dead beardie/improper care a few questions

[sapphire_moon]

Ok if any of you have ever gone to the iguana section then you know how "wonderfully" my parents keep their herps.

Last night they seen that their "female" beardie not eating, lethargic, loss of muscle tone/skinny back legs.

Today when they just went upstairs to go to bed (I assume everything was fine this morning, as I don't go into their room) The beardie was dead.

Husbandry Info.

Cage: wooden with glass front and screened top.

Substrate: before, some type of sand, woodchips (not sure what kind) and currently corn cob.

Heat: 100 w regular light bulb.

UVB: through window

Food: dusted crickets nightly (left in cage) lettuce, grapes and occasionaly carrots.

1 "hide" that it couldn't fit into.


They allowed the female and male to be together, not sure if they bred.


Now when I asked to see the beardie to look it over (because I've heard of so called dead herps to be found sitting on garbage can edges hours later perfectly fine) It had a few hard places in it's stomache, which to me can be anything from egg bound to corn cobs being ingested and just sitting there.

Now here's the kicker....

it had drool running down it's "chin" (it's "beard" was partialy black) and it had drool/snot coming from it's nose......

another kicker.....I opened it's mouth and a horrible stench came out! WTF?????

Believe me, they won't take it to the vet, to get a necropsy done. And it will be next week before they can make any changes I advised them on SEVERAL occasions to do.

They have had a baby iggy that died from what we (Me an my partner) suspect was crystalized urine. And had to give away a adult female iggy because they couldn't take care of it

Now I am just curious as all he** to find out some opinons on what this poor beardie could have died from.




I advised my parents to do this.

Clean out both cages with a ratio of filling the tank completely up to about 5 caps of bleach. let soak, dry, rinse as much as needed.

Put the beardie in a temporary rubbermaid (yes folks, they had 2 beardies) cage, buy a digi thermom and a lamp dimmer to keep the heat down.
use paper substrate.

and to possibly "try" and get some sorce of uvb (be it uvb light, outside for 5-10 min, or d3 supplements)

if anything is might be needed you can tell me, but I HIGHLY doubt they will listen. They never have before.

Thanks for all answers and opinions. As I know you can't give a definite answer without pics and being here.

[marisa]

Well although I doubt this killed it, UVB coming through a window is the same as none at all unless your window has no glass and no screen. So as you know, they NEED UVB! I am suprised they own a sun loving species like beardie without buying UV lights. :(

Without a necropsy no one can say for sure why it died unfortuantly. Sorry if I missed it, but how old was it?

Marisa

[sapphire_moon]

No you didn't miss, umm probably anywhere from 1-2 years old.
It actually looked like it choked to death :(
They had them pretty much from the time they were babies, so thats about their entire lives without UVB. :( and they just don't listen to me. Maybe I should give some of you wonderful people their name and phone number and you can yell at them. :) lol J/K

And as I said I don't expect definite answers. Just opinions.

I don't know why they own these animals either. They can barely take care of the cat and dogs, much less something more temperature, humdity, sun specific animals!

[ChristinaM]

Saph, what can I say :( :( I think you know what all I would like to say about this unfortunate incident.

Cause of death........it could be one of many things, or a combo of things, etc.

- lack of uv
- lack of a proper diet
- malnutrition
- impaction
- eggbound
- It finally decided it had enough of this ***** and gave up....

it's really just guessing :(

[sapphire_moon]

Ya, I figuered that. I just didn't get the part where when I opened her mouth (to see if anything was stuck in her throat as there was saliva all over her chin and coming out her nose) a really really REALLY bad smell came out of her mouth. I didn't get to open the mouth all the way, as it was really hard to open, and I didn't want to just snap it.

They still don't listen to me. I have the chance to talk to breeders and find out how they are kept "professionaly" and they still won't listen to me. :( Makes me so angry. Then they expect my "Moral support" because one died.

