Shaking

[Beardieguy123]

I just got my first beardie a week ago; i have been feeding him no more than 3 crickets daily with some Kale greens every other day.
Since he is a baby (no more than 8 inches) i have him in a 20 gallon tank untill he gets bigger. He seemed fine up untill today when i noticed he was shaking(back legs started twitching first) often while laying ontop of his rock. Is this something I should be worried about?

 

[Beardieguy123]

i forgot to mention:
- that he is still alert when anything moves in or around the cage
- the humidity stays between 60 and 70% and temperature is at a good 80F
-he only ate 1 cricket yesterday and nothing else since

 

[crickest]

Couple of questions for you . . .

What kind of UVB bulb are you using- type and brand?
Are you using a basking light?
When you say the temps are good at 80F - is that every where in the tank?
Can he get within 6 - 8" of the UVB?
Are the crickets you're feeding smaller than the space between his eyes?
When was his last poo?

A baby beardie should be eating 50 - 100 crickets a day, on the average, and if your beardie isn't warm enough he won't digest his food, he'll be lethargic and could become impacted because he's not digesting.

Also, you should be offering him fresh greens every day. Kale is not a good staple - a better green is turnip, mustard, collard or dandelion greens. And squash can be fed as a staple. There is a great list of foods for beardies at http://www.beautifuldragons.com. You might check it out.

Last question of the day . . .are you using calcium supplements on your feeders 5 x a week, one feeding a day? Usually, twitching is a sign of MBD, or a lack of calcium, but it could also be a sign of impaction.

 

[Beardieguy123]

-i am using 50W basking spot lamp from Zoo Med, and a 50W infrared Heat Glo lamp from Exo Terra
-that temp is the temp in entire tank
-he can get 6-8" of the UVB
- the crickets are smaller than space between his eyes
- his last poo was yesterday

the person at the pet store told me i should be feeding him 3 crickets a day...so that might also be one of the problems.
i will switch over to dandelion ASAP

the person at the store said i could go without calcium if i just throw the crickets pieces of carrots once an a while.

thanks for the information site, and do you think i should take my beardie to a veterinarian?

 

[crickest]

You want to get an Accurite digital probe therm. Walmart carries them for about 12.00. You place the therm display on the cool side of the tank and the probe in the basking spot. The basking spot should be 100 - 110 and the cool side temps should be 75 - 85. In a 20 gallon tank your cool side might be in the higher end of the cool range, because it can be difficult to get the variation in a smaller tank.

You don't need the Heat Glo lamp (is it red?) because the tank can cool at night to as low as 65. Beardies like to be cooler during the night and nice and toasty during the day.

What type of UVB bulb are you using? The reason I ask is because there are a lot of bulbs that produce inconsistent UVB and can make your dragon sick. The best bulb you can get is the ReptiSun (not reptiglo by exoterra) 10.0. I lost my first beardie, in part, because of a bad UVB bulb. If the bulb you have is the reptiglo, it is recommended to turn it off, since no UVB is better than bad UVB. (Trust me I know how bad it sucks that the pet store sold you all the wrong stuff! It happened to us too.)

I would take him to the vet. Shaking isn't normal and can be a sign of more serious troubles. I would take mine to the vet, but that's because I wouldn't want to lose another one.

Good luck and let us know how he is. . .

 

[crickest]

Oh, and the cricket thing. . . carrots don't have calcium, so feeding them to the crickets won't give your baby anything. Get some calcium without phosphorous but with D3 and dust the crickets you are feeding him in the morning. You can do that 5 times a week and then dust with multivitamin the other two mornings (I can't do this because Spark hates the taste, so we add it to the cricket food and feed mustard, dandelion and squash every day.)

You could also try phoenix worms (order online). They are high in calcium and don't need to be dusted. Beardies love them.

 

[LaShomb]

I had a green water dragon that did the same thing. He started out with only shakes in his leges and it evecholy progresed to his hole body. Just like humanes and othere animals dragons can have diforent tipes of Seizers, it is usholy junatick. Where did you get your bearded from, and how well did they take care of there animals?
You should also take him to the vet to make shore he/she is OK.

 

[causeascene203]

Get ready, here comes a lot of information :

If the shaking you're referring to looks like little tremors in the head and limbs, it's probably from a calcium deficiency. It's the start of Metabolic Bone Disease (MBD), a condition similar to osteoporosis in humans where the bones become thin and rubbery. It can do permanent damage if it isn't corrected.

The first step is to go get a calcium supplement. Unfortunately, the pet store gave you some bad advice. Your baby needs to eat much more than 3 crickets a day, and these feedings should be dusted with a calcium supplement. You want to get a supplement that provides D3. RepCal Calcium with D3 is a good supplement. As previously stated, a good UVB bulb is needed to help your baby absorb the calcium. Dragons can create their own vitamin D when under UVB. The D3 in the supplement will help give him a little extra, but it does not provide all the vitamin D needed to absorb enough calcium to prevent MBD.

This was mentioned too, but I want to reinforce it: It DOES VERY MUCH MATTER which UVB bulb you get. There have been tons of tests done on different bulbs and a lot of them are very harmful. They can cause blindness, lethargy, even death in some cases. The best bulb as of right now is the ReptiSUN 10.0. It's very expensive in stores, but you can order it for about $20 here: http://www.petmountain.com/product/reptile-fluorescent-bulbs/504983/zoo-med-reptisun-10.0-uvb-bulb.html

It is true that you want a temperature gradient in the tank, meaning one side will be cool and one side will be hot. Crickest gave some good advice. Most of us here have our basking lamp on one side of the tank and our UVB light all the way across the back. Put something beneath the lamp for your baby to climb on, and voila! You have a hot side, a cool side, and a basking spot.

