venatosapiens
Bearded Dragon Egg
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- 2
Hi, all! For three years, I've been battling a somewhat odd diarrhea problem in my bearded dragon, and after a couple of different vet visits have failed to address the issue, I thought I'd check in here and see what y'all thought.
The basics: Arroyo is a roughly five year old female dragon. She came to me as a rehome in late 2020, and has been alert and feisty. She's had a few health scares but generally has gotten a clean bill of health at most of her vet visits. She's kept in a 4x2x2 bioactive vivarium with an active microfaunal population that's spot cleaned regularly, with a hot temperature of 105-107 and a cool temperature of around 85-88 on hot days. (The only space to keep her is a side-room with poor insulation, so managing heat here in Texas during summers is sometimes an issue.) She , eats pretty well (though she's picky about her greens) and receives a base diet of collared, mustard and turnip greens, with accents of bell pepper, carrot and yellow squash, and occasionally okra, parsley, and kale. Plus dusted dubia roaches (fed on vegetable scraps and dubia feed) and mealworms. She flatly refuses to drink standing water in her bath, though she will (very occasionally!) condescend to lap up water if she's misted.
The issue: my gal has never once, in the three years that I've had her, taken a proper bearded dragon-shaped poop. Her stools are loose at the best of times, and are often war crimes -- vast, liquid diarrhea explosions. I've had them tested for parasites, and she did once have coccidia that required a full rebuild of her enclosure, but she's tested negative for that multiple times this year, including stuff like cryptosporidium. A vet suggested probiotics might be the answer; I gave her a full course, and it didn't help. Her bloodwork's clean. She doesn't seem to be in particular distress around all this, but it's tough to keep her fully hydrated because (again!) she's dumping big quantities of liquid every time she poops. This problem has persisted even in the period when I had her in a more traditional, regularly cleaned set up while I was waiting for her bioactive rebuild to cycle up.
So, to sum up: a largely healthy, totally parasite-free bearded dragon who nonetheless is afflicted by constant loose bowels. Anybody ever seen something like this? One of the vets I saw suggested that she might just have a very sensitive stomach, but I'm not sure how to deal with that if that's the case. Any other options I'm missing?
The basics: Arroyo is a roughly five year old female dragon. She came to me as a rehome in late 2020, and has been alert and feisty. She's had a few health scares but generally has gotten a clean bill of health at most of her vet visits. She's kept in a 4x2x2 bioactive vivarium with an active microfaunal population that's spot cleaned regularly, with a hot temperature of 105-107 and a cool temperature of around 85-88 on hot days. (The only space to keep her is a side-room with poor insulation, so managing heat here in Texas during summers is sometimes an issue.) She , eats pretty well (though she's picky about her greens) and receives a base diet of collared, mustard and turnip greens, with accents of bell pepper, carrot and yellow squash, and occasionally okra, parsley, and kale. Plus dusted dubia roaches (fed on vegetable scraps and dubia feed) and mealworms. She flatly refuses to drink standing water in her bath, though she will (very occasionally!) condescend to lap up water if she's misted.
The issue: my gal has never once, in the three years that I've had her, taken a proper bearded dragon-shaped poop. Her stools are loose at the best of times, and are often war crimes -- vast, liquid diarrhea explosions. I've had them tested for parasites, and she did once have coccidia that required a full rebuild of her enclosure, but she's tested negative for that multiple times this year, including stuff like cryptosporidium. A vet suggested probiotics might be the answer; I gave her a full course, and it didn't help. Her bloodwork's clean. She doesn't seem to be in particular distress around all this, but it's tough to keep her fully hydrated because (again!) she's dumping big quantities of liquid every time she poops. This problem has persisted even in the period when I had her in a more traditional, regularly cleaned set up while I was waiting for her bioactive rebuild to cycle up.
So, to sum up: a largely healthy, totally parasite-free bearded dragon who nonetheless is afflicted by constant loose bowels. Anybody ever seen something like this? One of the vets I saw suggested that she might just have a very sensitive stomach, but I'm not sure how to deal with that if that's the case. Any other options I'm missing?
