Please Help Beardies Tip of Tail is Stiff but not black.....

[Mabbus4]

Hi Guys my beardies tail just this last inch or so of it is hard. The rest of her tail is flexible etc. Her tail is all the same color and in no way resembles a dark color like what tail rot looks like. It is actually quite the opposite being a very light color. Lighter than the rest of her body. The light color starts a little past the base of her tale maybe 1 inch down from the back legs and goes all the way to the end of the tale.

Does anyone have any clue what it could be. She has not shed in a while but i have tried soaking her and gently brushing her with a tooth brush to see if her tail just needed shed. If that is the case i sure cant find where the shed starts to help with it. Also as of about 2 months ago her appetite vanished as in i cant get her to eat anything. Dubia's, crickets, worms, salads, etc. But she does drink occasionally when shes in her pool outside. I have been having to find creative ways for her to eat.

She is not impacted as she just went to the bathroom today. Although there was a part of it that was very orangish/brown and gritty feeling.

Any Info in regards to this would be greatly appreciated. I guess theres a few things going on but im sure there all related... I have searched high and low and all i find about a tail being hard is tail rot, with black tail pictures. Thanks in advance

sry dont have time to post the hugh amount of info but the basics are:
MegaRay bulb, yes i supply the correct kind of calcium for the bulb
She spends most of her day in water outside in the sun so baths are taken care of also.. (Have an outside metal cage for the deck)
She is probably about 5-6yrs old.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Can you post a picture of the end of the tail that would help alot, thanks.
Has she had retained shed recently, or did she injure the end of her tail that you know of by pinching it in something?
Is she housed alone then?
Has she ever laid infertile eggs while you have had her?
How far is the Megaray away from her?
The stool sounds like the urates were a bit off colored. Were they hard or soft?

Tracie

 

[Mabbus4]

Hey thanks for the reply,

I am away from the house right now but the megaRay is the recommended distance away from the cage they have listen on the box. Dont have specifics on it since im away sorry.

She has not recently shed,
She is in the cage alone and her tail has not been pinched or damaged as far as i can tell.

Yes she has actually laid infertile eggs while i have had her, I few times actually. What does that mean? I heard it was normal.

Her last two stools have each had one chunk in them that is very odd. It is not the calcium as that is there too. The chunk of stuff is harder and gritty much like sand..

Her tail is very straight with no sharp bends or crinks. It does has a slight arc in the last 2 inches of it though (the part that is stiff.) An When i say arc i mean like a very gradual arc like like much less than one of these ) placed on its side.

The rest of her tail is very flexible though. How much do normal bearded dragons move there tail? Also is your BD tail very flexible all the way to the very tip? Hers is so stiff i fell like if i try to bend it it will break. :shock:

 

[zebraflavencs]

A good picture of that will help us out a good bit.
Thanks,
Janie.

 

[Mabbus4]

So i took some pictures but the didnt turn out right, She was sun bathing so all of her was a light color and you couldnt see any discoloration. But i did noticed that at the very tip of her tail that there was some very small pieces of scales that were loose. I could peel them off. I know you can easily damage beardies new skin if you help them shed prematurely but this is not a recent thing.

I also found some other scales on the bottom of her tail that were loose. when i brushed one off, there was a white milky thick coating under the scale. Didnt look natural... Is that maybe what holds her scales in place? Or is that normal? I have never seen it before.

Is it possible her scales are coming loose with no new scales under them from a lack of something? I also had the thought that i may be new scales trying to form but that haven't yet. Thanks guys, working on the new pictures but this seems to be the problem.

 

[Mabbus4]

Alright here are some pictures to help you guys out with the discoloration, stiff tip of tail, and also what ever is going on with her scales coming off.

Ok so heres the tail discoloration

Here is the spots on the bottom of her tail that it seems is missing the scales... As there are just gaps between some scales that peeled off.

And the end of her tail (the part that is hard) has this slight bump in it. it is a little hard also before the bump even begins.

Also the very tip of her tail does have scales that look dead on them. She has been soaking the last couple of days in water out in the sun but the shed doesn't come off easy. Also it concerns me that her tail is shedding at the end but further up the tail where some scales are falling off it seems there is nothing underneath there to replace them like there is on the tip of the tail.

