Vacation

My blog and my shop will be taking a necessary break this week. :) I'll be back after the 4th of July. 

Pixie Pics

Hedgehogs are cute! But VERY hard to keep as pets. I don't recommend them as beginning pets. Guinea pigs are WAY easier. Do lots of research before you get a hedgie and try to adopt first. Hedgies are solo and nocturnal so they are not great pets for kids. 

Cherries!

I fed my beardies cherry halves tonight. They loved them! So did the tortoises. 

Now all my reptiles have cherry lips! 

Here's a couple pics-- 

Life in the Zoo

LilFoot decided to sleep next to the potty last night. 

Some "Before & After" Pics of the Fire Victims

Torch, a Savannah monitor

Kindle, a female Burmese python

Flame, a translucent bearded dragon

Phoenix, a blood python

Scorch, a male Burmese python

Montana Trip

Two of my tortoises were adopted by an amazing owner who lives in Montana. Since things have been so stressful lately, I volunteered to drive them up. I left Saturday morning and came back Sunday afternoon. It was a quick trip, but SO refreshing. 

What a beautiful place! 

I stayed at a bed & breakfast in Idaho on my back to Utah. As the owners showed me the backyard, we noticed a turtle crawling through the grass. 

"Did you bring that?" they asked. 

No. 

First time they had ever seen a turtle on their property in 20+ years. Nice, huh? 

Beautiful male Western Painted turtle. I must send out an aura! ;) 

Another New Substrate

The biggest symptom of Adenovirus is diarrhea which means frequent cleanings of the tanks. Some of my guys are popping multiple times a day, and I've been blowing though paper towels quickly. 

I decided it was time for a substrate change. At my local home improvement store, I bought a roll of linoleum and cut it into tank size pieces. Today I'll buy a club warehouse size box of flushable moist wipes to use to wipe up the poop. That will save me tissues too since I flush all the beardie & tortoise poop. 

For my two 55 gallon tanks, I used 4 tiles on the bottom. I tried, but couldn't find tiles that would fit in the bottoms of my many 40 gallon tanks without cutting edges. 

Hopefully a few well-places paper towels will give the babies something to burrow in and an absorbant material for the really runny poop. 

I've used so many different substrates-- ReptiCarpet, tile, AstroTurf, paper towels, fleece-backed vinyl, shelf liner, and now linoleum. There's no one right substrate; use whatever works for you. Just AVOID sand and crushed walnut shell. 

A Quick Note on Adoption

Just to clarify-- 

At this point, my rescue is still on lockdown and no beardies are coming in or going out. 

Healthy beardies that are adenovirus positive (AdV+) can be adopted out, but they become a special needs and high risk placement. Preferably, they would be the only beardie in the house. And they can only go to someone who understands AdV+ and can watch for AdV+ sicknesses and help boost normal health. 

Until now, most of my adoptions have been to first time beardie owners. Obviously that can no longer happen.

 I'm still wrapping my brain around what it means to support 12 AdV+ positive beardies. Some of my beardies show no signs of having any sicknesses; others are not eating or moving much. All will get extra supplements to help liver function, etc, but I'm still not sure which ones. It's a work in process. 

A Suspicion

I've spent hundreds of dollars on vet testing to figure out why some of my beloved beardies have such severe diarrhea. The tests were normal and I'm suspecting that there is something in the recent batch of Flukers pellets (that I've fed for 3 years) that is causing severe digestive upset. 

Is anyone else using new bottles of adult formula and their beardies are having severe diarrhea? 

This is the other version. My bottle was empty and I reused it which is why the pellets are brown. 

Use the contact form on the right top of my blog to contact me if you have. 

Another Positive

Baby Remy who came back to me was tested on Monday. He/she is positive too. 

11 of my 12 beardies are now adenovirus positive (AdV+). :( Ziggy is my only negative one, but I can't rehome him. I once moved his

tank and it freaked him out. He'll just stay put. 

I had two of my recently adopted beardies tested and one of them was positive. I need to track down a couple others from this year just to be safe. 

