Patti
Bearded Dragon Egg
- Messages
- 18
Hi everyone! I’m new here. I am an experience bearded dragon owner, and the dragon I will be talking about in this post is not my own, but my sister’s. His name is Mercury, he’s about 4 and a half years old, and I believe he has an impaction.
I arrived to my sisters house about 9-10 days ago, I checked on her beardie about 5 days in as he is housed in a room with a mean cat who doesn’t like me very much. I took him out of his cage, gave him a bath,(he pooped, there was a huge bit of urate at the end) my sister washed his cage, and I fed him some bits of boiled egg which he happily gobbled up. I read that this food should only be fed in moderation, and I was doing just that. Not even a quarter of the egg was eaten. He also ate a couple bites of banana.
The next day I got him out, gave him another good soak. He pooped again, and this time I noticed a hard lump in his abdomen on the right side.
I did a quick google search and found that he most likely had an impaction and I looked up some home remedies. I gave him daily baths for the next two days, he was pooping both in the water and in his cage normally (about twice a day) and was eating fine. He also swims around and runs around when I let him out of the cage freely. My sister does have an almost two year old so I have to be careful when I let him out. He jumps from ledges to surrounding areas and overall is very active.
On the second day after noticing his impaction I got him some organic baby prune food and fed it to him through an eye dropper. He loved it. I also got him some 100% pure pumpkin and put that in his food dish the next day with his greens which he also ate. All the while he has been eating and pooping normally, but the lump has not decreased in size. It has moved around a bit, but not down any further. Just around, like yesterday it was in the center of his abdomen whereas stated earlier it was on the right.
After feeding him the pumpkin however I noticed something strange. There was a small puddle in his cage and what looked like a pumpkin seed in the puddle. The puddle had a yellowish/orange hue to it. I cleaned it up and googled what it could be caused by. I read that it could be from the excess water he has in his system from taking baths everyday. That is a logical explanation to me because before he never got baths, so getting all this moisture and water now is probably new to his body. His poop in the bath was very fiberous, lots of chunks of undigested food, or so it would seem. But nothing looked like anything I had given him recently. Maybe bits from the impaction breaking off?
Today I woke him up around 9am, noticed his back legs were flat, but he was sleeping. I got his food dish and got him some banana, pumpkin, and greens, this time checking if there were any seeds in the pumpkin purée. I lightly touched the back of his legs and he sprung them right up, so not paralyzed.
Around 11:30 I went back in there to get him for his bath, instantly when I walked in the room I could smell his poop (very very smelly) I checked his cage to check maybe the impaction came out, no, but a lot of liquid, about 4 times as much as yesterday, today it being completely clear, and two piles of liquid poop that was practically black in color.
Right now he’s soaking again. He was messy from the poops in his cage. His lump is now in the left side and significantly smaller than it has been. I have never dealt with an impaction this bad before so I don’t know if all of this stuff is normal. I know I personally don’t have the money to take him to the vet, and my sister and her husband don’t really have the money for a vet bill either. I’m just worried it’s something more serious, but I’m probably overthinking it. It’s the water that’s freaking me out mainly. Also yesterday he didn’t eat any of his greens, but he did eat some banana and pumpkin. I learned he absolutely despises mangos so I think that turned him off to the whole dish after I tried to get him to eat a bit of one lol.
I make sure his food is chopped up to be smaller than the space between his eyes. I don’t know if my niece was doing that before as she was the one taking care of him before I got there, and quite frankly is a bit lazy when it comes down to doing anything, and will take shortcuts at any time possible. She neglected him I think for the whole 5 days I hadn’t checked on him. Maybe the impaction was from suddenly getting a lot of food where as he wasn’t getting any before?
When I went to his cage the first day he seemed to be in a brumation state. He was sleeping and all curled up. There’s no way to really know for sure though. He woke up when I turned on his light and pet him a bit.
It might be important to note here that before I arrived he was not fed regularly and was eating a lot of summer squash. He is on a vegetarian diet as they don’t get him any insects anymore. His greens intake was limited and I don’t think they turned on his light everyday. Poor guy was neglected. I’m thinking of adopting him when I leave but I will be here for a month and would have to ship him to a different state if I did. I live in Washington and currently am in Texas. If you know of any reputable shipping companies you trust, please feel free to mention them on this post please. Although, that’s not my main concern right now.
