Thanks for getting back to us sofast. I'm Gary's wife,he's sleeping, so I'll do my best to answer your questions. When we 1st got Miss Lizzie, she was housed in a big tank(approx 7ft long by 2.5ft wide by 2ft deep), with half of it lizard carpet and half play sand (separated by a 2by4). She had a large basking rock, a dish for water and nothing else in her cage. He said " she eats up to 15 superworms a day (at appr 2yrs of age) and some romain lettuce and I'm taking it to the pound if I can't sell it" She had NO attention, was overweight and VERY lazy. So we took her, changed her name from Miss Piggy, and put some fake leaves, a log, driftwood,a cave to hide in from the pet store and showered her with lots of love&attention. She stated to use all her new toys, lost abit of weight, was bobbing her head. She 'came to life'. After about 4 mths, we learned of all the other thingsthey can eat and changed her diet slowly but her favorite is still the super worms. After about 6mnths, she started to lay eggs. About 2mnths later (we'd had her a yr), about 2 mnths ago, we noticed a decrease in energy, loss of appetite and we thought she wanted a friend. We went to get her a mate. Found a store in Calgary, J&J Reptiles, went there and learned a bunch of stuff, including we needed to change the lighting and sand is not good.We got good lights, a male for her and started to feed them ONLY on the carpet. But i think we too late because Miss Lizzie hasn't had BM since. We've tried everything including a drop of veg oil, applesauce, and warm baths everyday for a week; gently rubbing her abdomen & armpit while
bathing. All this while trying to pack our mouse-ridden house for a move to Ontario (major roadtrip),looking after 2 kids&2dogs. We really can't afford a vet, but if you don't have any other suggestions,(enema? rubbing rt or lft armpit? ANYTHING?!) i will take her in because we move in 3 days and i wanted her well before we leave. Other things: She never uses her water dish so i started spraying her once a wk after we almost lost her about 7moths ago; not sure the kind of lights we use but J&J's a reputable dragon breeder and we got the kind suggested by them & on the beardie site; no pics but the 'sore' is on her side, kinda lumpy and about the size of a small dime, it goes blacker when her beard goes black and so do the 2 small spots on her head; i ordered a book fron the pet store before we found J&Js and when i went to pick it up they said 'what book?' so we just went on suggestions from a small pamphlet- i wish now we would've been more educated because we all love Miss Lizzie VERY much and it hurts to see her suffering.Oh- we were going to wait till we moved to get rid of the sand & replace it with slate tile,she dug in the sand alot when she was laying eggs. While i'm writing this i can't see your questions, so i hope i covered everything; Thanks, Gary& Shannon