I think I cursed it last night. When they were running around trying to force feed her. I said "I hope she just dies quickly, get it over with." :( :(

I just hope she is better off now. And I hope they DON'T get another herp!

[Dragon_Slave]

That's terrible! How could they mistreat something so sweet and loving?

I say that you dragonnap the other dragon and take it into your own care. Do something to convince them to let you take the dragon, they are going to kill this one too if something doesn't happen fast. Sounds like it also could have been some sort of respiratory infection and since the beardies were housed together the other one REALLY needs to see a vet to make sure it's going to be alright! People like your parents really get on my friggin nerves! Ack!

[sapphire_moon]

We can not take it in to our care though. Or we would. We are moving in june and just don't have the room or the money to care for it. :(

They weren't housed together. And I have already told them to take the other one to the vet.

If we had the money to take the other one in we would. But we also have an elderly dog that we took in that has to have pretty expensive heart meds, and because of what they were feeding him he has to have a dental done on the 12th of next month. Right now we are still kind of scrambling on how we are going to get the money for his regular meds, then antibiotics he has to be on for 3 days before the dental, and how we are going to pay for the dental.

Right now we couldn't even afford to buy 1 dozen crickets much less everything that this beardie needs. :(


Edit:

I know, I got into a "fight" with my mother about it this morning.

I was trying to explain what marisa (I think it was marisa) that said sunlight through a window is like no sunlight at all. She said they had a UVB bulb. So I tried explaining that with some UVB bulbs the beardie has to be like 4-6 inches away just to get anything out of it.

She kept arguing saying that she "thought" the beardie died because it ate the corn cob it was being housed on. She thought this because it's belly was distended. (which when I seen it the beardie was kind of cold, and VERY little stiff.) She just kept arguing with me until I just walked away before I smacked her.

[drewlowe]

I honestly don't know what to say, it's upsetting to hear people won't take advice for selfish reasons.

As far as the death anything we say is all speculation you would have to have a necropsy done to determine cause of death.

I remember reading some of your previous post (but correct me if i'm wrong) on how your parents don't listen to your advice and your afraid if you "step up" they may kick you out. "if" your going to make a "stand" now would be the time, before they lose the other beardie. Try not to sound to harsh (so you don't get kicked out) Tell them YOU would like to have the beardie say 3-6 months, you keep it in your room or even in a "common" room. YOUR the only one that does any care or feeding to them, you make all the decisions on the beardies care. "If" you can turn the beardie around in that time maybe some light will be shed on them, and they will see that you DO know what your talking about and start taking some advice you give them. If they won't do that i would either make an call to the proper authority or "kidnapp" the beardie and keep it for yourself or find someone that can take proper care of it. My familys different though if they were to act like this i wouldn't hesitate to snatch it up and tell them to kiss my a$$, but that's just me.


I'm almost to the point i stated above with a friend of ours, You'll see the thread shortly.

Jamie

[sapphire_moon]

around here there is no proper authority. No one cares about reptiles here. So no one does anything about them.

And as I said, we are not financialy capable of taking care of the beardie. And believe me, if we were, he would be coming with us in a heart beat. We are leaving in about 2.5 months.

So far my mother isn't listening to me. But my step dad is starting to take the hint (my mothers at work). So maybe he will do something about it.
So I'm just crossing my fingers from now on.

Once we move we don't plan on having much contact with my family anyways. But it always hurts to hear of anyone mistreating an animal simply because they refuse to listen.



THEY can't kick me out. BUT my grandmother on the other hand has basicly told us she can't wait for us to leave. So it's a short fuse there. We don't even have money saved for travel yet. So getting kicked out is not an option right now.

[sexxie_cucumber]

Aww poor you. Best of luck.

[Leviathan]

I would find someone who will take the beardie then give it to them. Tell your mom it died and you took it to a breeders house who said they would do an autopsy on it. Then tell her you buried it somewhere... with the female. (bury her somewhere first) Maybe a sea burial ;)

Alecia