I posted on wrong board*Need Help Regarding New Beardie*

[olliesmom77]

I have a new beardie, Oliver J Tolliver, who I got on Christmas Eve. I have painstakingly taken care of him since, but I am in a panic. Last night he seemed very lethargic. Today he is in the bottom of his tank, but has this wierd head thing goin on. He looks like Stevie Wonder playing the piano. His head tilts and sways like he has no control. We have fed him 5 or 6 crickets a day and a couple of mealworms. He has been active and "happy" until now. We have the set that you buy at PetCo that has the long tank and the three lights. Temp ranges from 80-85 at nite to 100-105 day. No spots on belly. If anyone has a cell phone that will get video messaging and would consider watching what he does, please contact me!! [email protected]

 

[Pleaides]

ok the head thing im guessing may be a calcium/vitamin definciency or a feeder was too big for him.

5-6 crickets a day, not for a baby, babies need to be fed 3 times a day and as much as they can eat in 15 mins. also meal wormks are not suitable for babies/small juvies as of their hard chitin shell and are a high impaction rick.
i need to ask a few questions first to get a better idea

how old is your dragon?
do you have a uv, if so what kind (compact, coil or tube), also what make?
how old is the uv and how far away can your dragon get to it?
do you have a basking light? if so what make and wattage?
what size is his home?
what are his temperatures, cool, warm and basking spots?
what live food are you feeding him? what exactly and how many?
are you dusting his live food with calcium? if so how many times a week?
are you dusting with multi vitamins? again if so how many time a week?

sorry for all the questions but this will give us a much better idea of what the problem may be.

 

[olliesmom77]

Was told by Petco to feed 5-6 crickets a day....also they said to feed the mealworms every few days.....

I called back to Petco today, they aren't sure of an exact age...approimately the length of my finger body-wise plus tail length.(That's Oliver in the picture)

I purchased the Bearded Dragon kit......long tank, wire top, 3 lamps with bulbs, pellet for floor and water dish. Also got the log hut thing and a plastic climbing plant.
UVB bulb is coiled (looks funny). Not sure about wattage....I'm at work now, I went home to check on him at lunch.

Temps range from 80-85 at nite to 110 as a high in day....I only have one temperature thing in there....I have the lamps set up in order from left to right, day bulb, nite bulb, uv bulb.

I have been giving him the crickets (5-6day) and the mealworms(2day). (Both purchased from the sales person at PetCo) I did read that you don't want to leave crickets in there with him cause they'll hurt him, and I wasn't sure how to get them out of the tank if he doesn't eat them right away....

I haven't dusted the crickets, was told by the Petco salesgirl that they sold me "gutloaded" ones so I didn't need to dust them.....

 

[xsmako1]

1 take the coil uvb bulb out it is very harmfull for your little guy, you want to get a reptisun 10.0 its a long bulb so you will also need a long fixture, gutloaded crickets are not good enough, you want rep-cal calcium with vitamin d3 Pink label and repcal Herptivite Multivitamins blue label, also dont ask petco for help, they dont know what there doing....
for feeding you can get a 10 gallon to feed him in or just slowly give him crickets and make sure he eats whats there or another easy one is to catch/kill the left over crickets before bed time.
remove the pellets that are his substarte you can use paper towel, news paper, tile, reptile carpet, with no risk of impaction on your little one.
wire top? do you mean screened?
are the crickets smaller then the space between his eyes?
and deffinitally as Pleaides said no mealworms.
temps sound pretty good.
what are you doing for water?

 

[dobby293]

Ok he is small so there is time to fix it. The coil light is really bad. PetCo people really don't know what the best for the lizard. they just know what they sell in the store. Try to give him a bath in the sink with water up to his arm pits. He should be eating about 40-60 small crickets a day and no mealworms for a couple months. You need a UVB bulb like a REPTI-SUN 10.0. They are $50.00 at petco but 20.00 at petmountian.com. Take the stuff out of the bottom and just put newspaper, it is cheap and will not cause impaction. I know there is a lot of stuff start with the simple things and you will see an improvement.

 

[Pleaides]

oh wow, i wouldnt trust petco as far as i could throw them. lol

ok now thats definitely a baby dragon in the pic, as long as your finger? maybe a month or couple months old, all depends on their growth rate, you cant really tell the age of a dragon compared to its size.
mealworms are a no no for a baby as of the high impaction risk, with my own 2 bds i only feed my 2 year old mealies.

