SAD NEWS (AGAIN,) HEALTHY DRAGON DIES

[midnight_962002]

Karen,

In my opinion you do want to wait a couple of weeks to let your beardie get settled before you take them out to the vet. This will help them normalize the digestive track and coccida levels. As suggested sand is ok but, there are other things for substrate that is better. What where you feeding your dragon? The parasites usually come from the food source. If the food source isn't clean then your dragon isn't clean.

I hope this helps

Ernie

 

[kjmarcus]

Sparky had been pooping up until the day before he became suddenly limp and unwell. You have all been most helpful. Sparky seemed fine until about 8 days into the treatment for his parasites. I suspect that the problem was the medications were too harsh for a dragon under 6 months as suggested. We thought we were doing the right think to take him for a check up as soon as we bought him. I think that the exotic pet vet probably had not really seen many young ones and just assumed that if his stool grew parasites, he should be treated. However, he was perfectly fine with the parasites and perhaps it would have been advisable to just wait a little longer until he was older to administer the medications. He had been eating fine with the parasites and so perhaps the anti-parasitic meds were too harsh. We were surely clean and sanitize the terrarium and will use carpet or paper towels instead of substrate to be safe.
Karen

 

[TheVirus]

Hey,

You should give us a run down of your husbandry. Healthy animals don't just die and most causes of death can be traced back to husbandry. I'm not saying that this was the case, but better be safe than sorry.

I put hatchlings on sand. I don't have impaction problems. I've hatched at least a thousand babies. If a beardie becomes impacted from sand, then you have serious husbandry issues. Most likely low basking temps, a poor basking site, and dehydration. People shouldn't blame the sand, but instead blame themselves for not knowing how to set up an environment that allows a dragon to use their bodies to the best of their abilities. Cold blooded=environmental conditions dependent .

Parasites live off the host. If the host dies they die. The parasite doesn't want to kill the host. A healthy animal can keep them in check and they co-exist. They live off the host and and in turn help the host digest food. An unhealthy beardie, or a beardie kept in less than standard conditions, can't keep the parasites "in check" and the parasites run rampid and kill the host. This is usually due to the beardie having low basking temps, dehydration, and stress due to poor hide spots and/or force handling. Good luck.

 

[vickson420]

Hi
I do agree it would be a good idea to go over your husbandry.I do have to disagree in regards to the sand being ok and not causing impaction with babies but we will leave that part out.Husbandry is key and yes naturally coccidia is supposed to be present and necessary however there are others that should not and are transfered mostly by their feeders.I would however hold off on fecals for the first few weeks as the coccidia is always abnormally high at this point.Oh and BTW handling the animal does not cause parasites so please dont misunderstand that as a possible cause.

 

[burt1016]

i am sorry for your dragons. i have had the same thing happen

 

[TheVirus]

Hey Vickson420,

I think you misunderstood me. I was talking about new dragons. Handling doesn't cause parasites to infest the dragons. But the stress from handling, especially force handling, causes the animal to bask less, hide more, and eat less. When people get new dragons they tend to hold them right away, which makes an already stressed animal even more stressed. If the dragon already has parasites, and basks less in an already too low basking spot, parasites can get out of control.

 

[vickson420]

Yup I misunderstood I though you meant handling in general.You are correct minimal handling with newbies is best to help minimize relocation issues.

 

[Drache613]

Hello Karen,

Sorry to hear about your recent losses, that is too bad.
There is a mixed opinion regarding sand, or not using sand. Alot of people successfully use sand & do not have any problems. However, alot of people have problems with the sand. The calcium based sands just really are not safe.
A big reason, other than impaction, that I do not recommend sand is that it harbors too much bacteria. They are literally sitting in their toilet or running through it all of the time. Even if you scoop it out, residual liquid & bacteria can get trapped in the sand. That is the main reason I do not advocate it. They do not sit in their toilet out in the wild, so why should we make them do that in captivity? It is almost like making your cat live in his catbox or something.
So, we should go over your tank setup to make sure everything is correct. I did want to go over the medication amounts that he was on. A perfectly healthy dragon can die from overmedication, unfortunately. I hope that was not the culprit.
We will help you however we can to get the proper setup for your next one.
Do not worry about handling. If the setup is good, they do not mind handling. We handled our dragon from day one & never once did we have any problems with parasites. It is all relative, though all dragons are different. Some are more skittish than others so you have to just watch his behavior as to how much you can or should handle him as he is settling in.

Tracie

 

[Tatty]

I have quit keeping my beardies on sand. I keep a very simple set up for adults and babies. I clean it frequently and sanitize it with chlorox wipes. I keep newspaper on the bottom and change it daily. I currently have four beardies. The oldest is five years old, three years old, 1.5 years old and a four month old. Good sanitation has been the key for me.

"Tatty"

Beardies are well worth the effort it takes to understand them. I hope you are blessed with the joy of another dragon.