Our 3 year old George was adopted by us from my brother in August 2020, who bought him as a baby. He did really well with the relocation to our house and never really seemed to go through any major stress period because he kept eating as usual and was very active with us after getting here. After a lot of care research, we made some changes to his diet, adding healthier and more assorted veggies (my brother was told cabbage was fine to feed him regularly). I started making salads every morning and he ate 5-7 Dubai roaches (depending on size) a day. With new diet he still always gobbled up all his food.
In mid October he started acting strange, with a few gagging motions a couple of yawns and once in a while clicking noise (no excess mucus discharge or bubbles from nose or mouth). After looking up his symptoms I thought he might have the start of a respiratory infection. I took him to a reptile vet and they agreed that they thought the same. We started him with antibiotic injections every 3 days over 4 weeks. Vet told me a number of things mixed together could have contributed to his RI 1) wild fire smoke in the air, 2)dryer region of CO vs WI, 3) type of substrate, 4) a few days low temps (85-90 hot side, due to house temps changing and waiting for a new ceramic heat bulb order to arrive) and 5) his recent shed. Because of vet recommendation we changed the sand substrate (what my brother was originally told to use and I didn’t know any different) to repticarpet. I also did more habitat research and added a hammock (which he loves), and a Reptisun 10.0 UVB T5 high output hooded unit (on top of screen) because I didn’t think his 100W UVB/UVA mercury vapor bulb was enough. Half way through the injections time frame he started eating only half his vegetables. Vet said it sometimes happens during antibiotic treatment that they are not as hungry or active. He was still having normal bowel movements and eating usual # of roaches. After treatment completed, he had zero RI symptoms and was back to normal activity level, but he was still only eating half his salad. The vet said, “He might be getting picky or stubborn and training me for only feeding roaches, so reduce number of roaches by half and he will start eating more salad again.” Did that, and after a couple days it seemed to work. Kept his roach # down for a few days to be sure. So, with him back to being a good boy eating his veggies, I started putting him back to usual # of roaches. A couple weeks later, he started eating less and less veggies, then completely stopped last week of December. He also got really lazy/sleepy most of the day. I was thinking maybe because of the shorter days he was starting to slow down to brumate. However, because he had just gotten over an RI a month prior and I wasn’t able to afford having a vet run bloodwork and such to see if he was healthy enough, I didn’t feel it a good idea to brumate. He was still active and curious whenever he is out of his cage and during bath time. When he stopped eating all of his salad, I tried switching variety of veggies and doing the roach reducing again with no success. I tricked him a couple of times to eat a few veggies, but definitely not enough to make me comfortable. He still wants roaches and comes running to his feeding place when I bring out the roach cage. His HI, LOW and Night temps show correct. For lighting I have the basking light and reptisun tube lamp. I unfortunately just read last night on here that red lights are bad (never had it on at night only for extra heat when needed during day), so I switched it out with a white one. I’ve also tried sprinkling bee pollen on his veggies, putting the roaches under the salad. Nothing is working. He used to always eat veggies from hand then out of his bowl. Now neither. He still looks sleepy through most of the day and hides under his hammock some of that time. And comes running and excited when I bring out the roach cage. He has bowel movements every 2-3 days now (because no veggies). Is he trying to brumate and is it safe for him? My brother said he had never gone more than a couple of weeks of sleepy/no eat time. I’m lost in what’s going on or what to do. Nothing is truly clear online so it’s making me paranoid.
Sorry for the book, but I wanted to try to cover everything.
In mid October he started acting strange, with a few gagging motions a couple of yawns and once in a while clicking noise (no excess mucus discharge or bubbles from nose or mouth). After looking up his symptoms I thought he might have the start of a respiratory infection. I took him to a reptile vet and they agreed that they thought the same. We started him with antibiotic injections every 3 days over 4 weeks. Vet told me a number of things mixed together could have contributed to his RI 1) wild fire smoke in the air, 2)dryer region of CO vs WI, 3) type of substrate, 4) a few days low temps (85-90 hot side, due to house temps changing and waiting for a new ceramic heat bulb order to arrive) and 5) his recent shed. Because of vet recommendation we changed the sand substrate (what my brother was originally told to use and I didn’t know any different) to repticarpet. I also did more habitat research and added a hammock (which he loves), and a Reptisun 10.0 UVB T5 high output hooded unit (on top of screen) because I didn’t think his 100W UVB/UVA mercury vapor bulb was enough. Half way through the injections time frame he started eating only half his vegetables. Vet said it sometimes happens during antibiotic treatment that they are not as hungry or active. He was still having normal bowel movements and eating usual # of roaches. After treatment completed, he had zero RI symptoms and was back to normal activity level, but he was still only eating half his salad. The vet said, “He might be getting picky or stubborn and training me for only feeding roaches, so reduce number of roaches by half and he will start eating more salad again.” Did that, and after a couple days it seemed to work. Kept his roach # down for a few days to be sure. So, with him back to being a good boy eating his veggies, I started putting him back to usual # of roaches. A couple weeks later, he started eating less and less veggies, then completely stopped last week of December. He also got really lazy/sleepy most of the day. I was thinking maybe because of the shorter days he was starting to slow down to brumate. However, because he had just gotten over an RI a month prior and I wasn’t able to afford having a vet run bloodwork and such to see if he was healthy enough, I didn’t feel it a good idea to brumate. He was still active and curious whenever he is out of his cage and during bath time. When he stopped eating all of his salad, I tried switching variety of veggies and doing the roach reducing again with no success. I tricked him a couple of times to eat a few veggies, but definitely not enough to make me comfortable. He still wants roaches and comes running to his feeding place when I bring out the roach cage. His HI, LOW and Night temps show correct. For lighting I have the basking light and reptisun tube lamp. I unfortunately just read last night on here that red lights are bad (never had it on at night only for extra heat when needed during day), so I switched it out with a white one. I’ve also tried sprinkling bee pollen on his veggies, putting the roaches under the salad. Nothing is working. He used to always eat veggies from hand then out of his bowl. Now neither. He still looks sleepy through most of the day and hides under his hammock some of that time. And comes running and excited when I bring out the roach cage. He has bowel movements every 2-3 days now (because no veggies). Is he trying to brumate and is it safe for him? My brother said he had never gone more than a couple of weeks of sleepy/no eat time. I’m lost in what’s going on or what to do. Nothing is truly clear online so it’s making me paranoid.
Sorry for the book, but I wanted to try to cover everything.
