit and we just didn’t notice this small bulge. He eats fine, breathing normal nothing too serious. Broly goes about his day still gaining weight. We got him on water therapy as he has muscle atrophy in the back and he’s getting stronger. We also do physical therapy for him. We just get him to get out and walk we let him hunt food. Always a few roaches at a time and he hunts them down. Still black to dark beard but it’s hard not to ignore it when people express it means distress or pain. Doesn’t act like he’s in pain he goes about his day like nothing is wrong.

I like going out but nowhere to really go. It’s also raining a lot and cold.

 

[SHBailey]

Tornadoes?!? I'd be scared to death. You don't usually get them in your area, do you? I remember one in Inglewood, California when I was in the 4th grade. (loooong ago and far away in another time and another place and another life) We all did duck and cover under our desks for real -- just like we'd practiced. That was in the days of the Cold War, when the United states and Russia had enough nukes to wipe out everything on the planet many times over, and everyone was afraid of bombs. Nowadays I guess they have drills for the possibility of an "active shooter" in the schools instead. Strange times.

I recently googled it and found out that, yes indeed, there was a tornado at that time in that place. I wasn't sure I remembered it correctly or that it wasn't a bad dream.

The latest is that the turtle is going to Florida with my niece. We didn't have our heart set on having her come to live with us, but we've been willing to give her a home or not, either way. Ever since my sister died it's been kind of up in the air about where the turtle is going to end up. As long as she has a good home and gets well taken care of, that's the most important thing no matter who she's with.

Good that Broly's swollen beard finally got explained. Is there any treatment for a hematoma or is it best to just let it heal on its own? Sounds like he's doing well otherwise.

We had a huge snow dump this last week (over 2 feet) -- our first significant one this season. Wham! it's winter -- never mind what the calendar says -- it comes early around here. More than the snowblower can handle, so my husband ended up shoveling a lot of it. It was wet and heavy because the temperature was right around freezing. He had the day off last Thursday and again this last Monday because they closed the state offices due to the snow, but the one nice thing was we had a 5 day weekend (Friday was a Veteran's Day so he had that off anyway.) I think I'll do what my sister used to do -- hole up in the house until spring!