An Empty Roll Call

My house is empty. My heart still feels a bit empty.

But it is sunny and I have my beardies in the windows and decided to take pics for a roll call. 

Ziggy

Norman

Flame

Max 

Milo 

Noel (will be available for adoption soon!)

Noodle, a foster corn snake 

Raptor (will be available for adoption soon!)

Not pictured (because I'm too lazy to walk around and try to take pics of them! ;) )-- 5 baby chickens, 1 hedgehog, 2 dogs, 4 tortoises (outside), 2 ball pythons, 1 crested gecko, a leopard gecko, and 1 box turtle (outside).

Drinking Babies

Raptor & Delta are *finally* eating good on their own. And slowly putting on weight!

PHEW!

I've been force feeding them for 6 weeks with zero weight gain and little interest in eating. It was a relief when Delta (especially) decided to start eating.

This morning, I filled up their water dishes and flicked my fingers lightly in the water until they started drinking.

Here's Delta. She weighs 14 grams now.

Raptor is at 8 grams and preferred to drinking water droplets off my finger tip until I put him right on his water bowl and flicked my fingers.

Sun Therapy

The sun is shining brightly in Utah today! Woo hoo! I'm using the opportunity to give the two baby beardies some direct UVB. I'm hoping that the sun will help perk them both up.

Instinctively, they both flattened out and turned their bodies to the sun when they felt it.

Here's Raptor:

Here's Delta:

Sunny Babies

In the few moments of sunshine coming through my morning windows, my two babies got to bask for a little bit.

Delta in the sun:

Raptor in the sun:

Switching It Up or "I Don't Even Know What to Do Next!"

I've had Delta & Raptor for almost a month now. They are force fed almost daily and offered greens and insects too. I've preemptively dewormed them and given them extra supplements.

It hasn't made a bit of difference.

Raptor is still 5 grams. This little guy devours greens too! And poops daily!

Delta is 11 grams. She's being a pill and not eating.

I've consulted with my vet on them and tried just about everything. I don't know what else to do to get them to start growing!

Today, I decided to move my 3 gecko tanks together into my bedroom so the geckos can have more natural lighting. There are pieces of paper between the 3 tanks so they can't see each other, by the way.

I figured I might as well move the babies too and see if that helped. I put them on the top shelf that gets the most morning sunshine. Of course, not today since it's supposed to rain and snow here all week. But my bedroom is south facing and gets a lot more light than the north facing craft room they were in.

I upgraded both tanks to make them less of a "sick" tank. I got rid of the towels on the bottom for substrate and put in paper towels. Then I gave them both a branch to climb on (not pictured). For now, they have to share a UVB light until I get another one in the mail. I also put a piece of paper between the ends of their tanks so they can't see each other either.

I don't know what else to try or add to help them so I'll just keep plugging along with this set up and hope they start improving.

Yes, I now have 8 tanks in my room. Yes, my husband is very patient! ;) And let's just pretend my bed is made. :D

A Great Trip to the Vet

I took 3 beardies to the vet today and wasn't sure if it would be a good visit or a bad visit.

HOORAY! It was a good one!

Pepper, a beardie I'm babysitting, had a bent toe removed. Munch needed a follow up and I wanted Dr Folland to check on Baby Raptor. Munch and Raptor had warmed cornbags in containers on the way. Pepper got to be in my shirt.

Munch looks good and is far less bloated that he was last night. For now, we will continue to give him his antibiotic shots every 72 hours and treat him with a dewormer. I'm going to start him on a diet. Poor Munch- no more insects, only greens.

I was most worried about Baby Raptor who is holding steady at 5 grams. :( Dr Folland did a thorough exam and was surprised at how feisty he was. He said "Let's not pull the plug just yet." I'm going to keep forcefeeding him and offering him food and then we will see if we can get a fecal test on him. It's possible that pinworms or coccidia are preventing him for absorbing nutrition.

