Vodevil
Member
(YES A VET APPOINTMENT IS BOOKED!)
My baby girl has been doing very poorly over the past few weeks. She is 3.5 months old and I have had her since early December and she was doing very well for the first month or so. When her behavior and appetite began to change she was finishing a full body shed and starting a head/mouth shed so it didn't raise too many red flags at first, but now the head shed is long over and she is extremely lethargic/down a couple grams and not eating at all on her own. During this time I began giving her some baby food and slushies of collards, calcium, squash, ect. Her temperatures/UVB are perfect and she is definitely not impacted as she continued to poo after she stopped eating until there was no poo left to excrete. She still passes urates with bits of poop/waste though and there is sometimes red (fresh) blood in them. She has also (very recently) started to have head tremors where her head starts to vibrate for 30 seconds or so then stops completely. The first time I noticed this was after a bath so I am going to cut back on the baths until I know what's going on.
After corresponding with the breeder I got her from we suspect parasites, possibly from an infected batch of crickets from Petsmart. I was able to find out who supplies my local Petsmart's crickets in North Vancouver, BC and we found this thread on reptilescanada about them from a few months back when we googled them (Cherry Creek Cricket Farm, this is the 2nd result that comes up when you google them)... http://www.reptilescanada.com/showthread.php/73696-BUYERS-BEWARE .... Needless to say I AM FREAKING OUT and no longer buying any crickets or feeders from them, regardless if this issue is related to hers or not.
I have started force feeding her small butter and wax worms along with her slushies since she will not eat at all on her own. It's not her favorite thing in the world but the technique is gentle and she does eat the worms on her own once the end of them is in her mouth. I have started small and am slowly moving her up to more food so I don't overload her system. She is looking and acting a bit better since I have started this and is up a gram, but it's only been a few days.
So pretty much I am looking for any suggestions as to what she may have and how to keep her comfortable until our vet appointment on Friday. I hope she does a proper poop by then so that they have a proper fecal sample to test. When it comes to treating parasites, which medications are most commonly used, and is there a particular type or brand that is better/easier on the systems of young dragons that I should specifically ask about?
My baby girl has been doing very poorly over the past few weeks. She is 3.5 months old and I have had her since early December and she was doing very well for the first month or so. When her behavior and appetite began to change she was finishing a full body shed and starting a head/mouth shed so it didn't raise too many red flags at first, but now the head shed is long over and she is extremely lethargic/down a couple grams and not eating at all on her own. During this time I began giving her some baby food and slushies of collards, calcium, squash, ect. Her temperatures/UVB are perfect and she is definitely not impacted as she continued to poo after she stopped eating until there was no poo left to excrete. She still passes urates with bits of poop/waste though and there is sometimes red (fresh) blood in them. She has also (very recently) started to have head tremors where her head starts to vibrate for 30 seconds or so then stops completely. The first time I noticed this was after a bath so I am going to cut back on the baths until I know what's going on.
After corresponding with the breeder I got her from we suspect parasites, possibly from an infected batch of crickets from Petsmart. I was able to find out who supplies my local Petsmart's crickets in North Vancouver, BC and we found this thread on reptilescanada about them from a few months back when we googled them (Cherry Creek Cricket Farm, this is the 2nd result that comes up when you google them)... http://www.reptilescanada.com/showthread.php/73696-BUYERS-BEWARE .... Needless to say I AM FREAKING OUT and no longer buying any crickets or feeders from them, regardless if this issue is related to hers or not.
I have started force feeding her small butter and wax worms along with her slushies since she will not eat at all on her own. It's not her favorite thing in the world but the technique is gentle and she does eat the worms on her own once the end of them is in her mouth. I have started small and am slowly moving her up to more food so I don't overload her system. She is looking and acting a bit better since I have started this and is up a gram, but it's only been a few days.
So pretty much I am looking for any suggestions as to what she may have and how to keep her comfortable until our vet appointment on Friday. I hope she does a proper poop by then so that they have a proper fecal sample to test. When it comes to treating parasites, which medications are most commonly used, and is there a particular type or brand that is better/easier on the systems of young dragons that I should specifically ask about?