Juvenile not eating

[npgeorgeuw]

Hi All,

So I have a juvenile (28-30 grams, 9 inches) who went from eating around 17 medium crickets, a few 1/2 inch roaches a day and some greens/squash/cactus pear to nothing over two days. She's had a few smaller poops since then that are a little softer than normal. She has been drinking when we spray him and in the bath (which is actually new for her but I'm guessing she got more than enough water from her previous diet). Anyhow, she has continued to pass feces everyday (albeit with smaller volumes) and at least one day appeared to be eating at least some greens based on what is coming out in the poo. Her weight has held steady for a few days at a solid 28 grams now and she's spunky with plenty of energy and perhaps more attitude than he has ever had before. Prior to this (3-4 days ago) he was gaining 2-3 grams a day and was eating us out of house and home. Now she runs away if I try to feed her crickets, roaches or waxworms. She will not hunt crickets on her own (which was her preference) either.

Couple of things to note:

She has started/finished a tail shed during this, her legs are cloudy right now which means his body eventually will do the same but this shed seems to be taking forever. She's still working on a few flakes coming off her face and a retained nostril shed from the previous round that is starting to flake off.

She is ADV+ but has not shown symptoms of the disease or any other conditions prior to this.

Her environment and temps are fine as far as I can tell. She has a basking bulb (zoomed), supplemental LED lighting and a reptisun 10.0 running the cage's length and she has her choice of temps 80-110 with a good gradient and her choice of UV exposures. Night temps are 75-80 in the room since we have our feeder colonies in that room. There is a small bowl for water that she has used in the past.

-Should a shed really be taking this long and causing complete cessation of eating? We have floats, solution, slides and stains on order so will be doing our own fecals shortly. Thoughts?

 

[npgeorgeuw]

Update, she's started to lose weight now, lost a gram today. We syringe fed 2.0mls of baby food with calcium and probiotics and got her to eat two waxworms. She is just as alert as ever shows interest in food but just won't eat.... So frustrating!

 

[npgeorgeuw]

Update: Gladly gobbled down 2 mls of syringe food, didn't need to even push it on her so she still has plenty of appetite but won't touch a bug....

 

[CooperDragon]

It's good that she's eating some of the syringe food and has signs of appetite. I wouldn't worry *too* much about the 1g weight loss - that will fluctuate over time so you'll want to watch more for trends. Sometimes they get into moods and don't want to eat their normal feeders. This kind of mood change often happens around shed cycles. You may just need to wait it out, but I suggest trying different feeders for a while. Rotating the food selection can sometimes regain their interest. It sounds like you're already feeding a nice variety though. Perhaps try some silk worms or some Phoenix Worms and see if she goes for them.

 

[npgeorgeuw]

It's good that she's eating some of the syringe food and has signs of appetite. I wouldn't worry *too* much about the 1g weight loss - that will fluctuate over time so you'll want to watch more for trends. Sometimes they get into moods and don't want to eat their normal feeders. This kind of mood change often happens around shed cycles. You may just need to wait it out, but I suggest trying different feeders for a while. Rotating the food selection can sometimes regain their interest. It sounds like you're already feeding a nice variety though. Perhaps try some silk worms or some Phoenix Worms and see if she goes for them.

Yeah, we've got some hornworms growing up right now but so far roaches and crickets are definitely off the list and waxworms seem to be going off the list too. When they are not eating like this and it's a shed-related thing (and not a parasite thing) does their feces look normal? Her's are still quite mucosy but she's still going 1-2 times a day religiously.--This Saturday we should be able to get our fecal floats done so should know more then...

 

[CooperDragon]

Yeah it usually stays relatively normal. Changes with hydration levels I suppose. Parasitic infections tend to make the poop stink a lot more than usual. Can't hurt to do a test on it either way though.

 

[npgeorgeuw]

Yeah it usually stays relatively normal. Changes with hydration levels I suppose. Parasitic infections tend to make the poop stink a lot more than usual. Can't hurt to do a test on it either way though.

