Orange Urate

[VenusAndSaturn]

Update on Venus, she went to the bathroom, theres another object with the urate this time.
I'm honestly getting quite scared, I don't want it to be impaction thats causing pretty much only urates but if it isn't that I'm scared to find out as it could possibly be something worse.

I put it in a small bag for now, my moms going to call the vets tomorrow morning as they'll be open then.
I'm hoping we'll get her in that day or at least soon.

She also keeps digging in her hide, part of me thinks it could be eggs in all honesty but I doubt that.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

So my mom picked up a pack of three eco earth blocks for venus since she was digging so much. I made them, mixed a bit of vermiculite I had laying around in it. I had it for future breeding, not too sure if I'll breed or not but it comes in handy.

Currently she is digging in the the 90 quart tub, using both her front and back legs. I have no idea if she has eggs or not as I cant feel any but she certainly wants to dig a burrow. She still has a great appetite, I fed her some dubia roaches that my mom picked up as well a few hours ago.

As for the vet portion she is going on Wednesday, my mom called them, made sure they had experience with beardies and everything so hopefully it'll be a good vet. I'm definitely going to ask about eggs when Im there.

This was from a bit ago, she currently has a decent sized hole she dug, not really a tunnel yet but its starting to look like the entrance to one.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/281126690556477441/425428957027106837/video.mov

Heres a video of her digging, she doesn't exactly like to be watched.

EDIT - She kept digging until her tunnel she made collapsed, I may need a larger tub and some more substrate, probably going with children's play sand since you can get a big back for a cheap price somewhat.
After I set up a heat lamp to keep her warm as she dug she went to the bathroom. I didnt get a picture of it but the urate was less orange, still had a bit but this time was mostly white. She also pooped, it wasn't very much but just a tad more than the last picture i posted of her poop.

 

[HippieLizards]

You are lucky to have so many female roaches, I Think the numbers of my colony are like 100 males and 20 females. :lol: I will try the BSFL soon.

Has venus eaten at all? The digging does seem that maybe she does have eggs. She is digging like Cisco did when it seemed she had eggs, She didn't though. Can you feel any bumps or lumps? Sometimes infertile eggs can be very hard to feel. So you may have to really feel to check is she does have eggs.

You're doing good, But if she does have eggs, make sure to give her lots of calcium.

As for the breeding, I would advise against it. It's very stressful for both of the beardies and really takes a toll on the female. Plus it's REALLY expensive to do so (around 1500$ and up). Females also can lay multiple clutches at a time, which most clutches are around 15-20 eggs. So you would have to deal with TONS of babies until they are around two months old (or at least 7+ inches). Then you still have to deal with babies that didn't sell. I Have never bred beardies before, but this is advise from multiple commercial beardie breeders (Plus from research I've done).

Please keep us posted.

-HippieLizards.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

She has ate, for her main meal I gave her some calcium dusted superworms and crickets, about 15 crickets and 2 superworms.
For a small little snack she had about 15 small undusted dubia roaches, I asked for medium but apparently they were out of larger roaches and only had small.

I put her back in her viv after a bath. She's digging like mad right now, mostly in her hide but just a bit ago she was digging underneath the paper towels.
I can't feel anything and it doesn't look like she has eggs but shes digging like she does.
I do know for sure these are 100% Infertile, because unless somehow Venus and Saturn mated at 6 months of age for the the month they were together with me or mated at the store and then she held the sperm up until now is probably unlikely.

Yeah the cost and space is one of the reasons I decided against doing it for now. I still have to cover enclosure costs and Venus's vet bills so for now I definitely wouldn't be able to do it.
If I ever bred them It would probably be when I'm older, with a job and with a lot of money saved away. I've thought about breeding on a very small scale and possibly freezing eggs and only keeping a few to hatch however I don't know if that would be very wise thing to do.

