Not eating after meds...

[BeardieGrandma]

Joga is not eating. period.
She's a year old now.
I took her to the vet a month ago because i noticed a steady decline in appetite since march/april. Fecal came back with high count of coccidia & pinworm. treated her with 2 rounds of panacur, and albon to boot. been fanatically keeping her cage clean. I need to take another fecal in for followup, but SOMEBODY needs to eat something in order to get some poop.
Take her out for sun. She's active outside her cage (she's generally lazy anyway), walks around, looks out the window. Likes to go outside. I take her for car rides.
She hasn't lost any weight, maybe even gained 7 grams from this whole ordeal (18", 571 grams)
Giving her acidophiliz+ all through the meds (they were done last Sunday). so everyday this week, she got her acidophiliz and we attempted to feed her. no dice. turned up the temperature at night to 85 (usually it's around 72).
She's got her pick of hornworms, supers, dubia, and i even went and bought some crickets (she stopped eating those 4 months ago). no interest. won't touch her greens.
out comes the babyfood, i've been trying to feed her that. she hates it. i tried peas, chicken in broth, chicken w/sweet potato. She runs away from me and won't eat it.

i'm getting worried. my gut tells me a few things:

she's generally ok, not losing weight, so don't panic (yet)
I need to get a fecal back for follow-up and appear to be in a holding pattern to get some food in her to accomplish that.
I worry about how long she can refuse to eat (i mean, isn't she hungry? I would be!). I wonder if she's semi-brumating. I wonder if the parasites need further treatment.
I wonder...

Not sure what to think.

 

[AHBD]

I know it's alarming when they go off feed. I would like to mention that several posters have had dragons that would not eat for a length of time, and then suddenly began again. Your dragon is actually on the heavy side, so she has extra weight to begin with that she can afford to lose, and at times it seems that these are the ones that go on a hunger strike that gets their owners to tear their hair out. I think that she too will return to " normal" eating habits. If you go the baby food route to give calcium [ at least once, if not twice a week ] and vitamin powder [ once a week ] I think you'll be O.K. until her appetite returns. Has she ever laid eggs ? That's a possibility, too....that she's carrying infertiles. Keep an eye out for restlessness and digging.

 

[BeardieGrandma]

Thanks abhd...I am watching closely for any sign of being gravid as I was wondering about that too even though I didn't mention all that in my wondering in the original post. She is a little heavy so I suppose she can do this for awhile - I'm surprised she hasn't lost any weight yet ( eggs). I made the vet check her when we went in but she didn't think she was making eggs.
The acidopholiz is supplemented with some amount of calcium and vitamins - she's getting a dropperful of that every day - do I need to supplement more along with that?
The baby food option is tough cause she doesn't really like it ( kind of jealous of the other people on here that get their beardies to eat that when they go on hunger strikes.).
Forgot to mention she's getting a good soak every other day to keep her hydrated.

 

[AHBD]

I suppose she gets enough supplementation then, but once a week extra may be helpful, especially if she IS developing eggs. A poster named Nightmare disco just recently had a couple of threads where in the end, his vet did not realize his dragon was full of fully developed eggs, and the dragon layed that same night [ or the very next day....you can find the thread ] So the vets don't always seem to check as thoroughly as they could. At any rate, even if your girl is not full of eggs, it seems that larger dragons at times stop eating, and it may be their own body just regulating their weight.

 

[BeardieGrandma]

Almost a whole week has gone by again with her not eating.
We're giving acidophiliz every day still. Baths pretty frequent (every day or every other day)
Babyfood met with pure disdain.

took her outside today, she took a small bite of a dirt clump WTH and would have gone after more if i hadn't have stopped her...what's up with that? Apparently hornworms, mustard greens, supers, and dubia roaches aren't as appealing?

otherwise seems active, happy colors, white belly. She's lazy in the tank.

 

[lauraj1055]

I have the exact same problem with my Ollie. He went off food in March. He will eat a wax worm here and there, but I have to syringe feed critical care, and veggie slurries. I think now he is just getting lazy and won't eat on his own. But unlike yours, he loses weight when he goes on his hunger strikes... I am trying to get him up to 480 grams (he is now at 413 and 19" long) and I am going to just stop feeding him by hand, and hopefully he will pick up after he knows I'm not going to cater to him anymore.. *sigh*

 

[BeardieGrandma]

yes that's the spooky part. She's not losing weight. She's gaining ever so slowly. She must be drinking beer after lights out.
I'm going to weigh her again saturday (doing it weekly) to keep an eye on things. Looking for a good poo to take back to the vet to follow-up now that the meds have been done for almost 2 weeks.

Could she be brumating? or semi-brumating, where they are awake but they just don't eat. Is this what they do?