Did our own fecals today, low coccidia and a sizable amount of hookworms. Some trychomonads also. Other (eating) dragon had a little more coccidia and one pin worm egg. So it looks like it's not just the shed and this explains to soft stool and newer funk to them.

So, she got her first 0.1 ml of custom compounded panacure and that was chased with a half ml of carnivore care. She got a good iodine soak as did everything in her cage along with a good boil on the stove (not the dragon). Still need a steam cleaner for the cage so we did our best to disinfect it with detergent and ammonium salts. She's picky about where she goes so we can limit spread with quick cleanup and frequent carpet changes.

 

[CooperDragon]

It's great that you're able to do that testing right at home. Let me know how she progresses. I picked up a fairly cheap steam cleaner (1000w Shark steam blaster) at Big Lots and it works really well at cleaning both the enclosure and the furniture.

 

[npgeorgeuw]

It's great that you're able to do that testing right at home. Let me know how she progresses. I picked up a fairly cheap steam cleaner (1000w Shark steam blaster) at Big Lots and it works really well at cleaning both the enclosure and the furniture.

Update: for the first time since Xmas no stress spots today. Still not eating, showed interest though and still took a 1ml baby food shot semi-willingly, hoping with the probiotics after treatment she'll start eating again.

We now believe her slow and retained sheds might have been due to systemic parasite stress/loads. What steamer did you get? Our big lots only have the steamer floor mops, Amazon it is I guess....

Yeah, we have scopes at work and at a cat rescue we volunteer at. Getting the fecal stuff isn't actually that expensive but the microscope is the hard/expensive part.... we are still not 100% certain they are hookworm eggs but it would be a pretty bad infestation of pinworms and either way you dose the same with panacur so.....

 

[CooperDragon]

The probiotics should help. I have a Shark steam blaster jr (1000w). It's small/portable which I like. Works well on small surfaces. It's a bit like this one: http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/sto...d-surface-cleaner/1017140604?categoryId=12207 Not the best out there, but does a nice job for the price. Picked it up on the fly.

 

[npgeorgeuw]

The probiotics should help. I have a Shark steam blaster jr (1000w). It's small/portable which I like. Works well on small surfaces. It's a bit like this one: http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/sto...d-surface-cleaner/1017140604?categoryId=12207 Not the best out there, but does a nice job for the price. Picked it up on the fly.

-Picking up the steamer tonight as tonight is the last dose of Fenbendazole/panacure. I appreciate your moral support as we have been embarking on treating her. Your clues to the fecal smell were right on with her having hooks/over-populated pins so it is appreciated!

The absolute fantastic news is that her stress spots have now gone away for two days straight (except this morning when my basking bulb pooped out, but I have spares so it was fixed within an hour of lights on) and she gobbled down 1 mL of carnivore care and another 1 mL of baby food, greens and benebac. Last night she had a tiny (non-smelly) poo that was mostly urates with some light blood tinging but today she had her first normal poop (albeit small due to the lack of a solid diet). She has gained 1g during this whole ordeal and we have planned to keep the carnivore care going for a few more days after the panacur is done (assuming we don't see worms on her fecal tomorrow) and then start starving her out in the mornings if she doesn't want to eat. Our hornworms are growing fast so between them and the waxworms I hope we can get her eating again. Either way, we will be keeping up the benebac probably for the next few weeks.

It will be a happy day when she shovels in a few roaches. This whole syringe-feeding thing is getting old and the dragon has learned to clench her teeth which has complicated the panacure delivery. We've tried a number of different methods to get her to open and so far our best bet has been to wait until she tries to lick her lips from the stuff near her mouth and then we go in for the "score" with a the 1 mL syringe. I would be nice if they made some kind of soft plastic device to gently work between their jaws, I'm not big on the metal round/ball syringe tips since they can still cause blunt trauma...

 

[CooperDragon]

That is good news, especially about the stable weight. I agree about the syringe feeding, it's a real pain. I use syringes with soft plastic tips so when they get bitten they just get kind of mangled and don't cause any damage. I have to replace them every few weeks though. You can try using thin cardboard (like the flap of a cereal box) to try and wedge her mouth open. I wouldn't be too forceful with it, but it is less likely to cause harm than something hard.