I mostly just want to breed Venus and Saturn together to prove her out for any hets she may have rather than becoming an actual breeder. It's fairly possible that she could be het for hypo or trans or possibly both. Though I would never want to risk her health just to see what she could be.


EDIT- Im starting to wonder if being able to see Saturn somewhat has triggered a possible egg laying response? A bit ago before I blocked her enclosure off from view he would bob his head at her and black beard, and she would in return slowly bob her head and wave her hand back at him from across the room.

 

[HippieLizards]

That's great that she ate. I'm pretty sure she might have eggs but I'm not certain. and Yes, the possibility of them mating at six months old is highly unlikely. and I would advise against freezing some of the eggs. I do gotta say though, Venus and Saturn would definitely make some cute baby beardies. and pretty ones too. :love10: :love5:

The egg laying response does sound plausible. If I were you I would put some paper on Venus and Saturn's tanks so they can't see each other. I Did that when Cisco and Thor could see each other Thor went crazy trying to get to her. Hello spring.

Has she been to the vet yet? How did it go if you've been yet? I Think if she starts digging again then you should put her back in the lay box.

Keep us posted.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

She's currently in the lay box right now, slowly but surely digging into the side of the dirt. At first she thought she could dig into the corner of the bin.

When they started doing that stuff I put something in the way of their view, which works for the most part as he barely sees her and she can barely see him. Luckily when I redo my room, hopefully soon, they will be on a rack system so they wont be able to see each other. Although I'm still messing around with placement as when I move them Saturn will be in a 75 gallon rather than a 50, and the 75 gallon doesn't open from the front so I cant put him too high up.

She has not gone yet, vet visit is scheduled for tomorrow at around 10 AM I believe.
Although we are going to a vet visit in about an hour for my dog, she has what my mom thinks is an infection because she saw a tiny bit of blood on the newspaper in her pen, but I guess thats to be expected with her back problems.

I would definitely agree they would make very cute beardies together, too bad baby beardies are so expensive to take care of.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

So I just gave Venus a bath since we're leaving soon and she's now in her viv.
I've noticed that since I gave her a dig box every time I give her a bath she bloats herself up, before this I've never seen her act like that (At least not recently).

She also went to the bathroom so I put it in a bag and will take that to the vet tomorrow.
There was poop, just not too much. She didnt seem to struggle at all with going to the bathroom so thats good.

 

[HippieLizards]

Ok, Tell us how the vet visit for her goes. and Your puppy is SOO Cute! :love5: Was she a rescue? I Hope her vet visit go's good.

If it didn't cost anything and it didn't take such a toll on the beardies I would be a breeder. But I've decided to be a rescuer later instead. But then there comes another huge expense: Vet bills.

What substrate did you use for the lay box? Lately Cisco has been digging in her enclosure a lot and I fear she might have eggs.

The Bloating up in the bath is them gulping up air to make themselves float. It's a survival tactic they do. It's perfectly normal. All my beardies do that in the bath

-HippieLizards.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

Sadly my dogs vet visit didn't go too well. She's not really a rescue, we do have a rescue dog of sorts that my grandma decided to take from one of her clients so he wouldn't be put down for literally no reason other than they couldn't take him with them. He has quite a few mental problems as he was abused sadly by his old owners so while he looks like the sweetest dog ever he will bite your face if you mess with him.

My grandma got my dog from a client of hers, because their dogs accidentally had puppies.
The vet said she possibly could have bladder stones, she has a infected vulva, she has a bit of bacteria in her pee and a few crystals. My parents are deciding on whether or not to do an X-Ray, or not as that will be about 130. The current vet bill is 400. They still need a sterile urine sample so on the way to Venus's vet we're going to drop our dog off at that vet so they can do what they need and we'll get some meds for her as well. The vet said if she wasn't a special patient then this would be tons easier to find the exact problem however because she doesn't realize that she's in pain it's a bit harder.
About 3 years ago she had back surgery, at first she was pretty depressed after the surgery but once we moved her pen out with the other dogs she perked up a lot and finally began drinking and eating and running around. However over the years she's gotten a lot worse with walking.


