pghmomofbeardies
Member
Hi, My name is Vee. I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I am Vees Painting on facebook for those of you that may know me there from one of the many forums i belong to. Kelly C has been telling about this site for a cpl years and i finally took the time to set up an account last week. (i do believe i signed up here a cpl years ago too, but dont think i ever used the site)
anywho.... Up until last month i had 5 beardies. My eldest passed away from (i think) liver or some organ failure. She turned white her last 2 weeks of life...(not the same white as shedding) then the last week, her inside of her mouth even turned white. I made her as comfortable as possible as i knew the passing was coming. My dear sweet Fred.. yes, Fred was a girl. We had her for the first 5 years thinking she was a He. She didnt have any of the typical bumps that are male/female. I eventually had her probed when, after bringing a female into the room, she never even blackbearded or bobbed... wala.. fred was now fredricka..lol.. but i still often refer to her as a he.. We believe she was about 8 or so. She was a beautiful multi-color grey beardie.
When Fred was 5, I ended up with two females (sisters) that the owner needed to get rid of. Alice and Wilma. They were housed on some sort of kitty litter but they were well fed and healthy. They are both bright orange. One has some bright yellow too. They dont have the typical pattern on back.. they just have dots. they are beauties.
Next came Pancake... OMG. i seen him on Craigslist and he was complete bones... i cried. i emailed the dude and told him that he needed heat and food.. if he couldnt afford a heat bulb to atleast put a regular bulb in it. (you could tell from the pictures he had no heat or uvb. The colored gravel in the tank was disgusting... and he looked like he was going to die... and soon. i tried giving the seller info as he said he "acquired" them from a friend of a friend whos wife had them thru a divorce and stopped taking care of them.. he didnt listen as the next week, there were new pics up- but still no lights
so i showed the picture to hubby.. and i had to create another email account becuase he was no longer answering my emails.... and we set it up for me to go get him. we were right.. no heat, uvb or food.... there was some moldy cauliflower in there and that was it. He wouldnt budge on the price 75.00 so i just gave it to him. my husband grabbed the beardie out of the tank and immediately stuck it under his shirt... he felt like ice we scolded the kid and yada yada.. left with my lil pancake...... and took him to his forever home. he was 20 inches long and 273 grams It was a rough long road with him to get him healthy, but we did it. I knew better than to give him protein of any kind for awhile.... and after 6 weeks of slurries, with the help of some net friends suggestions, started to slowly wean him on protein.... that was about 3 years ago... he is now over 500 grams and maintains a healthy weight. (he currently has a slight URI though)
Then theres Gizmo... gosh.. where to begin? a friend called me from the pet store she worked at and asked if i could come help them with a tank full of baby beardies that were not eating... so i took all the necessary supplies and supplements i had and went out.. showed them how to make slurries and hand fed them.. showed them etc.. a cpl had died already before i got there. fast forward a cpl days later... i think a few more died.. then more. My friend that worked at the pet store took the last one home in hopes of saving it but realized she was in over her head and with work/school was too much so she asked me to take it and help get it better (with the intention of giving it back) Wellllllll... after watching/force feeding/soaking this 3 gram, 3 month old beardie for a cpl days, i had a suspicion it had the atadeno virus.. (specially since all the others died) so sent a test to Tracie at the Pats and to no surprise, she tested positive.. i had already been giving several supplements, but added a few more recommended to the slurries..and finally...after about a month, started growing like a weed. Dont get me wrong, the first month was very touch and go.. at some points i didnt know if she would make it.. in the morning my hubby and i would always turn to see if she made it through the night..(we kept her in my bedroom away from all the others for several months for quarantining reasons) whcih by the way, i always do with each new dragon) but she ended up staying in quarantine longer than any other before. fast forward a little more than a year and a half and she is my healthiest and biggest dragon! She is in the same room as all my other beardies and has been for atleast a year. just tested the last dragon and all test negative...so you can succesfully keep an av+ dragon in the same area as others by just taking a few precautions.. such as hand cleaning after touching her and anything inside her tank and making sure uneaten feeders DO NOT go back into the bin of feeders for all. I even let her out and she runs around with the other girls for playtime.
One of the sisters Wilma, ended up with a bone infection earlier this year and has had problems with it and URI. The infection actually ate through her elbow. We had thought somehow she had fallen and broken her arm, but nope. This pseudomoas infection also spread to abdomen and their was fluid in her cavity there. This wednesday she finished a 40 day med regimine (every other day) of a cipro mix of some kind and while i think the main infection is cleared up, i do think she still has something wrong.. as after she eats, she slightly winces, breathes weird for a few minutes, then is fine.
