regarding baby beardie not moving legs...

[argolupin]

Hi everyone,
I have a baby beardie where I work that started acting very odd today. I am stumped and am trying to get help for this little guy (our reptile vet won't see him until next wed or thurs.) Here are the facts about this little one and I will see if there is anything we can weed out as far as care:

Baby is approximately 7 weeks old
we have had it and its siblings for 10 days
Temps are correct (I check them every day with my infared therm. and multiple times a day)
Baby is on repticarpet
body is about the size of my thumb, but a tad bit larger
They are given pinhead crickets twice a day and offered salad mix all day long (I gave my boss a copy of the beautiful dragons nutririon list to go by when he goes to the store)
I do not work for a corperate, but a small locally owned petshop that puts the animals first. my boss would rather turn away a sale then put an animal into a home where it won't be cared for.
There is a brand new UVB florescent tube 10.0 above the cage
State Dept. of Ag. was in on Friday and measured the UVB and it read at 10.
they are either sprayed daily (just a touch because of shedding) or soaked daily.
We only use filtered water because our city water sucks
They have a dish of water that is enough for them to drink and soak but not enough for them to drown
Babies are in a 20 long and there are 5 of them in there
They have a branch they can bask on and this is where the incident started:

Incident:
Ok, I have been off the last 2 days and came in today to this baby acting odd. I was just getting finished chopping up veggies for the beardies, tortises and agamas when a customer pointed this out to me.

So one of the baby beardies somehow ended up on his back (I believe that he fell off the branch) and was twitching slightly though I can't tell if it was him trying to turn over or not. I moved him to a lower basking spot because I had just truned the daylight on and the back wall was a bit cool. 10 min. later he was back at the highest basking spot. When I moved him to the low basking spot origionally I was petting his foot and playing with it and he did not respond, which caught my attention. I left to grab some lunch and came back and my boss was setting up a sick tank. evidently the baby beardie was on his back on the ground again. now he is in a 5 gallon tank with papertowel substrate a water dish, salad, and a rock to bask on. there had also been a branch but I took it out. While I was eating my lunch I was watching the baby and he was using his front legs to pull himself along but couldn't use his back legs. he ended up falling a 3rd time, and this time I saw that that was how he was ending up on his back. He gets to his water and he also scooches to adjust his temps. He also poops when you soak him (which we did today with some electrolytes) and drinks water.
So my question is : Can he recover the use of his back legs or could his back be broken? Also, is there any chance of him surviving this and still being healthy if someone knew what they were doing? I have recently lost my last bearded dragon and am thinking about bringing the baby home to be loved on for however much longer it has left. Though if the baby is better to be put down because it is in pain my boss said he would take it so I wouldn't have to relive what just happened with mine (tumor in stomach that was the size of a golf ball and couldn't keep food down he was my hoarding situation rescue so he was in poor condition when I got him)

 

[Taterbug]

Is there a chance he ate something too big?
The crickects get dusted right?

What did they test the uv light with?

 

[argolupin]

They used a uv meter (we have one at work as well that we use on a regular basis)
There is no chance of anything too big that I know of, mind you I have been off work for 2 days so I have no clue what happened while I was gone, but I would hope no one would feed bigger than the space between the eyes.
We do not dust with calcium because we use collard greens, cruly mustard greens, dandelion greens, turnip greens, and bok choy which are high in calcium and they get those every day. We do dust the crickets with multivitamin powder but only twice a week (I am trying to get that changed but I guess all the frogs we have don't like it more often)

 

[Taterbug]

They used a uv meter (we have one at work as well that we use on a regular basis)
There is no chance of anything too big that I know of, mind you I have been off work for 2 days so I have no clue what happened while I was gone, but I would hope no one would feed bigger than the space between the eyes.
We do not dust with calcium because we use collard greens, cruly mustard greens, dandelion greens, turnip greens, and bok choy which are high in calcium and they get those every day. We do dust the crickets with multivitamin powder but only twice a week (I am trying to get that changed but I guess all the frogs we have don't like it more often)

I would still dust the insects with calcium. The greens you offer are excelent but you can't really rely on them to offset the imbalance crickets naturally have, especially since baby dragon eat mostly insects. The Ca ratio of crickets is between 1:9-1:12 - greens are usually around 2:1-4:1.

Do you know which UV meter is used? If it's measuring the uv index (such as a solarmeter 6.5) 10 is actually dangerously high.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Yes, we need to know exactly what the "10" was measuring. As suggested, if the 10 depicted the UVI or UV index then that is way too high. If it was measuring the UVB strength or wavelength, then 10 is poor & not nearly enough for good exposure for him.
He likely has not broken his back though but he could sublux a vertebrae since they don't have discs. His balance & neurological control sounds like it is off.
How is he doing today?

Tracie

 

[AHBD]

Hi there....I agree 100% with Tater, the crickets should be dusted. I've raised tons of babies and they all need the calcium powder. It is possibly a combination of impaction and a calcium deficiency. Healthy babies abies leap around all day and never just fall off a basking perch + get hurt , so it's likely one of the things mentioned. He/she may not recover use of it's back legs, but hopefully you can help the little one as much as possible to have a comfortable life. Good for you for caring, and also for your boss for setting things up far better than most stores.! Just mention that the crix need to be dusted with calcium powder.

 

[argolupin]

I am not sure what type of uv meter they had that is just where they told me they wanted it. the baby unfortunately died overnight and one of its siblings went downhill overnight, similar symptoms couldn't use back legs at all, color lightened quite a bit overnight, eyes barely opening. I went to soak it while my boss called the vet on their emergency line. as I went to set him in his bath to soak he took one breath and then quit breathing in my hands. we now have all our babies on hold until we have them looked at by the vet and the two babies are getting autopsys done this next week. I saw all the other babies running around today and yesterday all were running around except the one baby I posted about yesterday. All the babies today were a bit dark but I did soak all of them in warm water with elctrolytes just to keep an eye on them. they all pooped in the tub, no blood in anyones poop, I did also see everyone drink and eat. I will post I I get to find out the results of the vet exams.

 

[AHBD]

Aw, that's so sad ! I wonder if someone fed the wrong sized crickets during the 2 days that you weren't there. There's also a possibility of adenovirus, but that doesn't usually cause paralysis of back legs but does cause the flipping. I'm so sorry !

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Oh no, I am so sorry to hear that, how awful! How many more babies are in the clutch that are still with you?
Please keep us posted on the rest of them.

Tracie