Tough burmation ? (lengthy)

[Screamin99]

I have officially had Lazlo as a pet a year and one month, he is my first dragon and I have tried my best to provide the best care possible to him thanks to the tips and tricks and info I have learned through many of everyones posts and answers on this site.

Here is his tank setup:

55gallon long (48x11x24)
2ft Repti-Sun 10 TUBE ( I just got this to replace the solar glo that I was told to buy this when the mega-ray was giving so many problems )
Bask 65 watt housebulb
Bask temp 103-106* It varies throughout the day and depending on outside temp it gets a little warmer.

He is able to get within 7-9 inches of the light depending on how hes laying or sitting.

I was feeding him crickets and around Jan when his first megaray went bad I had to switch him to other foods, I started buying all sorts of worms and was feeding hornworms a lot throughout the summer until he started having very runny stool and I started moving him to supers which he has been eating up until just recently.

His bask has a bit of a hide under it to where he can stick his head under or sometimes he shoves his body in there and sticks his head out facing the opposite side of the tank. Hes refusing to eat anything.. Greens,squash,supers. I have some reptiworms coming to try him on those. The thing is, he just lays under the hot side of his tank either with his head under the log or his body under there and his head out. Ive been giving baths every few days and I will syringe feed some squash baby food with his calcium and multivitamins. I had a stool check done just last week and he came back with coccidia nothing bad but a slightly higher than normal level. He also had another type that he said is not seen very often, but I cannot remember the name of it and he said it wouldn't be a big deal if we treat them both or not.

So here I am.. I need some advice.

Typically what I do with Lazlo is I lay a small white towel over him at night while he is sleeping to keep some of the Light away from him, and I also have a towel on the front of his tank to help him sleep.

If I leave the towel on him he will stay under the towel. Sometimes I can see under the towel and see that he is infact not 100% asleep but rather has a weird tired groggy look to him. If I uncover him he just stays in the same spot. If I get him out and place him on the bask he gets down and goes back under the bask after a little while. After a bath and a force feed he will stay on the bask a little longer and gape, then he will sometimes get down and go to the cool side and then walk back over to the bask and stand for a second only to shove himself under the thing again.

Should I just go ahead and leave him covered until he decides to come out on his own? How long do I go before giving him another bath? He was eating sparingly up until about last week and he was not having a bowel movement. Tonight I gave him baby food in a syringe about 10-15ml worth total with his calcium mixed in, but if he is anything like his usual self he will not go to the bathroom for another 3-4 days and thats with me giving baths.

Im just lost, no idea what to do next or where to go from here. I cut a shoebox up and put his towel in it and placed it on the cool side and even put him in there.. he was going in it and then coming right back out, standing on the top of it and just hanging out, then he went straight back under his bask log.

Do I leave him covered? How often do I give him a bath? how often should I be offering food? How often should I force feed him if he isn't eating what im offering.

I have butternut squash cut up fine along with turnip and mustard greens, but he just is not interested.

 

[spyder79]

Hmm. Well first what was the other parasite your vet found? Is your vet qualified to work with exotics (ie does he know what he is doing as not all vets are capable of dealing with reptiles correctly)? Did he give you anything to treat the coccidia? Any heightened levels can cause problems and the activity you are speaking of plus the positive fecal add up to problems in my book. If we knew the count on cocci and the name of the other parasite it would be far easier to diagnose. Yes it is the time of year for brumation in the us but any parasitic problems left untreated prior to going into brumation can quickly grow to astronomical numbers due to your dragons systemsbeing dormant during brumation.

Your setup sounds fine so I do not see any issues there. I do suggest finding out the info I asked above and posting it here that way we can determine if any meds are neccessary. Best of luck to your dragon.

 

[Screamin99]

Hmm. Well first what was the other parasite your vet found? Is your vet qualified to work with exotics (ie does he know what he is doing as not all vets are capable of dealing with reptiles correctly)? Did he give you anything to treat the coccidia? Any heightened levels can cause problems and the activity you are speaking of plus the positive fecal add up to problems in my book. If we knew the count on cocci and the name of the other parasite it would be far easier to diagnose. Yes it is the time of year for brumation in the us but any parasitic problems left untreated prior to going into brumation can quickly grow to astronomical numbers due to your dragons systemsbeing dormant during brumation.

Your setup sounds fine so I do not see any issues there. I do suggest finding out the info I asked above and posting it here that way we can determine if any meds are neccessary. Best of luck to your dragon.

Thanks for the reply.. I will give him a call tomorrow and ask. He is a licensed and works with exotics. Hes quite fond of Bearded Dragons and he keeps a few at the office. I was actually shown a search engine by state that had a list of known Herp vets and his name was on the list. Ive been seeing him since January when he was acting funny and I thought maybe it was burmation, but he was really just having a hard bout with coccidia. After a week of meds on sulfameth (I think?) I took a stool in and he said the numbers were much lower and that I could stop offering the meds.

 

[Screamin99]

Ok, finally got around to talking to him today.

He had coccidia which he said were high but not too bad.. He said that its common to see them in all dragons but its when the levels get sorta high that you need to get worried. He said the other parasite was Moxiuris which im not sure Im spelling that correctly but I gave it a shot (yes a long one most likely, LOL) He said that he has 3-4 people with dragons doing the same things and they are all acting like lazlo. He said that one of them he had noted had both coccidia and moxiuris and that he treated with Pancur (spelling?) and that they reported that the dragon did much better after being treated but that 2 weeks later he is now developed regurgitation and is bringing up his meals and when he is eating he is doing exactly like lazlo, not having a bowel movement.

Kinda odd that theres 4-5 dragons all in the same area doing the same things.

Hes still chalking it up as a burmation thing but said we could treat if I wanted to that it would be no problem. I asked what would happen if we left the parasites to go untreated and left him go off into burmation and he said that nothing at all would happen actually?

 

[spyder79]

Ok, finally got around to talking to him today.

He had coccidia which he said were high but not too bad.. He said that its common to see them in all dragons but its when the levels get sorta high that you need to get worried. He said the other parasite was Moxiuris which im not sure Im spelling that correctly but I gave it a shot (yes a long one most likely, LOL) He said that he has 3-4 people with dragons doing the same things and they are all acting like lazlo. He said that one of them he had noted had both coccidia and moxiuris and that he treated with Pancur (spelling?) and that they reported that the dragon did much better after being treated but that 2 weeks later he is now developed regurgitation and is bringing up his meals and when he is eating he is doing exactly like lazlo, not having a bowel movement.

Kinda odd that theres 4-5 dragons all in the same area doing the same things.

Hes still chalking it up as a burmation thing but said we could treat if I wanted to that it would be no problem. I asked what would happen if we left the parasites to go untreated and left him go off into burmation and he said that nothing at all would happen actually?

yeah it is important to treat these parasites. Pnacur would be the right treatment. The reason the other person's dragon has developed regurge problems is likely due to having not used a probiotic after the treatment. You need to run accidophilis for a few weeks after treating with panacur to help bring its systems back into the norm.