Update on our sick baby

[Zeus Crawford]

Wanted to give an update on our Zeusy-girl! Quick recap- we beloved Zeus to be a male, but end of June, SHE started passing what we determined to be eggs. She struggled hard for several days to pass them, yea we gave her a dig box (play sand and eco fiber), and she got the substrate in her eyes and got an infection. We finally found a vet an hour away, they determined severe calcium deficiency (again, no clue she needed a calcium boost when gravid, bc we thought we had a he), they gave her a calcium and a vitamin injection and antibiotic eye drops. She started to get worse instead of better, so we went back to the vet. They sedated her to take blood, clean her eyes, more X-rays, and a full body exam. She had a bound egg that caused the infection. Vet put her on meloxicam and an antibiotic injection. Pathology suggested that we put her down because she was too sick for surgery and the infection was too bad, actually said she was septic and her kidneys were failing.
Well…after so much love, following all vet directions, annd some husbandry improvements—Our Zeusy-girl is showing so much improvement!! We have two more antibiotic injections left (Saturday and Tuesday), we’re all done with the eye drops, and she’s up to 4mL twice a day of Repashy beardie buffet via syringe (2 parts water to 1 part powder). Come Monday, we are allowed to start offering solid food again!
We’re going on six weeks with our sick baby now, but it’s totally looking like she’s headed for a full recovery!
She has always loved her baths, but since laying her first egg in June, she just layed there in the water, didn’t drink, didn’t move around much, nothing. Today, she actually went for a whole swim and was rewarded with a big healthy poop!!!
We put her in the shallow end and she always heads to the deeper side for a swim, and then comes back to the shallow. The attached video is her third swim during this bath I could only upload 5 seconds. It was SO GOOD to see her back to herself!

Keep rooting for her!!!!

 

[hdochow]

that is so good to hear! any progress is good progress in my opinion. keep on giving us updates and pics/videos!

 

[xp29]

That's great news. There are so many sad stories here we love the stories with happy endings.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

That is a sweet swimming video, she looks happy there!
She has come a long way, it's so nice to see a good ending!
They can really develop a lot of egg issues so I am happy she has improved so much.
How much longer will she be on the metacam? Hopefully she will be off of anymore of
the antibiotics too.

Thanks for the wonderful update on your girl!

Tracie

 

[Zeus Crawford]

We gave her last antibiotic injection on Tuesday. She only had the meloxicam for three days.
I do have a question you may be able to answer. She still won’t eat on her own. We’ve offered both greens and bugs. My son offered a super worm a couple days ago and she ate that, but it was like she was eating in slow motion. She doesn’t seem to have her normal jaw power or something. She is absolutely refusing (still) to eat salad at all.
My question, how long can I feed her the Repashy beardie buffet? She’s up to 5mL via syringe twice a day. It’s 2pt water to 1pt Repashy mix, and is the gel mix. I totally don’t mind the syringe feedings at all, I just want to make sure she’s getting adequate nutrition. If that’s her only source of food, is it enough? Should I be adding something to it?

 

[xp29]

The meds can jack them up for weeks just keep trying

 

[Zeus Crawford]

The meds can jack them up for weeks just keep trying

As I totally figured, I just want to make sure she is getting adequate nutrition for the time being. Is what she’s getting sufficient?

 

[xp29]

Tracie @Drache613 is probably the best to ask for quantity.