Pepper (who didn't get any pics taken) got her crazy bent toe snipped off without any issues. She stayed calm and nice throughout the whole procedure.

The greatest part about all of it is the total-- less than $85. Gotta love those visits! My vets are awesome. :)

A Tale of Two Babies

A couple weeks ago, I took in Baby Raptor because he was losing weight and not eating on his own. I've been force feeding him almost everyday since then. Luckily, he learned to drink on his own and some days I can get him to eat a worm or two. Plus, most days, he loves to eat bits of greens. He was the first time pet of a cute family near me and was way more sickly than they could handle. 

A few days after taking Raptor, I took their second baby beardie, Delta, in because he had stopped eating and drinking too. Both babies came from the same pet store, both are definitely "Failing to Thrive." Delta will drink on his own, but has refused to eat bugs or greens for a week now.

Raptor has been with me for 3 weeks and is still stuck at 5 grams. He is THREE months old and weighs 5 grams! Delta weighs 11 grams and isn't putting on weight either. They get Carnivore Critical Care mixed with a vitamin supplement almost daily and they are not gaining weight. They poop normally and run as fast as they can away from me, but they are not gaining weight.

Poor Raptor sits in his tank like this almost all day. Eyes closed, head up. Thankfully, Delta is a little bit more active.

It's a waiting game. You keep doing what you are doing and wait for them to turn a corner and go up or down. They are either going to start thriving and growing or they will sicken and die. :( It's a crappy waiting game-- especially when you have a cute family waiting for their babies to come back home. Thankfully, 4 years of rescue has perfected my art of force feeding babies-- the right amount of mix put into a 1 cc/mL syringe with the tip of a Tom Cat catheter on the top to make a small enough tube to put in a tiny mouth.

I'm seeing and reading about a LOT of babies being sent to the national chain pet stores here in America that have this same problem-- Failure to Thrive. It must be a genetic component or something. My guess is sloppy husbandry and sloppy breeding practices are creating inferior, genetically messed up babies. :( Poor things.

For now I will keep on keeping on as I help these two. I'm still force feeding Kiwi, the chameleon, and there's not much difference between force feeding two or three or four.


On a brighter note, this fatty girl, Gen, who tipped the scales last week at 758 grams, was a "Failure to Thrive" baby who was force fed twice a day for THREE months! She was 15 grams forever! She finally got over it. :) There is hope for Delta & Raptor, but it's a long & hard process.

"Come at me, Bro!"

Baby Raptor has started sleeping standing up in a corner. Last night, he looked like a tiny little thug trying to take on the world! 

From another angle, he looked like he was practicing ballet. 

Baby beardies are frequently odd sleepers. It's fun to watch them and wonder how on earth they can sleep standing up. 

Helping Rescues

Sometimes I will help someone with their sickly bearded dragon with the goal of reunification instead of surrender. I have been helping two of those in the past week/month.

Lilly had the start of MBD and hurt her back. I've been helping get her calcium back up and watching to make sure her injury didn't cause bigger problems. Lilly has done great and yesterday she went home. Her owners are thrilled to have her home and they reimbursed me for my costs and the supplies I sent home with them.

I'm always happy to teach owners how to be better owners. Lilly is a cutie too. She will be fine now even if she doesn't actually ever get much bigger or always has a bit of a bump on her back.

I'm also trying to save Baby Raptor, a "fancy" bearded dragon baby from a national chain pet store. He's definitely a "Failure to Thrive" baby and I'm not sure if he's going to pull through or not. I force feed him twice a day and he has more energy to fight my tiny syringe. He's pooping normally and moves around to regulate his heat. He's just so TINY!

I wish I could get him to eat on his own again, but so far he's not interested. I just will keep doing what I'm doing until he either starts eating on his own or his body shuts down and he dies. If he survives, he has a family at home who is anxious to have him come home. I offered to take him because I've got so much more experience feeding tiny babies. He's the size of the Color Babies I tried to save a couple years ago.