So my main question I guess would be have you ever experienced something similar to this with an impaction? Or is this more the symptoms of something else? I read with parasites they are more likely to be lethargic and moody, not eating, etc, and like I said, he seems completely fine.
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I arrived to my sisters house about 9-10 days ago, I checked on her beardie about 5 days in as he is housed in a room with a mean cat who doesn’t like me very much. I took him out of his cage, gave him a bath,(he pooped, there was a huge bit of urate at the end) my sister washed his cage, and I fed him some bits of boiled egg which he happily gobbled up. I read that this food should only be fed in moderation, and I was doing just that. Not even a quarter of the egg was eaten. He also ate a couple bites of banana.
The next day I got him out, gave him another good soak. He pooped again, and this time I noticed a hard lump in his abdomen on the right side.
I did a quick google search and found that he most likely had an impaction and I looked up some home remedies. I gave him daily baths for the next two days, he was pooping both in the water and in his cage normally (about twice a day) and was eating fine. He also swims around and runs around when I let him out of the cage freely. My sister does have an almost two year old so I have to be careful when I let him out. He jumps from ledges to surrounding areas and overall is very active.
On the second day after noticing his impaction I got him some organic baby prune food and fed it to him through an eye dropper. He loved it. I also got him some 100% pure pumpkin and put that in his food dish the next day with his greens which he also ate. All the while he has been eating and pooping normally, but the lump has not decreased in size. It has moved around a bit, but not down any further. Just around, like yesterday it was in the center of his abdomen whereas stated earlier it was on the right.
After feeding him the pumpkin however I noticed something strange. There was a small puddle in his cage and what looked like a pumpkin seed in the puddle. The puddle had a yellowish/orange hue to it. I cleaned it up and googled what it could be caused by. I read that it could be from the excess water he has in his system from taking baths everyday. That is a logical explanation to me because before he never got baths, so getting all this moisture and water now is probably new to his body. His poop in the bath was very fiberous, lots of chunks of undigested food, or so it would seem. But nothing looked like anything I had given him recently. Maybe bits from the impaction breaking off?
Today I woke him up around 9am, noticed his back legs were flat, but he was sleeping. I got his food dish and got him some banana, pumpkin, and greens, this time checking if there were any seeds in the pumpkin purée. I lightly touched the back of his legs and he sprung them right up, so not paralyzed.
Around 11:30 I went back in there to get him for his bath, instantly when I walked in the room I could smell his poop (very very smelly) I checked his cage to check maybe the impaction came out, no, but a lot of liquid, about 4 times as much as yesterday, today it being completely clear, and two piles of liquid poop that was practically black in color.
Right now he’s soaking again. He was messy from the poops in his cage. His lump is now in the left side and significantly smaller than it has been. I have never dealt with an impaction this bad before so I don’t know if all of this stuff is normal. I know I personally don’t have the money to take him to the vet, and my sister and her husband don’t really have the money for a vet bill either. I’m just worried it’s something more serious, but I’m probably overthinking it. It’s the water that’s freaking me out mainly. Also yesterday he didn’t eat any of his greens, but he did eat some banana and pumpkin. I learned he absolutely despises mangos so I think that turned him off to the whole dish after I tried to get him to eat a bit of one lol.
I make sure his food is chopped up to be smaller than the space between his eyes. I don’t know if my niece was doing that before as she was the one taking care of him before I got there, and quite frankly is a bit lazy when it comes down to doing anything, and will take shortcuts at any time possible. She neglected him I think for the whole 5 days I hadn’t checked on him. Maybe the impaction was from suddenly getting a lot of food where as he wasn’t getting any before?
When I went to his cage the first day he seemed to be in a brumation state. He was sleeping and all curled up. There’s no way to really know for sure though. He woke up when I turned on his light and pet him a bit.
It might be important to note here that before I arrived he was not fed regularly and was eating a lot of summer squash. He is on a vegetarian diet as they don’t get him any insects anymore. His greens intake was limited and I don’t think they turned on his light everyday. Poor guy was neglected. I’m thinking of adopting him when I leave but I will be here for a month and would have to ship him to a different state if I did. I live in Washington and currently am in Texas. If you know of any reputable shipping companies you trust, please feel free to mention them on this post please. Although, that’s not my main concern right now.
So my main question I guess would be have you ever experienced something similar to this with an impaction? Or is this more the symptoms of something else? I read with parasites they are more likely to be lethargic and moody, not eating, etc, and like I said, he seems completely fine.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
