Hey guys, few weeks ago I posted about a female beardie I rescued. She was suffering impaction but I managed then (and a few times after) to make her poop. I think she went into brumation one week ago as she was sleeping during the day too, so I decided to turn of her lights and only keep the ceramic bulb for heat.
Today’s morning she was awake and got a really black bears. Tried to poop, did a little and then again during lunch when I helped her in the water. She moved a little in the viv, but not much.
After a few hours I went to check on her as she was hiding and wanted to see how she feels. Took off the wood thingy and when I grabbed her, she went puffing at me (she was already black bearded and really white-yellow on the rest of the body, except 50-60% of the tail), really scared and she started to have some seizures, limbs moving and shaking really weird. I tried to calm her down but at that moment I knew she either had a stroke or heart attack.
Weird thing is that she couldn’t close her eyes and they weren’t responding either at touch, she only moved her tongue when I put my finger in her mouth and tried to bite me. This was the only thing that was moving for 3 hours. Saw some signs of breathing after a few hours but still, she wasn’t responding and had too much saliva in her mouth. I’m really sad that she has died as I loved her so much. Now I got only Scar (my 3.5years old male) which is doing great (I kept them in different vivs, never met).
My question(s) is(are): what caused this? why she had those seizures, reactions and how she kept breathing(?) for like 3-3.5 hours? was it the post-mortem body movements? she could see I think, as she had small and large pupils at some point and kinda looked at me and outside the viv.
later edit: she had a big portion on the right side which was hard as a rock, where the cecum and intestines are, which I guess was impaction.
Thank you! I really want to know what caused this as there are not many exotic life vets in my country (in my city I’m 100% sure there isn’t even one)
PS: I cut her open to see the “hard” thing in her body, if I’m allowed to post it here, let me know, maybe it’ll help.
a pic of her when she was doing good, before these last sad weeks.
Today’s morning she was awake and got a really black bears. Tried to poop, did a little and then again during lunch when I helped her in the water. She moved a little in the viv, but not much.
After a few hours I went to check on her as she was hiding and wanted to see how she feels. Took off the wood thingy and when I grabbed her, she went puffing at me (she was already black bearded and really white-yellow on the rest of the body, except 50-60% of the tail), really scared and she started to have some seizures, limbs moving and shaking really weird. I tried to calm her down but at that moment I knew she either had a stroke or heart attack.
Weird thing is that she couldn’t close her eyes and they weren’t responding either at touch, she only moved her tongue when I put my finger in her mouth and tried to bite me. This was the only thing that was moving for 3 hours. Saw some signs of breathing after a few hours but still, she wasn’t responding and had too much saliva in her mouth. I’m really sad that she has died as I loved her so much. Now I got only Scar (my 3.5years old male) which is doing great (I kept them in different vivs, never met).
My question(s) is(are): what caused this? why she had those seizures, reactions and how she kept breathing(?) for like 3-3.5 hours? was it the post-mortem body movements? she could see I think, as she had small and large pupils at some point and kinda looked at me and outside the viv.
later edit: she had a big portion on the right side which was hard as a rock, where the cecum and intestines are, which I guess was impaction.
Thank you! I really want to know what caused this as there are not many exotic life vets in my country (in my city I’m 100% sure there isn’t even one)
PS: I cut her open to see the “hard” thing in her body, if I’m allowed to post it here, let me know, maybe it’ll help.
a pic of her when she was doing good, before these last sad weeks.
There are too many possibilities to determine what happened. Long term impaction would cause stress on top of other possible hidden health problems such as calcium + vitamin deficiency, kidney + liver and even heart problems. It's not uncommon for beardies to develop cancer as well. So there's no certain way to tell what exactly or if more than one condition caused her death. At least you tried to help her . I'm very sorry for this loss, my sympathy goes to you.