As for the substrate I'm currently using eco earth and a vermiculite mix. Works really well but I need more as three blocks didn't do enough, so when we go pick up crickets we're going to get more at the local petstore.
If you make a lay bin and use eco earth i'd 100% recommend going for the block kind rather than the bag kind. Theres no dust, it holds it's shape better, and seems to stay moist more.

I know its normal for beardies, it's just so weird seeing her do that when normally she would be enjoying the water and drinking it.

 

[HippieLizards]

Aw, I'm so sorry that the dogs vet visit didn't go well. That's a lot of problems. I Hope she get's better.

I Might try that. I may just do it even if Cisco doesn't have eggs just because all my beardies love to dig. I'll see if my local petco has that.

Keep us posted.

Best wishes,

-HippieLizards.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

We took Venus to the vet, they did a fecal test, checked her all over and said she may be carrying eggs. They didnt see any parasites in her poop but they did see quite a bit of pollen apparently.

They prescribed me antibiotics and told me to up the calcium intake to daily for 7-10 days and then go back down to 2x a week or so.
I asked for a liquid calcium as I didnt feel comfortable with mixing calcium and water together and actually doing it right. She also tends to not eat her salad all the time so putting calcium on there more wouldn't work out too well.

For the liquid calcium it says this, "Give 0.5 ml by mouth once daily for 7-10 days and then 2-3 times weekly."

The antibiotic is septra. At least thats what it says on the bottle. The instructions say, "Give 0.3 ml by mouth once daily for 14 days."

Other than fighting him when he tried to look in her mouth it went pretty good. I feel a lot better with him being my main reptile vet, he even had a tegu and a few other reptiles before, but said because he got married he had to get rid of them so he definitely has a bit of experience with reptiles and their care.
I even had to fill out a sheet about Venus's diet, behavior and tank setup and he asked a few questions as well. Which im impressed by as my old vet never asked these questions before. He said everything checked out pretty well, she looked fantastic over all other than being a bit chubby.

As for my dog we dropped her off at the other vet so they could get what they needed, its going to take a few days to get results but from what they said she luckily doesn't have bladder/kidney stones so thats good.

Also dropped by the petstore and picked up a few more blocks of eco earth, so she'll have more depth when digging.

 

[HippieLizards]

Wow, Your vet sounds exactly like my vet!! :shock:

What type of calcium did he prescribe? Has Venus been digging anymore?

How about you try moving the male (Saturn?) to a different room and see how Venus takes it. As they can still smell each other so that may be why she's doing an egg laying response.

I'm still new to reptile medicine so I'm not entirely sure which ones are good or not. and I've never heard of septra. :| I Hope it's good.

That is strange that she had a lot of pollen. I've never heard of that happening to a beardie before. :?

and That's good that your dog doesn't have kidney stones.

-Hippielizards.

 

[lizardmom25]

I'm not clear on why an antibiotic was prescribed. What type of infection it is supposed to be treating??

 

[HippieLizards]

My thought exactly. :?

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

As for the antibiotic I guess he wanted to see if it would treat the orange urates, and then after the treatment if it was still there he'd do another fecal test.
On the liquid calcium bottle it says, "Calcionate syrup".

Im a bit surprised he found pollen as well, he asked if she had been outside at all but because of weather and her temperament outside I can't take her out there even with a leash on.
I forgot to mention that he did see what looked like to be an old ringworm egg, however he said that it was most likely just pollen because it was a bit darker than normal.

If we had room and it wasn't so cold out there I would move him but my room is the only place I can have my reptiles.

As for her digging she definietly has, I took a slight nap because I didnt get much sleep at all and woke up to her digging like crazy in her cave. I've noticed that her nails are getting quite short on her back legs so I may take the tile out and replace with paper towels for now.

I have also not given either to her yet, I want to make sure their good and safe for her before I do.