speedyfuzzball
Hatchling Member
My brother got a bearded dragon, Yoshi, around late July of 2011 and we recently took him to the vet who thinks (they wanted to perform a biopsy on a sample but we couldn't afford it so we don't actually know) he has yellow fungus. It has spread through most of his chest/stomach area as well as parts of his legs, arms, and anal area. His back left leg is swollen and two of his fingers are missing. We got medication for him to last 10 days after which we are supposed to go back to the vet to see if there's any progress... I just spoke to my mother who said that her and my dad aren't willing to pay any extra for vet visits or medicine.. Basically she's saying if he gets better after the 10 days of medication (which he won't because I heard treatment for yellow fungus is very lengthy), then we'll continue caring for him but if not, he's going to have to be put down. I guess I just wanted to know what his chances are of surviving fungus this severe...
Here is some background info on him:
He was purchased at Petco. In his first few months with us (I'm going to guess around 6 months but I'm not 100% certain), his diet consisted of about 10 small crickets that were dusted with calcium powder daily and bearded dragon pellets, which lasted for the first few months, and eventually the calcium sprinkling stopped. Then the crickets stopped. Eventually it was just the pellets and very rarely, some vegetables. My brother was misinformed about the diet of these lizards and thought that Yoshi didn't need crickets OR calcium after about 6 months. I actually started noticing the hard bits of "fungus" or whatever it is on his body a while ago but thought it was skin that hadn't shed off yet and thought it would soon. His leg started swelling and I tried to look up what could have caused that and found that it might be metabolic bone diseases so I started to dust his pellets with calcium and purchased large crickets for him whenever I could (usually once a week) but he wasn't interested in them after like 5 or 6.
I now know that a bearded dragon was obviously not a good first pet for a 11 year old and as much as I regret my brother getting Yoshi, there is nothing I could do about that now except for try and find more information on all of this. I'm sorry this is very disorganized; I'm just very upset but I did want to get this out as soon as possible. Please, if anyone has words of advice or anything, please let me know.
Here is some background info on him:
He was purchased at Petco. In his first few months with us (I'm going to guess around 6 months but I'm not 100% certain), his diet consisted of about 10 small crickets that were dusted with calcium powder daily and bearded dragon pellets, which lasted for the first few months, and eventually the calcium sprinkling stopped. Then the crickets stopped. Eventually it was just the pellets and very rarely, some vegetables. My brother was misinformed about the diet of these lizards and thought that Yoshi didn't need crickets OR calcium after about 6 months. I actually started noticing the hard bits of "fungus" or whatever it is on his body a while ago but thought it was skin that hadn't shed off yet and thought it would soon. His leg started swelling and I tried to look up what could have caused that and found that it might be metabolic bone diseases so I started to dust his pellets with calcium and purchased large crickets for him whenever I could (usually once a week) but he wasn't interested in them after like 5 or 6.
I now know that a bearded dragon was obviously not a good first pet for a 11 year old and as much as I regret my brother getting Yoshi, there is nothing I could do about that now except for try and find more information on all of this. I'm sorry this is very disorganized; I'm just very upset but I did want to get this out as soon as possible. Please, if anyone has words of advice or anything, please let me know.