Hi all!
We are relatively new beardie owners and did all our research on this website. We bought a baby with his right rear foot hardened. It has since turned black and he has lost all of his toes on that foot and is left with a stump. He still eats and acts normally, climbs the back of his tank to the top (2 feet). The limb looks well healed but appears like it could be turning black at the very end more. What do we do?!
Hi all!
We are relatively new beardie owners and did all our research on this website. We bought a baby with his right rear foot hardened. It has since turned black and he has lost all of his toes on that foot and is left with a stump. He still eats and acts normally, climbs the back of his tank to the top (2 feet). The limb looks well healed but appears like it could be turning black at the very end more. What do we do?!
Does not sound good .... photos of the bad foot and the other feet , the overall dragon (so we can see it's condition) would be very helpful.
Also helpful if you post images of his viv and substrate and lights and as much detail as possible about your husbandry and lighting will all help.
Yes, please post photos of him, his foot, his enclosure, and his lighting...
Often babies are housed together at the pet store, which is not good, and the dominant beardie will bite off their toes, tails, feet, etc. Also, they leave crickets in their enclosures and a cricket bite will also cause this to happen. What happens is that the bite gets infected and the tissue starts turning necrotic, or it dies. The real problem is that without proper medical treatment the necrosis keeps spreading upward, towards the body, killing all tissue along it's path, until it hits the bloodstream and the beardie dies from sepsis. So you definitely will need to get him to an experienced reptile vet ASAP for an antibiotic injection and oral antibiotics as well, plus topical treatment. His foot will most likely fall off, as will any other necrotic tissue. That's fine, if he already has a stump he can live that way fine, but if the blackness or "necrosis" keeps spreading upward towards his body, it will not stop without proper medical treatment.
Post the photos and we'll take a look and see if it looksike it's stopped and is healing, or if he needs antibiotics...