Please Read!!

[DarkHunter]

Hey guys!

My boyfriend has just recently upgraded his bearded dragon enclosure to a 5x2x2. He has used Washable Play Sand as substrate. He feeds them outside of the encloser in a smaller 20 gal. tank with repti carpet in it. The berdies only recive their salad and treats that stay in a dish in the encloser with sand. Do you guys think that this is a bad idea and we should change the substrate? Any ideas would be much obliged. He has a large undertank heater on the tank so im not too sure about the whole newspaper papertowl ordeal Oh...i know this will come up when one you reply so ill answer it before the beardies are aprx 4 months old. Thanks for your help
~Shannon

[Linds]

How about ceramic tile or large flat rocks? Makes a beautiful environment and carries zero risk of impaction. Even if its in a dish, sand still does get in. Is he heating them with only a UTH? Beardies need their primary heat source to be an overhead light of sort, since they are basking lizards.

[Kyle Walkinshaw]

I think beardies should stay on news paper as hatchlings until they are atleast 6 months old so IMHO you shouldn't be using sand quite yet. As soon as they hit the 6 month mark or so i'd say sand is fine. I feed my adult pair in their enclosure and use sand and im sure from time to time they may take a little in with the food but there has never been any problems from this. As Linds mentioned they are basking lizards and like it hot so if you don't have an overhead heat source get one! Actually get atleast two for a tank that size, which brings me to my next point which is that the tank sounds a bit too large for a 4 month old beardie. If he/she is eating fine then no need to worry but if you experience any problems that could be a factor and should block off some space until your dragons a bit larger.

Cheers, Kyle Walkinshaw~

[Kappa]

Hey, I have 2-3 over head heat lamps, UTH and my ful spec. My guys r eating like crazy and they seem to love the space, they "hunt" for crix in an empty 20 gallon so its not too bad.

[DarkHunter]

yeah....what he said...hehe :P My personal opinion on sand...for berdies that younge they shouldnt be on it, i agree with Kyle!!
but thanks for all the answers guys keep em commin

[eyespy]

I hate sand. This is the amount of sand I flushed out of the gut of a 5 week old dragon who was kept on sand but never seen to swallow any:



She never showed the slightest distress or signs of impactions, I have just seen so many problems with dragons housed on sand that I routinely ask for epigastric lavage if I take in a dragon who was housed that way.

[DarkHunter]

Eyespy....Wow thats amazing...Is she okay?
Thanks for the imput we're thinking of taking them off sand maybe untill they are bigger? Thanks for all the help...one more thing...We were looking at a care sheet site and it said that as long as the dragons were over 10'' they should be ok on sand..the male is now 14 inchs and the female about 10...
We're looking into the tiles...or slate...but not too sure about the UTH...
Thanks again guys!!!
~shannon

[eyespy]

She's perfect now, although her growth was stunted for about 4 months. When she did start growing well again I swear you could almost hear it!!

Most of the dragon deaths I've seen from sand were full-grown adults. Acute impaction is easy to see as the dragon is in obvious distress. Chronic impaction, like the dragon in the above picture, shows no outward signs until the dragon begins to starve to death. The average age of death is 5 years old from chronic impaction. That little girl could probably have lived to about 3 with that amount of sand in her gut and aside from slow growth would have appeared quite healthy to most people.

Even xrays didn't show the sand, I just know from experience that if a dragon is kept on sand there's a big chance s/he's carrying around a gutload.

That particular dragon was over 30 grams before we flushed out the sand. A week later she was back to the more normal weight of 11 grams. It was only around 3 grams of sand but it gets all mixed up with water, digestive juices, bile salts and undigested food bits so they retain a lot of junk.

All the bloating from that makes it very difficult to see that they are starving until their legs and tails get scrawny.

I agree, by keeping adults on sand it could take years before build-up becomes life threatening. By the time an animal shows symtoms the problem has become extreme. This is the first time I've seen 'flushing' a dragon. Could you explain how it is done safely? This might be just the thing for dragons (and possibly others) brought home from the petstore, just as a precaution, if it is simple and harmless enough to the animal.

[eyespy]

It's a procedure called epigastric lavage, and it requires anesthesia so it should only be done with the advice and supervision of a qualified reptile vet by the surgeon himself or his techs under his watchful eye. It is also an invasive procedure that involves proper placement of a stomach tube. If not inserted far enough the stomach will hyperinflate and could rupture. If inserted too far, the delicate villi in the small intestine can be irreparably scarred. ONLY a qualifed reptile surgeon or his trained assistants should ever place the stomach tube. At Penn we use either a fluoroscope or endoscope so we can actually visualize the placement of the tube.

A stomach tube is inserted completely through the stomach and into the small intestines. A mix of enzymatic detergent, sterile saline and pressurized gas (usually CO2) is forced through the tube and then allowed to work for about an hour.

After the detergents have had time to loosen the gut contents a large quantity of sterile saline is sent down to flush things through and all the effluent is collected and dehydrated for analysis.

Just like any invasive procedure, there is always an infection risk although when proper sterile technique is used that seldom happens.

I am comfortable doing this procedure with the help of my vet friends on any rescue dragon I take in because I know the surgeons very well and they usually perform epigastric lavage on any animal that will be having a procedure involving the intestines. So they do this up to 40 times a day. I would never trust a vet who has done fewer than 25 to do one on an apparently healthy animal. That is not a good risk/benefit tradeoff in my opinion.

[RaVeNo888o]

ive seen it stomach flushing mentioned, but never saw anyone ask what it meant and the one time im gonna ask what it means, someone has to go and ask lol.. Seems like a pretty neat procedure..those must be small tubes

too bad it isn't simpler so the home enthusist could preform it