5-6 crix a day is not right, feed him 3 times daily and as many crix as they can eat in any one sitting, also as rule of thumb any live feeder (exception of some worms) must be NO bigger than the space between their eyes, any bigger and you could be looking at an impacted dragon, which can show symptoms of twitching of the hind legs, spasming, seizing, paraylsis of the hind legs or even death in severe cases.

right with the 3 bulbs, the coiled uv is a no no also, coiled uvs are bad news what you really need is a long flourescent tube reptiSUN 10.0 or 5.0, not the reptiGLO 10.0, thats another bad one. and it should stretch along the length of his viv.
in conjunction with your uv you should have a white bulb, a normal household bulb will do the trick.
whats with the night light? if its emitting light then id take it out straight away as dragons have to have darkness in order to sleep properly, a dragon not getting his beauty sleep and again your looking at some problems with him. if the temp is dropping too much at night then i highly recommend getting a ceramic heat emitter, it gives off heat but no light at all.

substrate, not sure about the pellets at all, for a baby all you wanna use is paper towels, repticarpet (not with loops so he could get his talons caught though) or ceramic textured tile.

all you will need is a small water dish as baby dragons can drown, logs are fine also, i find with plastic plants, they try to eat them and then find them getting frustrated cos they cant, bless their little brains. lol

what are you measuring your temps with? is it a stick on one? a temp probe that the probe sits in there or a temp gun you can place in there?
you will find that the stick on one could be as far as 20c off so it could be very wrong, i use a temp probe.

yes do not leave the crix in there with him at all, whatever he doesnt eat in one of his 3 sittings daily, remove straight away and certainly do not leave them in there with im overnight and dragons sleep very deeply and the crix can bite him during the night and do damage.

and no the crix are not gutloaded, ill be surprised if they were, i know around my area the crix are always dehydrated, when you get them give them some fruit (nothing citrus), veg or greens and always dust them, they do not have calcium in them, i would say calcium 5-6 times a week, multi-vits 1-2 times a week.
hope all this helps and your little one thrives!

 

[Pleaides]

oops you 2 above posted as i wrote my essay, lol

 

[msmaui]

I recently bought a baby about that same size and I bought a small plastic bin at Target to feed him it. It's much easier to just dump some dusted crickets in there and after your baby is full just dump the crickets back in their container. Then you don't have to worry about catching them out of his cage.

 

[Pleaides]

hey just wondering how your little ones doing?

 

[olliesmom77]

Took Ollie to the vet this AM. She said it's definately neurological but from what we don't know. No history of trauma. COULD be internal parasites, because he is so young they can't do a poop probe so we are treating him anyway. Also, adding calcium to crickets. He is much more active today. Still the little wobble head and has a time trying to catch the crickets, but he's giving them a run for it! As long as he is not in pain, I will be his momma. I don't mind a special needs Beardie. I've got a stupid dog and I still love her!!LOL I appreciate all of the help on here. I did get the long UVB bulb today and I have gotten rid of the mealworms. Apparantly PetCo has a policy that they have to sell the mealworms. :0( Stay tuned....I will update and I'm sure I'll have more questions/panics!

 

[Pleaides]

oh i reallhy hope ollie feels much better soon.
great you got the long tube, did you get the reptisun 5 or 10?
great our calcium the crix, that will do him loads of good and even greater you got rid of the mealies, lol, what rubbish having to sell them! damn pet shops, lol
so your treating him for parasites without a fecal sample? is that right?
i wouldnt treat him unless you have a positive fecal stating he has them as the meds can be very harsh on their little systems.
perhaps wait for him to poop and take that to the vet to do a test?

 

[olliesmom77]

Well, because it had been 5 days since he pooped, and I live an hour and fifteen mins from the vet, she said it probably wouldn't do any good, the poop would be too old by the time I could get it there. Ironically, he pooped in my hand on the way home.....go figure.
Yes, we are treating him without a sample. I KNOW I KNOW....lol My mother is an MD and I work in the hospital...I know to always know what "bug" you are treating......but when its a dragon I throw all of the rules out! LOL

 

[Pleaides]

what treatment is he on exactly?
id still be very cautious about this, recently both my dragons have undergone treatment for coccidia and worms, being that my vet is a good 45-55min drive away i didnt wanna do two trips so one pooped, i refridgerated it then 3 days later the other pooped, refridgerated that then the next day i took them both to the vet and its fine so i dont think that it being too old is a real reason.

 

[olliesmom77]

OMG!!! Oliver is 100% better!! I fed him calcium dusted crickets (for the first time!) last nite and gave him his meds. This morning he is a DIFFERENT little guy! He is up, active and NO HEAD WOBBLY!!! I can't believe it! It is such a drastic change. I am pumped about it! He's back!

Oh and BTW, I noticed that there is a reflection in the back window of the tank of the inside of the tank. And that when the crickets hop behind him, he lunges forward into the glass where he sees the reflection...thinkin he might have knocked his own self silly?? Do yall put a backer on the tank to prevent this?? Wallpaper??