Causes of dehydration/beardie death :-(

[TinaC]

My son got a bearded dragon last September after lots of research and Domingo was healthy and thriving until a few days ago when he quit eating. His behavior was still fine though, he was still enjoying all his normal activities (besides eating) so my son just watched him closely and kept offering him food, but yesterday morning he seemed sluggish and my son suspected he was getting dehydrated. So he bathed him in water and pedialyte and he perked up quite a bit. But when he got home from school Domingo was dark and lethargic and was very ill and unresponsive. He gave him another bath but it didn't seem to help. That was in the late afternoon and we had to wait until this morning to take him to the vet where they said he was very dehydrated. They gave him a shot with some fluids and something for parasites just in case that was the cause, he appeared to have no impaction or anything like that. They could not take blood for test as he was too dehydrated, so they could not give us any more info as to the cause. They sent us home with instructions for giving him fluids and such, but within an hour he died.

My son is heartbroken, according to he vet his set up and care was fine. What we would like to know is if anyone has any suggestions as to what would cause his beardie to become so sick and dehydrated so quickly. After a couple of weeks we would like to get another, but would like to have a different outcome of course.

Our dragon was about 6/7 months old, around 12" long tip to tail. Cage temps were 75-85 depending on area of the cage, 110 in his backing spot. He had a reptisun 10.0 UVB light on for about 12 hours a day, heat lamps at night that kept the cage around 65-75. He fed him greens, and crickets from the pet store that we kept in a bin and gut loaded with cricket "gut loading" food of some sort and the crickets were powdered with calcium/d3 powder 4-5 times a week. Paper towel substrate. Most of the time my son kept the cage pretty cleaned up, although a time or two I had to get on to him for letting poop accumulate for a day or two. Until about 24 hours before his death he was very active and engaged with my son quite a bit.

Does anyone have any advice for him? We have read books and websites for tips for care, but know no one that is experienced at all with reptiles.

Thanks for any info/tips/resources

 

[AHBD]

I'm so sorry about poor Domingo. My condolences to you + your family. As far as cause of death, you can only guess without a necropsy. His symptoms could possibly have been from adenovirus, but again there's no sure way to tell unless the vet does a necropsy. Be sure to thoroughly clean/disinfect his tank + any cage furniture before you get a new beardie.

 

[jacody]

I'm sorry to here about your son's pet, I too lost a beardie on Dec. 4th due to kidney disease and is a difficult thing to go through, although mine was sick for a while and yours was sudden the sting is hard to put aside, definitely disinfect and air out the viv since you're not sure what the problem was

 

[GlueStick]

I'm so sorry to hear about your dragon! I couldn't imagine that dehydration was the real cause of your dragon's death, being that it was so sudden (of course, it could have been mishandling and mis-administration of fluids/medicines, or stress caused by these). The only for sure way to find out would be to have a necropsy done. I had this done on one of my skinks. I found out that he suddenly died from a combination of stress and an enlarged liver caused by heavy internal parasite load.