Darkened Tail

[ErinMeetsMachine]

What does a darkened tail tell about a dragon? I have people ask question regarding a dragons health and a common answer in response is "is the beard or tail darkened?"
the last inch or two of Spots tail has been dark since her initial shed of it. Does that mean something bad?

 

[Ethelia]

Hi there,
To my knowledge as long as the darkness is not spredding then its nothing to worry about.
Ruben has two or so inches of dark tail at the end (he did have a tailnip though).
He has had countless tail sheds with me and he always comes back with the same darker scales on the end of his tail.
Here is a shot to show you his.

If I look very closely at his tail scales they are all the same colour as the start of his tail, but they have a line of dark brown on the ridge of each scale, which when combined with all the other ones gives a general darker shade from afar.
I believe with Ruben it has something to do with the thickness of the scale. He has very thick scales at the end of his tail as he uses it as one of his missing limbs.

Hope this helped in soem way.

Holly

 

[ErinMeetsMachine]

Yeah, I figured she was ok since it wasn't spreading. I'm guessing if it was spreading it would be a dead tail?

 

[thebigdc]

Yes if it spreads it is a dead tail and will continuously dry out and fall off. My beardy had an accident and he lost half of his tail over about 2 months. It would dry out and fall off little piece by little piece. But it is all fine now.

 

[PeekABoo]

This has happened recently to my beardie Cinderella. Hers appears to be tail rot becomes it has come off in some spots. I read somewhere to dip there tail in hydrogen peroxide to stop the spread. I tried this and then rinsed off her tail to avoid it from being harmful. I can let you know if it works. It was only today that I tried this. They also say dipping it in Betadine works.

Melissa

 

[beardie parents]

This has happened recently to my beardie Cinderella. Hers appears to be tail rot becomes it has come off in some spots. I read somewhere to dip there tail in hydrogen peroxide to stop the spread. I tried this and then rinsed off her tail to avoid it from being harmful. I can let you know if it works. It was only today that I tried this. They also say dipping it in Betadine works.

Melissa

Don't use the peroxide on her tail any more. What the peroxide does is kill all the beardies scales, the good ones and the bad ones. Jasper's mom's former beardie, Jasper, lost his whole tail because someone put peroxide on it like you are doing. You could work up a diluted betadine bath and soak it in that and that will help it.

 

[PeekABoo]

It has stopped spreading. So peroxide is no good though? Where do you get Betadine from?

 

[beardie parents]

I've read you can get the betadyne from a drug store, I've never tried to find it, though. Yes, peroxide is terrible to use on beardies. Jasper's mom's former beardie, Jasper, had lost his whole tail because someone put peroxide on the injured part of his tail and the peroxide destroyed all his tail.