 

[BeardieGrandma]

Ok we 're still on the hunger strike, she's getting a bath every other day to keep her hydrated and she has lost about 17 grams, down to 548 from 565 when I took her to the vet back in May.
I've sanitized some syringes and will start being a little more persuasive on eating some babyhood. I've been putting it on her nose but she licks it and then runs all over her cage trying to get away from me.
I got to get a good poo out of her to do a follow up fecal, which I will attempt tomorrow or Friday.

She's active, snoozes here and there during the day, goes to bed around 5:30. I'm adjusting her light times from 14 on/10 off to 12/12.
I'm worried.

 

[ChewiesRoom]

I see this a lot in dogs when they have to go through parasite meds, they will frequently loose their appetite as most of the meds can be very harsh on their stomach and appetite.

 

[Sherri]

Just curious...have you tried holding her when syringe feeding? Sort of wiggle the tip of syringe in between her lips on the side until she opens her mouth and get some in to see if that changes her mind? (Mine will do that and eat this way lol when I need to get him fed fast due to my schedule )

Also, when she runs off when trying, does she stop and lick it off? You may have tried this already but our guy will do the same thing...I put a drop on his nose, he runs off but I wait until he stops and licks it then I slowly give another drop and he starts gobbling.

Strange that with some of the flavors he will run off but I don't stop then LOL

If you already have done these things..........disregard this message! LOL :mrgreen:

 

[BeardieGrandma]

Thanks Sherri...yes, this morning, I sat her on my lap and the syringe went in her mouth this time...no more putting on her nose and chasing around the cage. I agree, this is WAY more efficient than waiting for her to lick it off her nose LOL! As I mentioned in my post last night, I think I need to get a little more persuasive. She did pretty good and ate about 3ml (not sure how much to give her at this point?) until she was intent to get off my lap.
I mixed some squash, chicken, and calcium powder for her this morning...so at least she's getting some protein and some calcium too...

 

[wckdbtch]

I went through the same ordeal a while ago with one of ours. She also had pinworms and coccidia and were on meds for both. I had to do the whole syringe feed routine with her for weeks, not only to get some food into her, but also to get the medicine in... This went on for over two months in total, after which she also refused her food (unless in a syringe). After another month, I couldn't take it any more and refused to syringe feed any more. I put her salad in with her every day - which she has always refused to eat - and offered her live feeders every day. If she didn't eat the feeders, I took them out until the next day. After about a week, she started eating little bits of salad - to the point where I was considering reversing the "worms in the salad" routine, just to get some protein into her. After another two weeks of salad-only dieting, she started taking one superworm every second day. At the moment, she only eats live feeders every second day (as opposed to every day like before she got sick), but does eat some salad every day (as opposed to NEVER before she got sick). Her bowel movement has also slowed down to every second/third day now.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that (unless they are still sick, gravid or rapidly losing weight) I just had to be patient a little longer. I think the combination of coccidia and medicines takes longer to get out of their systems than we would like...

 

[BeardieGrandma]

Thanks wicked...appreciate your experiences as well...

What is "rapidly" losing weight...? I think I'm going to get in front of that if she eats like she did this morning with the syringe (what a frickin pain). So I got rid of that anxiety, but I'm with you, there aren't people running around the australian desert with syringes filled with squash and chicken feeding beardies who refuse to eat...

i offer her the feeders and salad first everyday and will continue to do so. it's been 3 weeks since she ate a bug. I will try to be patient.. ABHD said my beardie was fat (LOL - not exactly - jk!) and that it will be ok for her to lose some weight. Meanwhile my Dubias are getting busy which is not a bad thing...

 

[Sherri]

Meanwhile my Dubias are getting busy which is not a bad thing...

I know exactly what you mean! Razz ate 6 yesterday and 4 or 5 a few days ago that is it in 3 weeks time

My colony decided to explode at the same time! Everyday there are at LEAST 3 or 4 females giving birth, yikes, and no one to feed them to . Then these babies are going to grow to big for him and start having babies of their own..uhg. I must have a couple thousand little babies in there and a ton of 1/4-1/2" ones........*sigh*.

 

[BeardieGrandma]

Ok so I'm using this thread to keep track - she's lost another 7 grams in the last 10 days- we're at 541 total as of now.
I started some reptaid xl Saturday and am going to try the 10 days on 3 days off thing to see if I can get her interested in eating again.
Her color looks great - she's active when I take her out in the earlier part of the day. By 5 pm or so she's ready to just chill and snooze on me on and off til I put her to bed. We take her outside and she loves to cruise around until she gets too hot and then she tries to dive in the bushes.
She poops very little and only in the bath, which she gets every other day.
She's taking in about 1 ml of baby food each morning, I make a mix of chicken and squash and sprinkle some calcium powder in it - she mostly fights me the whole way.

Signed,
Worried beardie grandma