How to comfort a dying dragon?

[Skymall007]

My baby Spock is not doing well. He has been improving a little bit, but he still won't eat. The syringes in the mail haven't arrived yet and the one I have is too large. I have been trying to give him food by putting some on his nose. That has worked a little bit. I give him daily baths, spray water on him, dribble it on his nose. I have started grinding up his dragon food for babies and adding some baby food and water to dab on his nose. When the syringe comes I will try that.

I have him in a 20 gallon (he is not yet 5 inches). I have dial thermometers (better ones coming in the mail since I read on here that the dial ones are bad). According to the dial ones, his cool side is about 82 and his warm side is 100. He has water dripping into a bowl, dragon food always available and a hide and basking branch.

I don't dust the crickets because my vet said it is difficult to get the right dose and he frequently has seen beardie deaths from too much calcium and or vitamines. Instead, he has me feed the crickets pretty pets cricket calcium food which makes the crickets have calcium in them instead of dusted on them.

Spock stopped eating almost a week ago but up to that point he didn't eat much. I realized yesterday that the uv bulb I thought was fine was too old. (I thought his new one wasn't working and put in one I thought was unused. I have since put the proper one back). He has an 18 inch reptisun 10.0. I also have a basking light and he is borrowing my tortoise's ceramic. I UV light is on top of the mesh but I have special bracket things in the mail to put it underneath the mesh properly. His crickets are small.

Anyway, he is still lethargic. I have hardly been able to get him to eat and I don't know what to do. He seems to enjoy being with me, but I don't know if he is just too weak to protest.

Does it sound like he will make it? If not, I want to make sure he is as least stressed as possible. I want to hold him and love him so he is happy, but will this stress a baby out more?

Please help me. I want to make sure I don't give up too quickly, and I also want to be realistic so that if he won't make it, I can make his transition as easy and stress free as possible.

 

[Jess]

Are you giving him any supplements at all? I've never had my vet tell me anything like that, he says to use the supplements. Sure, it is possible to overdose on calcium and vitamins, but that's why you are only supposed to use them a few times a week.
I don't know, I'm not really convinced on that advice. :?

 

[Esther19]

I'm sorry that Spock is not well. I would hold him as much as he was comfortable with.

 

[Skymall007]

Thank you guys =) I will hold him as much as I can as long as he doesn't seem uncomfortable. I can try putting a bit of calcium into his food. I am nervous doing it though. I think a tiny bit wouldn't overdose him. It might be best to take a chance, I just feel so odd going against the vet, but at this point it might help him.

 

[Burra]

Supplement any food you can get into him with calcium and vitamins. My vet said the calcium sold for lizards is not metabolized well so you have a very small chance of every overdosing. Babies especially needs calcium because they are growing. They need a good vitamin supplement with minerals as well. You can get a baby dosing syringe at any Walmart or Kmart to syringe feed him some supplemented baby food.

I'm so sorry to hear Spock isn't doing well. Keep him comfortable, yes it's fine to hold him if he's fine with it. Keep him warm and tell him we are all hoping he gets better!

 

[Burra]

Sorry about the typos, I'm sending this from my phone.

 

[Drache613]

Moved by Moderator from Health to ER

 

[chickcasa]

I am surprised that the vet told you not to dust and to give the supplements to the feeders. Personally I have never heard of a dragon getting too much calcium or vitamins from dusting, and definitely not heard of any dying from it. I have also always heard to avoid feeding crickets foods that are high in calcium because it makes them harder which makes them harder to digest and more likely to cause impaction. Is this vet one that specializes in reptiles? I find it odd that the vet would give you advice that goes so against what is commonly thought of as best practice.

Does your dragon eat any vegetables? Also, if he will lick the baby food off his nose, you may try putting a dollop on a shallow dish and see if he will lap it off, so he eats more before the smaller syringes arrive.

~Katy

 

[Skymall007]

I took him to the emergency vet today. My vet specializes in reptiles, but perhaps things in husbandry have changed and he was not aware. He has been incredible with my tortoise.

Thank you guys so much for all the support. I got the tiny syringes at the vet today with some special super healthy prescribed food. I give him .15 mL a day? I can't remember if it's mL. He also has an antibiotic for two weeks. His face is a bit swollen on one side and his eyes bulge out sometimes while he does funny things with his head. Then he goes back to "normal."

I am going to probably start giving him more calcium. I feel like what the vet said really is very much against everything. I trust this forum, after all, everyone here dedicates every day to dragons and I am starting to think that the vet was wrong on the calcium thing, especially for a baby which I keep hearing on here needs even more calcium.

The vet gave him a 50/50 chance. He is just so tiny. He is only 3 grams! And he hasn't gained any weight since his vet visit in early August. She said if he takes his force feeding well then his chances will go up. He took it well. In fact, he is quite hungry. This is good news for me.