While several AdV+ beardie owners are assuring me that this is not catastrophic, I'll be honest -- it feels that way! I'm still wrapping my head around it all. I'm in triage mode and dealing only with the crises in front of me. Tiger & Milo have severe diarrhea; Dex is still recovering from surgery; several of my tortoises are being rehomed within the next week (since I can't rehome beardies, I can only lighten my load by rehoming some of the other reptiles). 

Ah. I'm sure I'll get over the sense of panic soon. Until then I have 12 beardies that I can't place easily. And I may end up with a few more if my previously adopted beardies need to come back. 

Oh boy!! 

Tiger at the vet

Tiger has been very lethargic lately and has had severe diarrhea. I took him with me to pick up Dex so we could do a blood test. He was nice enough to have diarrhea all over me and the front desk and his blankie and the exam table. But at least they were able to do a fecal smear and float. I hope we can figure out what's going on. I suppose it's possible the diarrhea is caused by his adenovirus, but it seems more extreme than the others. 

Dex at the Vet

Dex was spayed today. Her belly was filled with undeveloped eggs! More than any other surgery I've seen. 

While in surgery, the vet noticed that Dex's liver is very pale and has quite a few places where it's bleeding. He took a biopsy of it to figure out if it's related to the stuck eggs or to her adenovirus. 

It's very possible that even without her eggs, Dex will still remain unhealthy because of liver failure. :( 

She's home now and sleeping off the anesthesia. Poor girl. I hope she's able to recover from this. 

Guess Who Came Home?!?

He was found about a block away from my house. There's no way he walked there so I think he had a helper. :/ 

He's pretty traumatized right now. 

Second Batch of Test Results

I wasn't expecting the test results from the 8 adenovirus cultures to come back until Wednesday, but I got the call today. 

Only Skye, Nip, and Ziggy are negative. 

Of 13 beardies (12 still living), 10 are positive for adenovirus: Max, Flame, Dex, Tiger, Smaug, Lil Bit, Clack, Dragon, Nova, and Milo. 

Remy, who was returned on Saturday, was tested today. 

Skye & Nip will be removed from my house by this evening as a way of protecting themselves. 

Ziggy has never been able to adapt to change and will stay here. I'll just work hard to keep him isolated. 

My brain is still struggling to make sense of all this so I don't know how I feel yet. Plus with T-Bear still missing, I'm in overload mode. I just can't cope with it all. It feels like a nightmare that I can't wake up from. 

I'll post more later. 

Dex at the Vet

YDex had an ultrasound today that should a lot of bundled eggs (or egg follicles) high in her belly that haven't dropped down through her oviducts. Her bloodwork showed a high white blood cell count which says she's fighting an infection so chances are good that the eggs are rotting in her belly. 

She needs surgery to be spayed. A $500 surgery. 

Dex also has adenovirus (ADV+) and there's no way to know how she will respond to the surgery or if she will ultimately recover. 

Making Reports

Today I've called my local police and animal control to let them know my baby sulcata tortoises was taken. I'll put up

some more flyers around my neighborhood. Other than that, there's not much else I can do. 

I did get a call last night from someone who found a tortoise. I knew it wasn't mine, but I offered to take it. It wasn't a sulcata, it's a red earred slider. He's a healthy and active little guy. He didn't want to stay in his temporary box or the kitchen so I put him in my garden so he can explore. 

Snatched!!!

We came home from church to discover T-bear, our tiniest tortoise, was missing from the pen in the backyard. It's highly unlikely that he dug out or fit through the bars so someone had to have hopped the fence and snatched him. 

I taped a big sign to my side yard fence saying he was stolen and I've been posting online. I'll put up flyers too. 

T-Bear was a fence walker and stayed on the edges of the puppy gate that he and my other 3 baby torts are in outside. The other 3 hide in the boxes while T-Bear stays visible. 

I suspect someone walked by, was tempted by his cuteness, and snatched him. :( 

Phoenix ate again!

