Help!!! long nosed dragon paralized

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I saw this thread a couple of days ago and started to draft some comments before I realised I had 3 paragraphs and had only said a quarter of what I wanted to say, so I scrapped it and moved on. However when I saw it again today, I had more time so decided I would like to make a supporting comment or two. You have a response here from Geckodan that succinctly and in my view accurately paraphrases what the problem with your animal was in just one short paragraph that I was drafting an essay to do. I agree with the advice, prognosis offered by Danny. One of the reasons I was writing a tome was because too many people do not realise that there is always more than one causal or management (husbandry) issue involved in an animals sickness or ailment. How many times do we see people looking for a quick fix when quite frankly most of the time none is available. Why? Because generally the problem has many variables that compound, exacerbate and contribute cummulatively to the ailment such that when it manifests itself visually such as the on set of paralysis in the back legs of dragons it is already too late.

Another reason I was writing a "war and peace" epic was because of the comments being made about seeing a vet, unless you are lucky enough to have someone like Danny Brown or any of only a handful of other genuine reptile specialists available, dont bother. I would have and was in the process of advising you Trench, of exactly this point when I realised I was 3 paragraphs into my commentary and decided not to as I suggested earlier.

Most vets have no idea of reptile physiology, husbandry or diseases and ailments. Once you have spent the sort of money that I did over the early years of my time in dragon keeping, for the countless times I walked away from the consultation no wiser, you will all come to the same realisation, no doubt. I was also in the process of suggesting that you will lose your long nosed dragon as this is inevitably the end result of an animal that exhibits these symptoms. I have seen this problem many times in my own collection over the last 20 years or so and as Danny has suggested it is usually a response triggered by some form of recent trauma that has impacted a preexisting condition such as low level MBD that finally manifests itself in the visual problem you reported.

My only comment I would add or clarify with Danny's prognosis is that generally as a rule in captive bred animals, the causes that lead to the problems manifested visually in the paralysis of your animals hind legs, whether compounded by pre existing problems and/or indeed inherited problems such as calcium deprivation in the embrionic stage of the development of the animal, are in fact in my view directly attributable to husbandry problems, they just may not necessarily be your husbandry problems.

This does not mean we are bad keepers it just means that some parameter of what was being done or not done was not right and could do and indeed usually does, compound an already exisiting problem or 2, that in your case has manifest itself in your dragons paralyzed hind legs. This is one of the reasons I continually keep saying on this and other forums that dragons are the hardest of the reptile families to keep. You have to get so many aspects of the process right. Every time I see somebody say blah, blah dragon species is easy to keep I just cringe.

No dragon species is easy to keep, sorry but they are not. Some require less maintenance and attention to specific husbandry requirements than others, but get it wrong and the animal more often than not dies. By defination something that is easy should mean that it can be done with a minimum of fuss and thought and have a repeated outcome that is the same everytime. Most people would also throw in that in an animal husbandry process, easy would also include tolerating a modicum of neglect or even the odd error where the outcome should be a minimal if indeed any impact on the animals wellbeing. This is definately not the case for dragons.

I have kept and bred long nosed dragons for more than 10 years. I have bred them in the hundreds, even in the last 5 years I have produced over 150 hatchlings/animals. Does this mean I would make the statement that they are easy to keep? Certainly not. Would I say they are a robust, hardy species to keep if the husbandry is good? For the most part, Yes. How many times do I see people who have never kept a particular species before, get hold of that species and in some cases in less time than the animal's have had time to digest their third or fourth meal these same people are on a website or in a forum like this telling the world that the species is "easy to keep" As I say it certainly gets me annoyed.

For those people who posted in this thread looking for where they can get hold of Long nosed dragons, there are at least a dozen or more private individuals in Australia that I am aware of that have this species (in breeding groups and numbers) in their collections. I myself have a very large group that I keep (none for sale) as several breeding colonies, to ensure continuity of the species in my own collection. How do I know there are this many people holding long nosed dragons in Australia? Because I sold or swapped the animals to them in the first place and all in the last couple of years. Two years ago I released to the hobby more than 40 sub adult long nosed dragons to at least 8 or 9 keepers. Every group should have reached maturity 12-18 months ago and should have produced young last year and be producing more this season.

I am also aware of another group of unrelated individuals in a private collection that should provide the necessary genetic diversity to keep this species in the hobby long term. So, with a bit of luck you should see individuals of this species start to come on sale more regularly in the next season or 2 and they should be as common as bearded dragons after that. Given how easy some people find these dragons to keep, we should be swimming in them and yet here we are on this forum with people almost being rude because they can't get hold of them. MMMMMMMM VEEERRRY Interesting!!! May be "not so easy" to keep afterall.
 
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Thanks for that longirostris, I was hoping you would show up :)
 
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