He has tried eating veggies in the past, and I had kale in his enclosure before. He just doesn't seem interested. He did run down once to his veggies, puffed out at my brother, took one tiny squash piece (we cut it uber small), chewed it, spit it out at my brother, puffed up and ran away. He doesn't touch his veggies other than that and he doesn't touch his pellets. Would baby food perhaps be best for these things while he is this little?

I called the vet yesterday and asked about a vitamin. They were uncomfortable with any they didn't know about. What vitamin would you guys suggest? I read the vitamin article but I didn't see any suggestions. I want to make sure he has one that is good, especially for a tiny baby.

I also was looking into hornworms? They didn't have any at the pet store, or roaches. While searching about I read that these are good for him and he might be more happy with those than crickets? I couldn't find what hornworms eat though. Are there specific places to buy from that are best? I always worry about where the bugs are farmed and such.

Thank you guys again so much! Spock and I really appreciate it

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Baby food is very helpful in cases such as this. You can use chicken or turkey baby food & squash baby food with a pinch of calcium once a day for him. You can continue to feed the food that the vet gave you also, that will be fine.
How is he doing today, any improvements? Only 3 grams, he is very tiny & fragile.
Alot of them wont eat any greens at first, but keep trying with him & eventually he will start to eat them.
The hornworms will be way too large for him, but you could try some phoenix worms.
They are very small & would probably be enjoyed by him also!

The dose of .15ml sounds way too high, unless the antibiotic is diluted. Do you know the strength of the antibiotic & which one is it? Why was an antibiotic given?

Tracie

 

[Skymall007]

He is doing much better today. His antibiotics is called Baytril I believe, he is on 0.01 ml of it daily. The food is the 0.15 cc (not mL my mistake). I am not sure why the antibiotic was given. I think it was just for if he had any general infections. I am uncertain about the strength. We don't know if he has parasites (the first visit the vet said his feces is so small it would be hard to tell). The second vet said if I can drop some off they can try to do a float. It's just hard to get there.

He has some shed on his tail, I am not sure if that is important

I shall continue offering the baby food. Would it be ok to do that by syringe as well? He still does that odd eye bulging.

Today his improvements were that he has a tad more energy. He has been trying to run around tonight but then keeps pausing because it has no energy. Right now he is paused with his head and chest up. He is doing that more often. Before, even with small energy bursts they were gone sooner and he was back with his head down.

He also had his first normal bowl movement this morning! Black and white and not hard. The entire month has been hard and then eventually yellow so I was very excited. In his bath he also had two bowl movements. The first was feces (harder than the last, large, and he struggled passing it) the second was just uric acid which he also had a hard time passing.

He has been eating the food put into his mouth and seems happy to have it. Recently he has been starting more lip licking.

His eyes seem a little watery though. I worry when I accidental squirted him with baby food (was using a large syringe to just dab his nose and pressed to hard) it got in his eyes? I am not sure. Currently he seems to be fighting sleep.

I shall def. get some of those worms as soon as possible. I am glad I didn't order those horn worms! Thank you ubers


This is his pause movement today


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Close up of his eyes


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This is around August 9th when we first got him


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I put his early pictures up because I wasn't sure if signs of illness were earlier than I thought?

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Sorry I forgot to check back on your thread!
How is he doing now? Yes, you can most definitely use a syringe or plastic dropper to feed him baby food. Is he eating some daily?
He is such a little cutie pie. I hope he is continuing to improve for you, too.
How often does he do the eye bulging? Are you sure he is not shedding on the eye/head area as that is what they normally do when they are preparing to shed to stretch the skin out.
That is a tiny amount on the Baytril, so that should be ok. What is it, one drop I believe? The .15cc or ml (same measurement) is a good amount for his small size.
How long was he supposed to stay on the Baytril then?

Let us know how he is doing. I will check back later today.

Tracie

 

[Skymall007]

Unfortunately he passed away =( I was so surprised because last Thursday he opened his mouth nice and wide so I could feed him. He also seemed to keep his eyes open more and had more energy. The next morning he was in the same position as I laid him down in before, but that wasn't uncommon. I couldn't believe it and so I had my boyfriend check to make sure. He was a wonderful little guy. I learned a lot from him. Thank you so much for helping me, even though he didn't make it, it made all the difference in the world. =)

I got a new dragon, though it is so shortly after his death. Even though I had him only a short while, I realized I need to have a dragon about and I felt a connection with him (because he is crazy). My new guy (GammaBeast) is from a place that specializes in reptiles and the difference in health is amazing. I hope he shall be with me a long time. He has big shoes to fill from Mr. Spock.

Again thank you so much =)

 

[Esther19]

I'm so sorry to hear that Spock crossed over.

 

[Skymall007]

Thank you. I am glad I got to love him while he was here. =)