Once I warmed it up enough, Phoenix went crazy for a small rat. 

He's well on his way to recovery. He fits his name so completely! I love it. 

Raspberry Treats

Everybody got some raspberries today for a treat. The tortoises loved them the most! 

Most of the beardies gobbled theirs down quickly and had raspberry lips to show off. 

Clack and Skye tried a bite and ignored the rest. I love her face of disdain! ;) 

Remy, rescue 120.2

Remy came in at the end of February this year. 

He's a gorgeous translucent baby who lots of people wanted. I ended up adopting him out about 3 months ago. 

Today Remy was returned to me (thankfully!). I couldn't believe how BIG he's gotten. 

Remy is in the second group of adoptees that I'll be testing for adenovirus and I would have been in contact with his owner anyways. But he beat me too it and asked me to take him back. 

For now, Remy will stay with me so I can test him. Then I'll adopt him out again. 

Sickly Dex

In the last few weeks, Dex has been very lethargic. I took her in yesterday for bloodwork and got the results back today. 

Dex has a very high white blood cell count (sign of an infection) and a high calcium level (possibly eggs). 

My guess is that I have another female with undeveloped eggs that are starting to be toxic. :( I'm taking her in for an ultrasound on Monday and we should be able to see if she has eggs. 

Dex tested positive for adenovirus (ADV+) and so the idea of surgery becomes a complicated option. ADV+ beardies are much more susceptible to infection and stress. I'm not sure she can handle the trauma of having her eggs, ovaries, and oviducts removed. 

I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it next week. 

Adenovirus Adaptations

Here's some of the changes I've made (and will continue to make) since my rescue has gone on lockdown. 

Every beardie has their own broom and dustpan which gets put in the dishwasher to be sanitized after every use. 

All the tanks will get tile instead of paper towels or ReptiCarpet or anything else. 

All 13 beardies are going to be given meds to treat them for Coccidia. 

Most beardies have coccidia and/or pinworms and never show symptoms. With adenovirus positive (ADV+) beardies, coccidia and pinworms can kill the beardie. 

Every beardie I have has 3 things now: a blankie, an emergency hearing pack, and their own dustpan & broom. 

Other rules-- no sharing food. Only touch one beardie at a time. Wash hands all the time. Sanitize tanks with bleach water monthly. 

I'm still trying to figure out what it means to have so many ADV+ beardies. Some moments I think "yeah, I can handle this" and at other times I freak out. 

It's all about the baby steps. 

Excellent Info on Adenovirus/Atadenovirus in Bearded Dragons

This is the best article I've found so far. I recommend it to all beardie owners.

CLICK HERE! 

Note: Adenovirus is the broad name for the virus. There are variations of adenovirus for many animals and over 50+ for humans. Atadenovirus is the specific name of the bearded dragon virus.

Ouch!

8 beardies swabbed and one had blood drawn. 

And that was with a discount! I don't even want to do the math. 

Test results will come back next week. 

I know there are cheaper tests out there, 

but the culture swab test my vet uses is the most accurate. It tests for the specific polypeptide chains in adenovirus and is so sensitive it can pick up even one or two viruses. There's no chance there will be a false positive or false negative. 

"Biting the Bullet" or "Trying not to Bawl my Eyes Out" or "I can't even Cope"

The Atadenovirus test results came back today for four more beardies (Dex, Flame, Nova, & Dragon).

They are all positive.


My brain can seriously not even process this right now.

Since my kids are home from school, I'm going to take in all the remaining beardies today for swabbing. I suspect they will all be positive too. But I need to know.


Ugh.

So my rescue is in further lock down than before. I'm not even sure what to say or do or anything.

It feels like the end of rescue for me.


I'll keep you posted.

Outdoor Dining

We collected the tortoises from the backyard and gave them greens to eat. 

Then my boys collected strawberries and sugar snap peas from our weak garden to feed them. 

Otis and LilFoot went CRAZY when we brought over the strawberries. 

LilFoot ate his so fast that I couldn't even get a pic.