Wilma and her sister both can not be given soaks as they INHALE water like there is no tomorrow, so much so that they aspirate. My pancake has even done this too. I have a bunch of special needs beardies for sure. Alice has even taken off my finger tip once when she aspirated/passed out and I was clearing her mouth.. not her fault ofcourse- but she came to while my finger was still in there
Life is definately not dull with this bunch!
anywho.... Up until last month i had 5 beardies. My eldest passed away from (i think) liver or some organ failure. She turned white her last 2 weeks of life...(not the same white as shedding) then the last week, her inside of her mouth even turned white. I made her as comfortable as possible as i knew the passing was coming. My dear sweet Fred.. yes, Fred was a girl. We had her for the first 5 years thinking she was a He. She didnt have any of the typical bumps that are male/female. I eventually had her probed when, after bringing a female into the room, she never even blackbearded or bobbed... wala.. fred was now fredricka..lol.. but i still often refer to her as a he.. We believe she was about 8 or so. She was a beautiful multi-color grey beardie.
When Fred was 5, I ended up with two females (sisters) that the owner needed to get rid of. Alice and Wilma. They were housed on some sort of kitty litter but they were well fed and healthy. They are both bright orange. One has some bright yellow too. They dont have the typical pattern on back.. they just have dots. they are beauties.
Next came Pancake... OMG. i seen him on Craigslist and he was complete bones... i cried. i emailed the dude and told him that he needed heat and food.. if he couldnt afford a heat bulb to atleast put a regular bulb in it. (you could tell from the pictures he had no heat or uvb. The colored gravel in the tank was disgusting... and he looked like he was going to die... and soon. i tried giving the seller info as he said he "acquired" them from a friend of a friend whos wife had them thru a divorce and stopped taking care of them.. he didnt listen as the next week, there were new pics up- but still no lights
so i showed the picture to hubby.. and i had to create another email account becuase he was no longer answering my emails.... and we set it up for me to go get him. we were right.. no heat, uvb or food.... there was some moldy cauliflower in there and that was it. He wouldnt budge on the price 75.00 so i just gave it to him. my husband grabbed the beardie out of the tank and immediately stuck it under his shirt... he felt like ice we scolded the kid and yada yada.. left with my lil pancake...... and took him to his forever home. he was 20 inches long and 273 grams It was a rough long road with him to get him healthy, but we did it. I knew better than to give him protein of any kind for awhile.... and after 6 weeks of slurries, with the help of some net friends suggestions, started to slowly wean him on protein.... that was about 3 years ago... he is now over 500 grams and maintains a healthy weight. (he currently has a slight URI though)Then theres Gizmo... gosh.. where to begin? a friend called me from the pet store she worked at and asked if i could come help them with a tank full of baby beardies that were not eating... so i took all the necessary supplies and supplements i had and went out.. showed them how to make slurries and hand fed them.. showed them etc.. a cpl had died already before i got there. fast forward a cpl days later... i think a few more died.. then more. My friend that worked at the pet store took the last one home in hopes of saving it but realized she was in over her head and with work/school was too much so she asked me to take it and help get it better (with the intention of giving it back) Wellllllll... after watching/force feeding/soaking this 3 gram, 3 month old beardie for a cpl days, i had a suspicion it had the atadeno virus.. (specially since all the others died) so sent a test to Tracie at the Pats and to no surprise, she tested positive.. i had already been giving several supplements, but added a few more recommended to the slurries..and finally...after about a month, started growing like a weed. Dont get me wrong, the first month was very touch and go.. at some points i didnt know if she would make it.. in the morning my hubby and i would always turn to see if she made it through the night..(we kept her in my bedroom away from all the others for several months for quarantining reasons) whcih by the way, i always do with each new dragon) but she ended up staying in quarantine longer than any other before. fast forward a little more than a year and a half and she is my healthiest and biggest dragon! She is in the same room as all my other beardies and has been for atleast a year. just tested the last dragon and all test negative...so you can succesfully keep an av+ dragon in the same area as others by just taking a few precautions.. such as hand cleaning after touching her and anything inside her tank and making sure uneaten feeders DO NOT go back into the bin of feeders for all. I even let her out and she runs around with the other girls for playtime.
One of the sisters Wilma, ended up with a bone infection earlier this year and has had problems with it and URI. The infection actually ate through her elbow. We had thought somehow she had fallen and broken her arm, but nope. This pseudomoas infection also spread to abdomen and their was fluid in her cavity there. This wednesday she finished a 40 day med regimine (every other day) of a cipro mix of some kind and while i think the main infection is cleared up, i do think she still has something wrong.. as after she eats, she slightly winces, breathes weird for a few minutes, then is fine.
Wilma and her sister both can not be given soaks as they INHALE water like there is no tomorrow, so much so that they aspirate. My pancake has even done this too. I have a bunch of special needs beardies for sure. Alice has even taken off my finger tip once when she aspirated/passed out and I was clearing her mouth.. not her fault ofcourse- but she came to while my finger was still in there
Life is definately not dull with this bunch!
