Smelly Green Poop

[lettergram]

Hello, my bearded dragon is a 6 months old, 8 inch (from snout to tail), brightly colored female. It is in a 20 gallon tank currently, with 110 degree basking spot, uvb light within 12 inches kept in 40-60% humidity, with a cool side of the cage roughly 75 degrees. Currently, I have calcium sand (for about 2 weeks and she does not eat), a water dish, a couple rocks, food dish, and little box where she prefers to sleep at night. She has been fed collard greens, green beans, rep-cal food, zoo meds food (though she would rarely take a bite), crickets (which were fed the left over zoo med food), and occasional meal worm, and a couple of times peas and broccoli. I have had her since she was a couple weeks old and bought her from a breeder.

For the last two weeks or a little longer (previous to moving her to calcium sand) her poop has been slightly smelly, almost not noticing it at all near the beginning. Then about a week ago she pooped some collard greens which didn't look to be digested at all. After which time all of her poop was diarrhea and smelled pretty bad, until three days ago when it was almost all green liquid, and smelled awful. At which point I fed her a bunch of crickets and broccoli (some bacteria have trouble with too much acid, such as the vitamin C from broccoli) which seemed to cut down the smell and make the poop solid. However, her belly seems pretty large and although she doesn't seem too lethargic (she runs around and such), she doesn't seem as peppy as usual.

I know most will say just bring her to the vet, but it is $30 to check the poop for parasites and $50 to bring it in too the only reptile doctor around. I will bring her in if she gets much worse, but anyone have any ideas? I have been keeping her well hydrated and she is eating anything I give her with zeal.

Anyone with any help?

 

[Mirthy]

My vet lets me bring in a poop sample without bringing in my dragon. Perhaps your vet will also? That will save $50 bucks and let you know for certain if it is parasites or not.
If it is parasites, you should rethink the sand choice and just use something totally disposable like newspaper or towels so you can throw them away after each poop.
My dragon is having a similar problem and after the fecal, we know it isn't worms so we can avoid that extra treatment and cost completely. It might save you money in the long run, just saying. cuz as you probably already know, smelly poo and runny poo are usually parasites (but apparently, not always)

Are you using one of those stick on humidity gauges? Your humidity is reading high. Mine was and then I realized it actually wasn't, it was just a lousy gauge. I got a acurite digital humidity gauge from Wal Mart for under $10 and suddenly my readings went from 30-45% to 16%. I've heard plenty of stories about them being off 5-20%. If it isn't your gauge, do you have something in there that is making your tank extra damp? Did it go up when you put in the sand, is it possibly holding moisture because, say, your dragon splash through the water dish a lot and gets the sand wet? I don't know if it is causing your problem or not but it is a bit on the high side so it's something to double check

Be careful with the broccoli, it has goitrogens which can cause problems. It is a feed rarely, if ever food. Here is a great chart for greens and which are good or bad and why. http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html You can see on their chart that peas and green beans have some oxalates which can bind calcium which in turn doesn't let it be absorbed if given too much and how awesomely perfect collard greens really are.

I'm just another novice dragon keeper but I've been going through the same issue. I know my dragon doesn't have parasites and I'm trying to figure out what to do next. (my thread is posted here, too) I hope your dragon feels better really soon. I'll be keeping an eye out to see how your beardie is doing. Keep us updated.

Carrie

Oh, why the change to sand? I'm sure from your mentioning that she doesn't eat it, you know there can be such risks. I'm just curious if you considered getting her a 'toy box' to dig in, instead?

 

[pyffersnpaws]

What type of UVB light does she have? How close can she get to it. Ideally it should be a Reptisun 10.0 or the arcadia d3 12% linear tube bulb. If you have a different bulb or a coil or compact, that could be cause for the way the poop is, the uvb plays a huge part in their digesting their food.

 

[lettergram]

What type of UVB light does she have? How close can she get to it. Ideally it should be a Reptisun 10.0 or the arcadia d3 12% linear tube bulb. If you have a different bulb or a coil or compact, that could be cause for the way the poop is, the uvb plays a huge part in their digesting their food.

It is a reptisun 5.0 because I have not gotten around to getting a 10.0 bulb (due to the cost, i'm in a pinch until summer because i'm away at school). I do however put it very close to her and feed her Calcium and D3 powdered crickets. She is always within 12 inches of it or closer.

 

[lettergram]

Oh, why the change to sand? I'm sure from your mentioning that she doesn't eat it, you know there can be such risks. I'm just curious if you considered getting her a 'toy box' to dig in, instead?

The sand was given to me as a gift because "it would look cooler" so I figured I would try it out. I was using papertowels and regret switching now... I"ll go back soon I think. and Thank you for the website that will help alot!

 

[Mirthy]

The sand was given to me as a gift because "it would look cooler" so I figured I would try it out. I was using papertowels and regret switching now... I"ll go back soon I think. and Thank you for the website that will help alot!

yeh, that's about all sand has going for it ,looks I just started putting down paper towels down with Norris' tiles because of the diarrhea. I don't even want to think about the mess with sand LOL It's so much easier to just pull something out and toss it when there is a problem.
Someone gave that site to me and it helped me out tons so I'm just passing it along. No doubt you'll do the same