My bearded dragon cannot move his back legs anymore

[kevinspacey1]

Hi,

I noticed a few days ago that my beardie was limping and I woke up this morning and he cannot move his back leg anymore.

No vets open during the weekend and I tried the on-call vet and he does not deal with exotic animals.

He is a 3 years old male
55 Gal Tank
Desert Sand as Substrate
26W ReptiGlo 10.0 Compact UVB
100W Sun Glo Tight Beam Basking Lamp
Feed him live crickets, lettuce and Rep Cal pebbles

Please help me!

I would like to know if there is anything I could do until the vets open on monday.

Thanks!!

 

[AHBD]

Hi Kevin....sorry about your dragon. When was the last time he had a bowel movement ? He may be impacted from the sand in the tank. You might want to soak him in warm water about 2 inches deep to see if he poops. The other thing that may contribute to his condition is lack of calcium. Does he get any powdered supplement ? If so, is it with or without D3 ? The compact bulb you are using may not provide enough UVB to help him absorb calcium. You may want to get a Repti -sun 10.0 flourescent tube or a Powersun or T-Rex Active UV mercury vapor bulb. Getting him in the sun may help out a bit, too. A better type of greens than lettuce [ which does not have much nutritional value ] is collard, mustard, turnip and dandelion greens. If you don't want to buy a big bunch of each of those, just pull some leaves out from each bunch at the supermarket and they will weigh it at the check out. I hope he improves for you.

 

[kevinspacey1]

Thanks for you response AHBD.

I gave him a warm bath last night as suggested and he pooped, which was great news!

This morning, he ate, he pooped and he ran around as he would normally do, except the fact that he doesn't use his back legs, he just drag himself everywhere!

This is really weird and I don't understand what is going on...

I do not give him any powdered supplement.. I might try that or maybe even try changing his UV bulb as suggested..

If anyone has any other suggestion, or has ever heard of a similar situation, please let me know.

Thank you!

 

[coastergirl946]

I would remove the sand from the tank and use a non-particle substrate such as paper towels, tile, non-adhesive shelf liner, or repti-carpet. If it was the sand that caused the impaction that rendered his back legs useless, he may not survive another impaction if he ingests more sand. They can only survive so many of those before they are unable to digest properly, and die. Unfortunately, I learned this from experience.

Your basking bulb and tank size is fine. The best UV bulb to get is the ReptiSun 10.0 tube (not the coil as they don't give off enough UV). Also dust his food with calcium 3x a week and a multivitamin once a week. If you have any tall furniture in the viv, I'd lower or remove it so he doesn't have to struggle to climb so much.. you do not want him to fall as a result and hurt himself further.

Here is a great list of foods to feed your dragon. The best ones are highlighted in green. http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html

I hope this helps you. Please let us know how he's doing.

 

[Chair76]

this is vitamins-->http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2754047this one is calcium -->http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2753952