 

[Jiffy]

you can set up a free account on photobucket. load the photos to photobucket. photobucket will assign them an img code. Copy the img code and paste it in your post on this site

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Overall, the discoloration starting at slightly lower than the base of the tail, appears to be a shed but she just has not shed yet. Since she is older, it takes quite a bit longer for them to shed. I would say it takes at least 4 times longer than a baby for them to shed.
I would continue to bathe her, & maybe try to get some aloe vera gel to use on a daily basis to moisturize the scales in case some might be retaining.
It does not look to be any necrosis though, but as you are doing just keep a close eye on the tail to make sure there are no drastic color changes.
How is her appetite doing?

Tracie

 

[Mabbus4]

Bad she has had no appetite for whats seems to be weeks now. I see her drink every now and again. I have tried roaches, crickets, greens etc. The only time i can ever get her to eat is when she is sun bathing and she opens her mouth to vent. I can put a piece of green in there and shell chew it up..... I hate having to do that but i feel like she will starve unless i feed her like that.

Also in regards to the shedding, the tip of her tail does seem like it is shedding but the shed/ dead scales are extremely, hard, like you have to pick them off. I have been brushing her with a toothbrush during her soaks to help encourage the shed with no luck yet.

Im not sure if you can see it but in the pic with her tail the very tip of her shed has already came off the tip of her tail.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Yes, I could tell that the tip of her tail had shed. It seems like she is having a hard time with her shed though so I think that you should put some aloe vera gel on it to help retain some moisture. The bathing will help quite a bit also.
Thanks for posting the pics it did help to be able to see it.
How old is the Megaray now?
If she is not eating, there could be an underlying problem that needs to be addressed. Did she lay any eggs this year? Have you had a blood test done on her before??/
If she losing any weight right now? You may need to make a little nutritional slurry out of chicken or turkey babyfood along with some squash babyfood with her calcium & vitamins daily. How do her eyes look, are they bright or are they sunken in any?

Tracie

 

[Mabbus4]

Ok Yesterday the shed on her tail was continuing to just peel off. So i helped her with it peel a bit off. The old sclaes were a dirty brown color and had a bad smell to them. I thought this was because they were so old and had been having water trapped beneath them that was smelling bad. After her tail had shed some i put her back in her bath outside. Her whole tail at this time was very flexible. Even the tip! Also are the new scales under the old suppose to be very hard or soft? I brought her in and put her to bed.

This morning i wake up and find that the parts that had shed yesterday to be very stiff and a very dark color. Her tail also shrank and seemed like it shriveled up!. I am very worried about this. Could it be that the sand in her cage sucked the moisture out of her new soft scales?

Please help, I feel i am in over my head with her, I am the only one currently working, I am going through a job change, and we are moving.

In This picture you can see the difference in the part that came off yesterday and a few days ago. But they are both stiff.

 

[Kazul]

It looks a lot like my Squirrel's tail looked a few days before she died (but not from the problems the tail caused). It almost looks like to me that the tail has died. I'd recommend taking her to a vet and getting that checked out. Sometimes, if the tail dies, it falls off (which is kinda gruesome in itself) but if it IS dying and it's spreading up the tail, you might have to get it amputated.

 

[wingeddrgn]

I would say take it to the vet. My dragons tail did the same thing and we had to have part of it amputated. He has recovered fine from this and the vet said it saved his life as it was going up the tail. We had to stop it before it got to his body...

 

[Mabbus4]

Wing was your dragons tail hard or soft? Its the weirdest thing. The morning i took those pictures i then proceeded to put her out to bathe in the sun. a few hours later her tail was no longer stiff, and krinkly but smooth, full, and bendable again. Im thinking that she is having some kind of deficiency in developing her new scales. Because they have not hardened yet. The are still soft and smooth. I think this is why they are having a hard time retaining moisture and why her tail can dry out.

I would assume like all other animals regardless of if her tail is wet or dry that if it was dead that rigimortis would have set in and it would have become hard. Wing whats your thoughts on this since you have seen a dead tail first hand in one of your beardies. Thanks

 

[spurlee01]

I do know that when you "help" a beardie shed, you run the risk of pulling off scales before the new ones are totally ready, which is why we usually recommend you only help with a very soft toothbrush. I don't know if that could be what happened here or not, and unfortunately, I do not know what you need to do for this.
Sara