My god what a horrible story, and a horrible case of animal abuse! FedEx ground is meant for "stuff", not live creatures! I wouldn't be so worried about the 5 day trip (though little air, too hot or cold temperatures, no water, no food is awful), but rather the fact that the FedEx ground guys literally just throw and toss boxes around, into the truck, out of the truck, they don't take care of stuff even when it's marked "Fragile". I certainly hope the box was at least marked "Fragile" or "Live Animal", but I'm guessing with this piece of garbage it wasn't.
I hope they didn't get thrown all over the place for 5 days. As already mentioned this was illegal, you can't ship live creatures that way. If you could have stopped payment or still can I absolutely would. You absolutely can still stop it if you used your credit card or bank account, all you would have to do is tell them this story and that the seller disappeared and will not return phone calls or emails. I'm sure they will show back up quickly once they lose the money. But they sold you two animals that are obviously older than they told you they were, one of which was horribly sick, malnourished and emaciated, and near death, and that required expensive, specialized medical care. Again, if you paid them with PayPal, a credit card, or a bank account, you need to call them ASAP and have the payment stopped/challenged. Take photos of the boxes and the dragons, along with a copy of the vet bill to show ages and her condition. 2-3 weeks is not too long to stop payment.
She's a very beautiful leatherback! I'm afraid the poor ADULT (definitely much over a year old) girl was bred to death, became malnourished, emaciated, dehydrated, and developed severe calcium and vitamin deficiencies BECAUSE SHE WAS OVERBRED TO DEATH (almost literally), and they passed her off on you no doubt for a pretty penny as a young-juvenile, healthy dragon. These deficiencies and the malnourishment I'm afraid developed over months and months of neglect and over breeding, which is why I'm saying she's much older than a year. She's a beautiful leatherback that they probably got close to 200 clutches from in one season, sold each baby for $$$hundreds$$$ of dollars, then threw her away like a living baby incubator ? And god knows if she even had any
UVB light at all, let alone a good one. I'm pissed right now. Heading to their Facebook page soon.
Did the vet say anything about calcium injections or liquid calcium? Her weight is obviously going up, the Reptisun 10.0 UVB will help her quite a bit (the 5.0 is for tropical reptiles), if her temperature gradient and her basking spot temperature are correct and she keeps getting calcium w/D3 supplements AND a very good Reptile/Bearded Dragon Multivitamin/Mineral Supplement like Herpavite or Repashy us Calcium in her slurries/smoothies (I hope you got her a Multivitamin/Mineral Supplement to add to her smoothies daily) because if you discontinued the Critical Care that's okay to make homemade smoothies as long as you're adding a pinch of a reptile Multivitamin/Mineral Supplement to it each time, she needs it badly and that's what the Critical Care has that babyfood and veggies don't, and it's a big part of the twitching and flopping. It's not a neurological issue per second, but rather a calcium/vitamin/UVB deficiency combo. So please make sure you buy a good multivitamin as already mentioned above and add a pinch along with a calcium with D3 supplement to each homemade smoothie you give her. This should eventually remedy her uncontrollable movements if combined with a Reptisun 10.0 UVB for 12-14 hours a day. Try to get her a few hours outside in natural sunlight until that Reptisun 10.0 comes, as the natural sunlight is better than the 5.0 light.
I'm rooting for her, I hope you do everything you can to prosecute those *****s and stop your payment immediately. MAKE THEM SQUIRM! I'm going to go do my part on their Facebook page now. I'm sure they're still actively posting on Facebook, Craigslist, etc., selling the hundreds of babies they got from that beautiful girl before using her up, neglecting and abusing her, and throwing her away...????☠
