Had a stressful weekend!

[Broly]

Hey guys, so my son and I have had a pretty stressful weekend. He was admitted to hospital on Saturday and we had to stay in until last night (Monday). But it’s just him and I at home so of corse I had the added worry of our 5 month old beardie! (We’re home now and beardie is fine!).

On Sunday I was allowed to leave for an hour max so I grabbed a taxi home, fed Broly some calci-worms and a few Dubai roaches, changed his water, refreshed his salad and then got the taxi straight back to the hospital. His lights are on timers so that was of no concern. Prior to the weekend he had been shedding so was not really feeling himself and had less of an appetite. When I arrived home Sunday he’d finished shedding and was back to being super alert and super hungry! He even ate ALL his salad from his bowl (usually he’ll eat some hand fed but I’ve not yet known him to eat it all, or from the bowl). The hospital staff only allowed me to leave due to the concern of our pet and the promise I would go straight home and back with no other outside contact (due to Covid concerns). Usually they wouldn’t allow this. It was also very stressful having to leave my son there.

Anyway, all was ok in the end!

But it has left me thinking how serious it could have been to leave a juvenile beardie without any care for a long weekend. Is the main concern the lack of food/protein or the lack of calcium (from dusting)? Providing UVA & UVB are on timers and still provided.

Prior to committing to our beardie, I was always aware that we would have to ensure we were not away for more than a night at a time or that we had someone arranged to pop in to care for him if we were away longer but I didn’t really account for situations like this that are out of our control. I know this was only a few days but it could have been longer.

Excuse the length of the thread but I wanted to open it up for discussion. What is best to do in these sort of situations and what is the likelihood that you’d arrive home to the worst case scenario (unresponsive beardie)?

 

[HoomanSlave]

I hope everything is going well with you and your son now. In case of any kind of emergency that requires you to leave your pet behind, you should have a notebook or paper somewhere with your phone number and your pet's name, gender, age, and care instructions. If you need an emergency pet sitter or if someone comes to rescue your pet, their job will be easier because of the information provided, and it will be less complicated for them to reunite you with your pet. In case that person doesn't want to handle roaches or if the feeder insects are dead for whatever reason, it's good to have a backup protein source such as canned or gel food.

If you're concerned about the juvenile beardie not getting food, you can leave a dish of canned insects, salad, or harmless worms (such as BSFL) for the beardie to eat. If you have Repashy or other gel mix on hand, that's even better than canned bugs. Although he may not get a full meal, he'll have enough in his belly to last several more hours. You can also put dubia roaches in the cage for the day if you remove their heads or legs (I'm aware how crazy that sounds), or pop them in the fridge.

A baby or juvenile dragon shouldn't go without food for more than 24 hours. An adult can easily make it through a weekend without food, though it's not super pleasant for them. As long as the beardie is given food sometime during the 24 hours, even if it's before you leave, your beardie will most likely be fine, but very hungry. I hope this helped!

 

[Broly]

I hope everything is going well with you and your son now. In case of any kind of emergency that requires you to leave your pet behind, you should have a notebook or paper somewhere with your phone number and your pet's name, gender, age, and care instructions. If you need an emergency pet sitter or if someone comes to rescue your pet, their job will be easier because of the information provided, and it will be less complicated for them to reunite you with your pet. In case that person doesn't want to handle roaches or if the feeder insects are dead for whatever reason, it's good to have a backup protein source such as canned or gel food.

If you're concerned about the juvenile beardie not getting food, you can leave a dish of canned insects, salad, or harmless worms (such as BSFL) for the beardie to eat. If you have Repashy or other gel mix on hand, that's even better than canned bugs. Although he may not get a full meal, he'll have enough in his belly to last several more hours. You can also put dubia roaches in the cage for the day if you remove their heads or legs (I'm aware how crazy that sounds), or pop them in the fridge.

A baby or juvenile dragon shouldn't go without food for more than 24 hours. An adult can easily make it through a weekend without food, though it's not super pleasant for them. As long as the beardie is given food sometime during the 24 hours, even if it's before you leave, your beardie will most likely be fine, but very hungry. I hope this helped!

That’s really helpful, I definitely think it’s wise for me to get some canned food or gel mix incase of emergency or incase a family member who’s not willing to feed live insects has to pop in. Hopefully this won’t happen again but when I was in that situation it dawned on me I wouldn’t really know what to do had it been much longer! Luckily I was able to get back to ensure he was ok. He’s very happy to have us back! And we are relieved, settled and ready for a quiet Christmas!

 

[Broly]