Crook Central Beardy

[shamous1]

Hi all just thought I'd let you know that one of our beardies is in a bit of strife at the moment.

She is around 3 years old and had a clutch of eggs a couple of months ago. She appeared to be gravid again and yesterday we noticed that she had trouble walking with her back legs.

I picked her up and her legs just dangled there. I touched her legs and she appeared to have feeling but still next to no use of her legs.

Everyone of our other beardies has no problems at all. I spoke to a couple of people who are in the know and have had suggestions that it could be due to the fact that the female could be egg bound which causes the nerves near her back to have pressure placed against them.

She gets fed a variety of greens, roaches and other vegies. She also gets a good dose of calcium as do our other lizards and dragons.

I had to work this morning so my wife and kids took her to Peter Cameron in Altona, due to the fact that he came highly reccommnded from a vet at the Melbourne Zoo.

X-rays are being taken tonight and the diagnosis has not been given as yet. Could be a variety of things including metabolic bone disease, fracture, egg bound etc.

When I get the full details tomorrow I'll post and let you know.

If any of you have had similiar experiences we'd really appeciate you letting us know what occured and the outcome. The kids are fretting a bit and we hope the outcome is good.

She is still eating fine and she may even have a internal blockage as she only pooped when I soaked her in warm water.

If she is permanently paralized I would like to keep her in our collection. Is this cruel? I've heard of other animals being in collections with severe disabilities and they seem to survive fine with the proper care.

I'll keep you posted.

[shamous1]

Just letting everyone know that our female beardy had to be put down about 10 minutes ago.

I won't know more until I get home from work and the wife fills me in more. The kids are pretty upset so I can't wait to get home to look after them.

I'm not gojng to try and fill people when I don't know the pronunciation of the term used but it has something to do with unformed egg follicles?

My wife said that Peter Cameron is an excellent Vet and he is in practice at 221 Millers Road in Altona. He has a fairly large herp collection of his own and a fair bit of experience with reptiles.
He is also a member of VHS and knows various people from the site. So if you ever need a vet out in the western suburbs you can be ssured he will treat you and your animal right.

He could have operated but the chances of success were not good. He said that it is something that can happen with beardies and he has seen it quite a few times.

I'll post more when I get home from work.

[AustHerps]

Very sorry to hear

[Kyro]

I'm so so sorry to hear that mate, give your littluns a big hug from us all.

Kyro & family

[waruikazi]

That's terible mate, but it is good that you had the heart to do the right thing by your beardy.

[dragons75]

Sorry Mate Thats Terrible News

[shamous1]

Just got home and had a look at a colour print out of another beardie that had the same problem. He has written on the top what it is but his writing is hard to read. Hope I get it right.

Follicular Stosis (?) with second peritonitis and also pre-ovulation eggs binding.

If I can get my scanner working I'll scan the pic and post it. It looks like all the egg follicles are stuck together in a clump (pre-ovulation) and also it looks like black tar is spread through her insides which I think is the peritonitis.

If we could have kept her and she was paralized but in no pain then we would have. Although she was eating fine she would have obvious trouble having a dump which would have only added to the pressure on her spine.

We have 18 of her eggs in an incubator at the moment due to hatch any day now so we are hoping to see little mirror images of her running around shortly. Can't come to soon and I think it would cheer the kids up no end.

Thanks for your comments dragons75, waruikazi, kyro and AustHerps.

We have had better days but I guess you have to take the good with the bad when you have animals. The Vets bill does not worry me. You have animals then they have the right to treatment as does any other member of the family, it's just the losing the family member that's hard.

[jordo]

Sorry to hear that mate... Hopefully her eggs hatch, I'm crossing my fingers for you.

[jessop]

mate terrible news nothing worse than losing one of the family. beardies are such beautiful animals as well, one of my favourite lizards!

[shamous1]

I managed to get my scanner functioning as it should, so I've attached a pic of what happened wih our beardie. This is not our beardie but she suffered the same problem. No particular cause.

[Repz]

I Know how you feel mate and very sorry....mine didnt die that way mine got attacked on the head by a older beardie and had internal bleeding. Very sad to hear mate, hope those hatchies come out ok.

[Rennie]

Very sorry to hear mate, I lost a beardie last week to, I hope your kids take it alright.
At least you have her babies in the incubator still, I bet it will be hard to sell them now!

[shamous1]

We are not sure what we doing with them yet but most likely the majority will be sold.

[diamond_python]

Sorry to hear that Shane. She was a good girl. Hope the kids are feeling better....