Adding a good source of UVB and a calcium supplement will stop the shaking and increase his appetite.

(Since you just got him a week ago, he may be going through a bit of relocation stress as well, which will decrease his appetite. This can last up to 2 weeks, so don't be alarmed if he's not eating as much as he should.)

 

[Beardieguy123]

i would like to thank everyone for contributing, your advice is very much appreciated

-the heat glo lamp is red
all the pet store person told me; after i made her go through the store looking for exactly what i needed was that i would be good with a 50W ZOO MED basking lamp and the 50W heat glo

i managed to get him into a vet on monday, untill then they told me to syringe feed him baby food with beef every hour.

Causeascene...is there a chance he can recover from this if these symptoms just started happening today?
I already changed the tank so that theres a temperature gradient going from warm on left side to cool on right side

 

[causeascene203]

Oh yes, it's very treatable at this stage! The sooner you can go pick up a calcium supplement and order the UVB bulb the better, though.

(In case you're curious, the condition is based on too little calcium in the diet. When there isn't enough calcium, the body begins to draw calcium out of bones and cartilage to make up for low concentrations of calcium in the blood. It works like a balance: when there's too much calcium in the blood, it gets deposited in the skeletal system. When there's too little calcium in the blood, it gets drawn out of the skeletal system. When calcium is removed from the bones consistently, it can make them very soft and rubbery. It can also cause deformities as the condition progresses. Early on it's common to see jaw misalignment, like an under- or over-bite, bumps or bends in the spine and swelling in the limbs, particularly in the wrists.
When blood calcium is low, it can cause little tremors in the limbs and head, and then progresses to full-body seizures if the blood calcium concentrations are low enough. Treatment aims at raising the concentration of calcium in the blood by adding calcium to the diet. Once that's raised, the body will stop drawing calcium out of the bones. In the long term, the aim is to keep the blood calcium consistent enough to allow the calcium to be deposited back into the bones. It's very similar to osteoporosis in humans.)

If it is the beginnings of MBD and not something else, the vet will probably prescribe something called Calcium Glubionate, a liquid calcium supplement. It's absorbed a bit better than the powdered supplements and will help bring the blood concentrations back up, but again, you do need to pick up a good source of UVB to help the dragon absorb it. After treatment, if you use the powdered supplements consistently, the bones will build back up.

At this point, your baby is probably just beginning to experience low blood calcium. It should be very easy to rectify.

 

[Beardieguy123]

UPDATE ON BRYAN!

thanks to the advice from you guys as well as the vet (feeding him baby food with beef through a syringe hourly, has brought his activity level up as well as halt the shaking)

i purchased a bunch of crickets and calcium powder with vitamin d3 (the correct portions too) from a pet store.

i still plan on taking him into the vet on monday, so i will have a better update by then.

 

[diamc]

Hi there :wave: I wanted to say welcome to the forum. You have been given some great detailed info that will be very helpful to your little beardie. It does definitely sound like the beginnings of metabolic bone disease which I unfortunately have seen first hand but if caught in time, it can be reversed. We had only a 3 1/2 inch baby that experienced the same symptoms (misinformed by the pet store too) and after having the Repti-Sun 10.0 fluorescent bulb for only 2 days, his terribly twitching and spasms totally disappeared. We also gave frequent baths, massaged his legs quite often and encouraged and helped him move his legs around in the water. Babies can also get dehydrated very quickly, so bathing in warm water (tested by the inside of your wrist) at least 3 to 4 times a wk is a good idea. Add enough water to cover his front legs and be sure to put a washcloth down so that he feels more secure. Also having your fingers available for him to grasp on to will also encourage him to stay in longer. A 15 to 20 minute bath helps with proper hydration. Be sure to watch him closely as they can drown in a very small amount of water.

Temps are also very critical so be sure to get an accurate thermometer asap. With the probe thermometer that was mentioned, it takes about 45 min to get the final readings. The probe has to be touching the basking log or rock. If you find the Acurite with the dual readout, the "out" reading will be for the basking temp and the "in" reading for the cool side. It also has a humidity readout which is very good to know. You won't want a basking temp any higher than 110 and the humidity should be less than 50 so if you have a water dish in his tank, I suggest you remove it to try to lower the humidity.

If you're using the red bulb in the tank during the day, please replace with a bright white bulb as the red ones are hard on their eyes. They also do better with white bulbs and it helps increase their activity level which helps with their appetites. You can even use a standard household light bulb which is work fine & are much cheaper.

That's good that you have a vet appt all set up. The vet may even give a calcium ingestion to help him too.


I don't think you mentioned what substrate is on the bottom of the tank. But, since the pet store gave you so much bad info, please let us know what you are using. If it is any type of sand, especially calci or vita-sand, those are extremely dangerous and deadly. They encourage them to lick it as one contains calcium and the other vitamins, but it hardens in their bellies like cement making it just about impossible to pass. A solid substrate is much safer, especially for a baby.

Glad to hear that he is acting better already. You might want to consider feeding chicken baby food as well as squash with a pinch of the calcium in it and diluted just a little to thin it. The chicken is easier for them to digest. Here's a site that shows the best greens/veggies to feed: http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html

I'm sorry if I repeated anything that was already mentioned, just didn't want to leave anything out. Please be sure to keep us updated on Bryan. If you can, we'd love to have you share some pictures of him. :wink:

 

[Beardieguy123]

since i got him, i have been using paper on the bottom of the terrarium

thank you for the help and welcome diamc

 

[chancellor91]

just to let u kno, kale is okay as a treat but not the best everyother day because it inhibits calcium intake

 

[causeascene203]

Glad to hear he's doing a bit better! Let us know how the vet appointment goes.