The things we do for our beardies

[isu712]

So, my beardies appetitie has been diminishing in the last couple of months to the point where she pretty much quit eating a couple weeks ago. Because of this she's gotten rather thin. I took her to the vet yesterday to see if he could tell what was going on. He asked about her enclosure (basking temps, UVB, etc.) and after I described it he said that everything was good. He took an x-ray to make sure she wasn't impacted and didn't find anything there. So, he sent me home with some antibiotics in case it's parasites. I'm going to be bringing in a fecal, but because she doesn't really eat she doesn't poop often either, so this is going to be a bit of a waiting game. He also told me to force feed her (I never thought I'd see the day that you would have to force feed a beardie), so that I can try to get her to start gaining some weight. I just finished feeding her 3 crickets and man was it a pain in the butt. I know that only 3 crickets isn't much, but at least it is a place to start.

I just wanted to share the experience and I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to get her to open her mouth. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[mischa]

You can ask the vet for some needless syringes, they should give them to you for free, and u can make your beardie a slurry. All you have to do is blend up some crickets, favorite greens, you can add some baby food or some water also. Now to get your beardies mouth open, what I did when I had to do this for Mischa was take the tip of the syringe and gently wedge it between your beardies lips towards the side and gently slide it towards the back and your beardie should open its mouth.

 

[isu712]

I'll give that a try to get her mouth open. The vet recommended that I try it with intact crickets first so I think I'm just going to go that way at first as she will eat the crickets if they are in her mouth.

 

[herpfreak]

Good job! That's so good of you to stay by her side. Sorry, I don't have any force-feeding tips, but I wish you the best of luck!!!! I hope she gets better!

 

[Grommet]

Collard greens are firm enough to slip between the lips of your beardie and get him chewing. Once the chewing action starts you can place (one at a time, and not too fast) protein or greens in to keep him chewing. Or you can make a slurry out of his meal and use the syringe. Just be careful not to let your beardie bite off the tip of the syringe and never use a glass syringe to feed.

Good luck and great you are taking such great care of you beardie!
Kailin

 

[Pamela]

I had a beardie that i had to force feed for a year and a half, before he started to eat on his own.Like Mischa said but with Joey i would have to start from the back and work the syringe to the front of the mouth.Joey is now a beautiful adult Beardie he lives with my hubbys co-worker and his daughter now. He is very spoiled and loved.And yes he does eat on his own so it is worth all of the feedings and syringes we went through. Good luck and keep up the good work. Pamela

 

[isu712]

Whole crickets worked for a little while, but after a couple of days she started to spit them out and it got rather frustrating. The vet also had something called Oxbow Carnivore Care (I think that's what it's called, the package isn't near me right now. It a powder that you can mix with water and make sort of a shake that I've been feeding her with a syringe. I'm going to continue with this until she gains some weight and then try getting her to eat on her own.

 

[isu712]

I weighed my beardie today and she put on 10 grams in a week, so hopefully I can get this to continue. Can anyone tell me if this is a decent amount of weight gain? I've never had to monitor this before, so I don't know what is a decent amount of weight gain.

 

[isu712]

I just weighed my beardie again and she came in at 210 grams!!! So that's 40 grams in just over 3 weeks. I was pretty psyched so I figured I'd share the good news with everyone.

 

[Jiffy]

Congrats on the beardie weight gain!

 

[herpfreak]

Yaaay! Congrats!